The MeatEater

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Tate Morgan, Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Alyssa Smith, and Logan Dove.

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A bowfisherman just landed the biggest flathead catfish ever recorded in Michigan. According to a Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) press release, Codie Carlson of Newport, Michigan, was fishing from shore on Plum Creek at dawn on Sunday, June 29, when the epic catch went down.

Carlson, who calls himself a "true fishoholic," was specifically targeting catfish, which are legal to bowfish for in The Mitten State, though there are stricter regulations for catfish compared to other bowfishing quarry such as carp and gar. That said, Carlson wasn’t expecting to run into such a big mud cat.

"I thought I was about to shoot a channel catfish for dinner,” Carlson said. “Turns out, I guess we do have flathead catfish in these waters."

And big ones, at that. Carlson’s fish weighed in at 64.46 pounds and was 45 inches long. Michigan DNR fisheries biologist John Buszkiewicz verified that catch, which crushed the previous state record, a 53.35-pounder caught with a rod and reel by Lloyd Tanner on the St. Joseph River in 2022.

Unlike most states, Michigan does not keep separate records for fish caught with conventional tackle and unconventional methods such as bowfishing. Responding to online criticism, Carlson says the distinction isn’t important.

“I'm frankly tired of hearing bowfishing isn’t hard or it's not fishing," Carlson told the Detroit Free Press. "It is as much fishing as rod and reel or noodling. One may be harder than the other, but they should all still be respected as a part of the sport… It was like a lottery ticket [to see such a big fish swimming] 18 feet from shore.”

Another wrinkle to this story is that Carlson’s fish may have been captured once before; Buszkiewicz said that he thinks it may be the same fish that he and his crew caught during a scientific survey they conducted in 2020 on Plum Creek. That fish weighed 55 pounds and was 43 inches long—which still would have broken a state record, though not by as many pounds as Carlson’s catch eventually did.

Feature image via Michigan DNR.

Most people don’t buy a car without first test-driving it to ensure it's in good working order. But when you’re purchasing a shotgun off the rack, you don’t have the luxury of testing it before taking it home. You can’t run out and shoot a round of sporting clays or skeet to ensure it’s a good fit. So, how do you know a gun you have never shot is the right one? There are many ways to determine this at the gun counter, plus shotguns are adjustable so they better fit individual shooters.

If you are new to shooting, it’s best to try a variety of shotguns by borrowing from friends or using loaner shotguns from a skeet, trap, or sporting clays range. This will help you determine what platform or brand of shotgun is the best fit for you. Learning to shoot before you buy a shotgun is important. A shotgun may feel like a good fit before you begin a career of breaking clay birds and shooting real ones. However, as you progress in skill and find a shooting style, a different shotgun might be more suitable.

Start by going to a gun shop with a trusted friend who is an experienced shooter. If you don’t know such a person, find a locally owned store that has been in business for decades. Typically, there will be an honest person behind the counter who can walk you through buying a shotgun.

At this point, you should have shot a few guns and know if you want to buy a pump, break-action, or semi-auto. If there is a shotgun you feel confident shooting, bring it with you. That will help determine which gun to buy. Once you’re at the gun counter, ask to handle the shotgun you want.

Mount the unloaded gun with your eyes shut, bring your cheek to the stock, then open your eyes. If your dominant eye is staring straight down the rib, that’s a good sign that the gun fits. If your eye is to either side of the rib, the cast of the stock is not right for you. Shotgun cast is an angled bending of the stock. Most stocks with cast will bend to the right (cast off) because most shooters are right-handed. Stocks that bend left (cast on) are built for lefties.

If you’re still unsure about sight alignment, have your trusted friend with shooting experience or the person behind the counter stand at the muzzle of the unloaded shotgun and look down the rib to see if your eye is aligned correctly.

