The MeatEater

Perfect for a summer grill-out, these wild turkey skewers bring together the best of both worlds—sweet and savory. Succulent chunks of turkey breast meat are threaded on a skewer with red onions, bell peppers, and sliced peaches. The honey mustard marinade makes these kebabs a little addicting.

Trust me when I say you’ll want to make extra to use as a dipping sauce. These skewers are delicious paired with other grilled veggies, like zucchini, and I also like to toss them into a bowl of lettuce with extra honey mustard for a crisp summer salad.

Whether you're cooking up a backyard barbecue or just looking for a fresh twist on your grill menu, these kebabs are a crowd-pleaser that will have everyone asking for more!

You can only plant so many food plots and hang so many tree stands or trail cams. Once you check off all the glamorous offseason whitetail duties, you have to tackle the less exciting ones or ignore them altogether. You can think of this list of chores as the leg day of scouting.

It requires a bit more effort; most people want to avoid it, but it’s glaringly apparent when you skip it. Whether you’re looking to improve upon last season or you need a distraction from the oppressive heat, here are a few whitetail tasks you can do now to increase your chances of success this fall.

This point gets overlooked in general, especially for public land hunters. Sure, you might make note of where you’ve spotted people or which trailheads and parking lots are always packed, but what about the subtle hints of other hunters? You might locate a dynamite spot, but if it gets a ton of pressure from other hunters, including yourself, it’s not likely to deliver.

I encountered this scenario a few seasons ago when I convinced myself that I had found the X. I located a great spot to hang a stand where the corner of bedding pinched down to a creek crossing that was hammered with tracks, including a huge buck track.

Unfortunately, I also spotted a pair of boot tracks ascending the opposite bank. A single pair of boot tracks might not have deterred me from that area, but then I found a granola bar wrapper…and another. A hundred or so yards south of that crossing, I spotted a scent wick hanging from a tree, which drove the nail in the coffin for that spot.

These details don’t stand out like lock-on stands or trail cameras, but you shouldn’t ignore them. If you’re hunting in an area where someone has carelessly littered, I guarantee they’re also careless about how they access and hunt that spot. You might not want to disregard that spot completely, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

If you hunt a place long enough, you figure out its natural rhythms, which ebb and flow depending on conditions, hunting pressure, and a host of other factors. Just because one spot produced last year doesn’t mean you can bet on it delivering again.

You can avoid figuring that out on opening day by revisiting those spots during the summer. For instance, scout trails that you normally hunt and observe the traffic. Has it increased, decreased, or dried up completely? If it disappeared, you’ll need to ask why. Maybe a storm blew a tree across the main trail, and now it’s moved fifty yards in another direction. Maybe the bedding area aged out, or the neighbors put a camper right across the fence, etc. Whatever the cause, you’ll need to see what changes have occurred on the landscape.

If you’re committed to this hunting thing, you have to accept the unexpected. Whether the deer come from another direction, a big buck slips into your shooting lane, or someone parks in your honey hole on opening day, you have to adapt. Part of adapting requires preparation. If you have multiple spots that you can immediately pivot to, you’ll increase your odds for success and avoid scrambling when someone else gets to spot A before you do.

No, these spots don’t have to be dynamite. They’re backups for a reason. However, they should be promising at the least. Consider these spots for “observation sits” when you have to pivot to them. They don’t need to have thigh-wide rubs or community scrapes, but you need to see potential, which could include a few trails, an overlooked bedding area, or a terrain feature that draws deer through an area.

You should also consider spots based on the wind direction from your first spot. For instance, if your spot A sets up well for a north wind, then your backup should set up similarly. If it doesn’t, you might as well not have a backup.

My northern and midwestern counterparts might get cabin fever during the late winter months, but there’s a similar sentiment down South during the dead of summer, especially in landlocked areas where the vegetation is thick and the air is thicker. If you’re going to stay inside, then you can at least e-scout for any upcoming trips or potential backup spots.

E-scouting might seem simple enough, but you can improve it and your hunting by spending time behind a screen. Of course, you’ll need to eventually get boots on the ground to verify these spots. Once you do get some eyes on these places, you’ll be able to notice similar trends or map features that can translate to other areas, which will make the process more efficient for you.

You can’t replace woodsmanship with some quick-fix product. The more time you spend outside, even when you aren’t hyper-focused on deer hunting, the more you’ll develop as a well-rounded hunter. It might not seem as immediately gratifying as cutting shooting lanes or prepping stand sites, but it’ll pay off for years to come.

Clay Newcomb and his mule, Betty Bay, travel to Winnebago, Texas to visit The Worlds Greatest Bull Rider, Dale Brisby. Dale and his horse enlighten Clay and and his mule on how they work cattle and buck horses on the famed Radiator Ranch.

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Maggie Hudlow, Cory Calkins, and Nate Mason.

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This week, Tony explains why it's so hard to train dogs on our mental schedule, and how we should try to understand their ability to focus so we can wring the most out of each session.

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Witching, dowsing, divining. Is it physics, subconscious movement, or straight-up hocus pocus? In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, Clay Newcomb speaks to firsthand observers, a legit water witcher, a university physics professor, and even MeatEater's own Steven Rinella to try to explain one thing: "What makes the sticks move?" Maybe it's legit but just something that can't fit into the scientific method box.

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By definition, an existential threat endangers the continued existence of something. The last time American hunters faced an existential threat was during the early 1900s, when many of our most prized game bird and animal species had been nearly wiped out by market hunting and habitat loss.

Fortunately, more active regulatory measures and forward-thinking management practices allowed everything from elk and whitetail deer to wild turkeys and waterfowl to recover and flourish. Then, following World War II, came several decades of what many old timers consider the glory days of hunting in America. But over the last few decades, an emerging array of issues began to undermine the future of hunting once again. And today, those issues have solidified into what are becoming existential threats to today’s hunters.

Here’s a simple, undeniable fact: Millions of American hunters depend on access to federally managed public lands. The importance of that access was highlighted in a recent survey by the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation, which found that 90% of the hunters in Colorado use public lands, including National Forests and Bureau of Land Management property. The numbers are similarly high in many other Western states, but it is not solely a Western issue. Even in states like Texas and Ohio, where the vast majority of the land is privately owned, public lands like the Davy Crockett National Forest and the Wayne National Forest are vitally important to many thousands of hunters.

Furthermore, as habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation is occurring at a breakneck pace throughout the United States, public lands serve as vitally important strongholds for everything from elk to upland birds, as well as a host of non-game animal and bird species. Additionally, these lands surround countless miles of headwater streams and rivers that not only harbor many species of game fish but also provide clean drinking water to millions of Americans.

While the recent political maneuvering aimed at stealing federally managed public lands from American citizens garnered national attention, some hunters may not realize these diabolical efforts are nothing new. Take the Sagebrush Rebellion, which got its start among a cadre of cattle ranchers and extractive resource groups who revolted against federal lands management policies in the late 1970s. The movement later gained steam with the support of Utah’s Senator Orrin Hatch and the Reagan administration. Thankfully, their plan to transfer federal lands in the West to state and local governments failed to gain any meaningful traction among the general public and the Sagebrush Rebellion died a well-deserved death.

But the idea never really went away. In 2016, Utah congressional representatives Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