If the shotgun you are interested in has a mid-bead, located between the start and end of the rib, bring the gun to your shoulder and put your cheek against the stock. If the top of the mid-bead is just under or touching the bottom of the front bead or sight, that’s a good sign the shotgun fits. Some shotguns don’t have a mid-bead. If that’s the case, place a penny on the rear of the rib. If you can still see the front bead when the gun is mounted, that also means the gun is a good fit.

How much rib you like to see when shooting clays or live birds is a personal preference. But this method ensures that when your muzzle is tracking the target, you can see the clay or bird. This is particularly important to pass through shooters who begin with their muzzle behind the target and move it past the target before pulling the trigger.

Semi-automatics and pumps offer a better fit than break-action shotguns. Most auto-loaders come with shim kits that allow you to adjust the height and cast of the stock. The shims can be placed between the stock and the receiver, making it easier to fine-tune the gun. Pumps don’t often include this feature, but a gunsmith can typically add shims to achieve a similar adjustment.

Side-by-sides and over/unders are not as customizable because they cannot be shimmed due to how the stock fits the receiver. Some break-action target guns have an adjustable cheek piece, giving you more flexibility. If a stock is too high, it can be sanded down and refinished. Low stocks are problematic. Wood will need to be added to make the shotgun fit properly. A skilled gunsmith can bend the stock and manipulate its cast with heat lamps and moisture, or build you a custom stock. Both can be costly.

The length of pull (LOP) is the distance between the trigger and the end of the shotgun’s buttstock. To ensure the LOP is right for you, mount the unloaded gun to your shoulder and rest your finger on the trigger.

The space between the back of your shooting hand thumb and shooting glasses should measure around 1½ inches. Hunters need to wear their hunting clothes, not just a T-shirt, when they measure for LOP. For instance, upland hunters should wear a jacket and shooting vest to replicate the clothes they wear afield. The extra layers shorten the LOP needed for the best fit. Too much LOP makes a shotgun difficult to mount. The shorter your LOP, the more felt recoil you will experience.

It’s simple to manipulate LOP. You can lengthen the distance from the trigger to the buttstock by adding spacers, which require removal of the buttplate, or a recoil pad that slides over the stock. If LOP is too long, the stock can be cut to fit.

Unfortunately, there is not one shotgun that’s a good fit for everyone, but some come close. The Remington 1100 fits that bill. In the 1970s, it was one of the most popular auto-loaders for skeet shooters and bird hunters.

When the Beretta 300 series semi-autos debuted, they became popular as well. Why? Standard models of both guns have straight stocks (little or no cast), and their stock dimensions were consistent despite being production shotguns.

The Remington 870 is another good option for the same reasons. It’s a pump, so shooting doubles (two clays) will be difficult, but it’s also safer because you have to slide the forend to eject a spent shotshell, then return it forward to load the next shell.

Buying a shotgun off the shelf can be a daunting process, but if you follow the rules I have laid out, it will increase the likelihood that your new gun will be a good fit. Just remember that production shotguns are not always built the same. There can be minor differences from shotgun to shotgun. So even if you have shot a friend’s gun at the range and feel it’s a good fit, don’t just run out to the gun store and buy it. Put it through this fit test to be sure it’s the right shotgun for you.

This week Reid and Dan host #1 artist, Drew Baldridge out in God’s Country. The three of them cover an array of topics from deer hunting in Illinois to taking chances to make your dreams come true. Drew breaks down how he’s the first independent artist to have a song go #1 at country radio. He shares how his wife has been steady throughout this entire process and how she inspired “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” from the beginning.

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This week, Tony explains how we should view the various aspects of scouting and hunting as challenges, and not focus on what we perceive to be nearly unsolvable problems.

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Whaling is a generational profession, steeped in lore and heritage. Burly hunters take to the sea in hopes of impaling the largest mammals on earth. Not without controversy, the tradition of whaling still occurs in far-off places. Visceral images and videos occasionally leak, stoking the flames of global dissension.

Many are familiar with the annual whale hunts on the western Alaskan coast and the bloody waters of the Faroe Islands, though few are familiar with the tropical whalers of the Caribbean.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is an island nation comprised of 32 islands and cays. Historically, whaling has taken place throughout the island chain; however, current whaling activities occur on the island of Bequia and in the village of Barrouallie, located on the island of St. Vincent proper.

Russell Fielding has been researching the history and cultural significance of whaling on St. Vincent and the Grenadines for many years, returning annually. His longest stretch on the island was three months, in which he spent six days a week immersed on a whaling boat.

"Nobody in the Caribbean was hunting whales until the Americans came down," Fielding said. During the height of the American whaling industry (circa 1850), American ships would set sail with a skeleton crew. Upon reaching St. Vincent, they would hire locals, which reduced costs by exploiting the cheap labor of island inhabitants. Of course, after being hired on, they were shown the ropes, digesting the ins and outs of spotting, harpooning, and retrieving the economic treasures. The training typically occurred on smaller whales and cetaceans, such as dolphins. Once trained, they set out after their target species, which included humpback and sperm whales.

It's believed the last American commercial whaling vessel visited the island in the 1920s, coinciding with the last gasps of the commercial whaling industry. Left to their own devices, the native Vincentians traded out the large three-masted vessels for a new flagship, their island home. In sub-30-foot row boats and sailboats, the trained up whalers used the same techniques generation after generation.

While speaking to the contemporary state of the island whalers, Fielding said, "They're still throwing harpoons, they're still using the same techniques to spot the whales. They even use some of the same language for the parts of the boat that came directly from the American whalers."

In a 1995 edition of Outside Magazine, St. Vincent historian Herman Belmar spoke to the aptitude and tradition of the island's whaling culture, claiming that the crew from Melville's Moby Dick could board the boat and immediately communicate with modern-day Vincentians.

"Well into the 1980s and 1990s, they were still singing the old New England sea shanties," from the early commercial whaling days, claims Fielding. The introduction of the outboard motor is what drowned out the maritime tunes written to coordinate oar strokes for efficiency. Isolated and self-reliant, the whalers of St. Vincent continue to command a slight Irish accent, a relic of Yankee visitors from two centuries ago.

According to research conducted by Russell Fielding and Jeremy Kiszka, over a 68-year period, a total of 13,856 small cetaceans and whales have been harvested by residents of St. Vincent. This includes 5,896 short-finned pilot whales, 109 orcas, and 7,851 other small cetaceans.

In particular, the targeting of orcas has been a sore spot for those against whaling. As of January of this year, the tropical hunters agreed to quit targeting killer whales. Chief Whaler of Barrouallie, Mr. Samuel Hazelwood, said in an interview, "Each time we catch the killer whales, there is always an issue, not so much from locals, but from outside organizations."

While the images of orcas hacked up on a beautiful Barrouallie beach incite anger, the actual number of orcas taken compared to short-finned pilot whales and smaller cetaceans is insignificant. "Orcas were always a supplementary and rare catch," Fielding said. "Pilot whales have been the ones they have been going after 100 years or so."

Remarkably, as of 1995, when Sebastian Junger published his piece exploring the whaling world of St. Vincent in Outside Magazine, only one whaler had been recorded dying at sea. "As dangerous as it is, only one Bequian has ever lost his life in a whaleboat: a harpooner named Dixon Durham, who was beheaded by a whale's flukes in 1885. So cleanly was he slapped from the boat that no one else on board was even touched."

This isn't to say injury is uncommon. In that same article written by Junger, a whaler by the name of Athneal Ollivierre was knocked out by a whale's fluke. The rope attached to the harpoon wrapped around his leg. “It sawed down to bone in an instant, cauterizing the arteries as it went, and nearly ripped his hand in half,” Junger wrote. “Ollivierre refused to cut the rope because he didn't want the whale to get away, but finally, the barnacle-encrusted fluke severed it for him. The boat returned to shore, and Ollivierre walked up the beach unassisted, his tibia showing and his foot as heavy as cement. Two men on the beach fainted at the sight."

To this day, whalers employ the traditional techniques of their American forefathers. After a lifetime of practice, "they can recognize a whale from 500 meters away from the shape of their spray," Fielding said.

Their competency is expressed by their inclination to use hand-thrown harpoons instead of the modified gun harpoons mounted on the bows of their small boats. Fielding approximated 85% of the time, Vincitian whalers opt for the old-fashioned method of spearing a whale, ditching the need for expensive cartridges.

The hunters will often size up the whales before making a commitment. If they are too large, they will pass on the animal, avoiding the infamous Nantucket sleighride. The ideal kill is a whale small enough to tie around a loggerhead, similar to the horn on a saddle. The added friction slows the fleeing whale, tiring the mammal out. On occasion, a secondary harpoon is required, or a lance is used to pierce the heart. They know they hit the mark when pure, dark blood spills from the blowhole.

After dragging the beast back to their flagship island, the whale is sold to a fish vendor and processed on the beach. The butchers, working for the fish vendor, begin by hacking the whale into large chunks with cutlasses, once again referencing old seafaring terminology. The meat is then separated from the blubber, and the liver and kidneys are pulled from the guts.

After the initial butchering, the fat is cubed and thrown into a metal drum with a heat source below. As the rendering process takes place, the large cubes of blubber shrink and become crispy — a typical snack throughout the 32 islands and cays. The rendered oil byproduct is sold for medicinal purposes. The meat is cut thin and sun-dried on large racks near the beach, at which point it's wrapped in banana leaves and sold to locals. In the kitchen, the lean meat is reconstituted into soups and stir-fries.

While mercury levels in whales and dolphins are a concern for many, the residents of the small island nation continue the tradition—a food source rare to many, but common to them—integral to the Vincentian culture, and a hill they appear willing to die on.

Instead of attempting to articulate a proper conclusion to this wild story, I will leave you with the words of Sebastian Junger, "A long winter swell will be running. The sunlight will catch the spray like diamonds. He'll be in the bow with his thigh against the foredeck and the harpoon held high. The past and the future will fall away, until there are no politics, no boycotts, no journalists. There will just be one man with an ancient weapon and his heart in his throat."

Images via Russell Fielding.

It used to start sometime around mid-July. I’d wake up with a strange and unexplainable urge that goaded and poked at me like a mallard feeling the sudden need to migrate. I’d compulsively start rearranging all the camo clothing in my closet and cleaning all my guns. At night, I would come home from work and find myself binge-watching my favorite hunting videos or staring sadly out the window at the leaves and wishing to hell that they would hurry up and change color. Yep, I was jonesing for hunting season bad.

Over the many years that I’ve suffered from this ailment, I’ve managed to find several ways to help me cope with my withdrawal symptoms. Not only did these activities stop the night sweats, occasional crying, and insane desire to move to the southern hemisphere every summer, but they also helped me become a better hunter when autumn finally rolled around.

So, if you suffer from the same terrible disorder that I do and know the pain of summer hunting withdrawal, you might want to give these activities a try and see if they can help you make it through.

Nothing takes the edge off your need to hunt big game better than hunting fish. It combines all the aspects of scouting, stalking, and shooting that we love about hunting, wrapped up in an aquatic environment. Bowfishing is one of those niche outdoor pursuits that, like shed hunting or catfish noodling, isn’t widely practiced yet is completely obsessed over by those who do it. There are few more entertaining ways to get your archery and even your trophy hunting fix than chasing big fish with a bow.

Bowfishing is an easy sport to get into. All it requires is a simple, light-powered bow with an attached line, a decent pair of waders and/or a small boat with a shallow draft, and a creative palette. This is because most states only allow bow anglers to target “rough fish” or “trash fish” like gar or carp rather than legitimate and popular gamefish like bass, trout, or walleye.

This means bow anglers occasionally have to get creative with their cooking techniques to make what are often considered bony or “fishy tasting” fish into good table fare. However, being successful and then finding a creative way to prepare and share your harvest is part of the very core of being a hunter.

In addition to the shooting and cooking of fish giving you that successful harvest feeling you’ve been craving, bowfishing is a great way to take the edge off a need to get in the backcountry. Many fantastic bowfishing environments and targets are in the backwaters and thick, nasty, weed-choked swamps, sloughs, and overgrown river channels where you have to row through interwoven river channels or slog through hip-deep marshlands as you stalk your quarry.

While going out and catching a few frogs may seem easy, when you really get into frog gigging, you’ll find that it’s an extremely challenging and fulfilling way to fill the freezer during the summer. Instead of going out and jumping a few frogs into a bucket like you may have done as a kid, frog gigging is a night-hunting challenge where you spend endless hours slogging through chest-deep water and scanning the surface of the water with a headlamp as you search for prey.

To be a successful frog gigger, you must move slowly and carefully as you search for and try to stick a pair of glowing eyes with a spear. It’s easily one of the most primal and raw ways to hunt where you can utilize and sharpen all your predatory instincts while practicing your stalking skills as you get down and dirty to try and bring home a hearty and extremely tasty amphibious reward.

Like bow fishing, frog gigging is an easy sport to get into as all it requires is a barbed spear, a powerful headlamp, and a target-rich hunting ground. You can hunt frogs around ponds, rivers, and lakes, yet if you’re looking for a true primordial frog-gathering experience, you should hunt in a swamp.

Swamps are ideal places for frog gigging as they not only have plenty of the meaty type of bullfrogs you’re after, but they also offer the type of terrain and trials ideal for awakening your hunting instinct for the fall. Whether you’re creeping through the mud on a stalk, lying in wait in a stand of bullrushes, or trying your best not to shake hands with a gator or a cottonmouth, nothing sharpens your senses better than a good ol’ swampy frog hunt.

The final thing that makes frog gigging a rewarding summer hunt is, of course, frying up and eating a batch of frog legs. Similar to squirrel or rabbit, frog is a light meat with a delicate flavor that works well with all of your favorite small game, gamebird, or even fish recipes. It’s a great way to get the flavor of the wild into your system long before the real game begins.

I know how it sounds. If you’ve been a hunter for any amount of time, you’ve heard the rhetoric from the anti-hunting community about how we can find the same connection with nature and animals by hunting with a camera rather than a rifle. While most of us generally treat this idea with a bit of light-hearted chuckling or complete dismissal, the fact is that aside from the obvious missing aspect of making a hearty and delicious meal of game meat, hunting with a camera can be extremely rewarding. It’s a great way to get in shape for hunting and sharpen your hunting skills during the off-season.

Whether you’ve got a fancy, 200x zoom, 18-interchangeable lens, hard-core camera, or just your phone, trying to get that perfect picture of an animal can take all of the patience and stalking skills of any other type of big game hunt.

You have to use maps and E-scout to find the right areas for the photogenic game you’re after and then spend hours glassing or still-hunting your way through them or waiting patiently around a food or water source until you locate your quarry. Once you’ve got a bead on your chosen model, you then have to stalk close enough or wait for the animal to move into position so you can get the perfect shot.

While we may scoff at the idea of hunting with a camera, the fact is that it’s a great way to get out and stretch your legs and even to scout for the game we’ll be after in the fall. And while it may not land you a freezer full of meat or a nice set of antlers for the wall, there’s still a certain satisfaction that comes from having folks comment about a badass picture over the mantel and being able to say, “Yeah, I took that.”

One of the best things about hunting in the fall is the opening of “the season.” It’s the sort of thing that we celebrate like a holiday and wait for with a happy, yet frustrated anticipation all year long. However, there are a lot of species out there that cut out the middleman of having to wait for the season to open as they have no closed season, allowing you to hunt them all year long—I’m talking about varmints.

From prairie dogs and gophers to iguanas, crows, and wild hogs, almost every state in the union has some sort of non-game animal that is either overpopulated, invasive, or simply a nuisance, making them perfectly legal to hunt throughout the entire year.

In fact, by hunting many of these animal and bird species, you can end up helping the environment and native game species by removing animals that are competing with or destroying the ecosystem. This allows you to double dip as not only can you scratch that summer hunting itch and prepare for the upcoming season, but you can also help ensure that all of your future hunting gets better in the long run.

No matter what other game you’re planning on hunting during the fall, there is probably a varmint of some sort that can help you sharpen your skills. Planning on making 400+ yard shots on elk or antelope? Try making 150-yard headshots on prairie dogs or woodchucks, and I guarantee that those long shots on big game will become easier. Need to sharpen you’re wing shooting? Try knocking down fast-flying pigeons or crows, and I bet you’ll be more than ready for the duck blind come fall.

Of course, the other bonus of varmint hunting is that it gives you an opportunity to load up on some overlooked and often extremely delicious game meat. Animals like wild hogs, nutria, and iguanas are particularly tasty. They can make a fantastic and exotic addition to any game supper or family meal during a time when your freezer may otherwise be empty.

Everyone knows that practice makes perfect. Long before hunting season opens, most of us will spend endless hours zeroing our rifles, shooting trap, and flinging arrows at targets so that we’ll be comfortable and ready when the big moment finally arrives. Yet if you really want to up your shooting game and make sure you’re truly perfect when you practice, you should go live.

Whether it’s a 3-D archery target you move around your tree stand, or a skeet shooting course where you walk through and shoot clays flying in unexpectedly and at different angles, nothing better preps you for the real thing like making your practice as real as possible.

As a Western hunter, one of my personal favorite things to do is to make life-size cardboard cutouts of deer and even elk, which I can set up on a hillside and then shoot at different ranges and angles. This type of practice helps me zero my rifle and also helps me orient myself to different scenarios and sight pictures I may encounter during the hunting season. Plus, when it comes down to it, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

Live-action shooting is just a fantastic way to get your boots on the ground and a weapon in your hand during a time of year when your hunting skills may be lacking. It allows you to turn on that switch in your brain which hones and prepares you for hunting season in a way that shooting at paper or foam targets on a gun or archery range just can’t replicate. When you do it enough, live-action shooting practice will make that moment when a trophy buck, bull, bear, etc., finally walks into your sights seem easy, because you’ll have done it many times before.

There are a lot of things we become addicted to in this world, most of which are bad for our health. From alcohol and tobacco to video games and mindless phone scrolling, there are just certain habits and addictions that we are constantly trying to limit or even break. Hunting should never be one of them.

In fact, when the off season comes and we find ourselves in the doldrums of hunting withdrawal, we should do everything in our power to satisfy our cravings for wild places and wild game and just indulge ourselves. In the end, our time to go out and hunt is limited by both the season and the fact that none of us will live forever. So, like the true junkies that we are, we should go out and get our fix whenever and however we can.

On this episode of Backwoods University, we are going to learn about one of the most extraordinary, impactful, and bold conversations to ever live. And here's the twist, you probably have never heard of her. Fannye Cook was a Mississippian born into a farming family that grew an early love for the natural world. When the demise of most all of the state's forests and game animals faced seemingly eminent peril, she was there to save them.

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This week, Cal covers budget cuts to the duck banding program, a river controversy in Nebraska, and one lucky puppy.

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Steven Rinella talks with Morgan Potter, George Dodds, Seth Morris, and Garrett "Dirt Myth" Smith.

Topics Discussed: Watching a new moon get full; last chance to get a raffle ticket for the TRCP turkey hunt with Steve and Janis; how African game animals just taste better; slow moving puff adders and truck-denting black mambas; tons of antelope species; burning to open up the landscape; the terrible tsetse fly and sleeping sickness; the magic of trackers; the honey guys; how wearing military style camouflage is illegal in Tanzania; how wealth is stored as livestock; and more. 

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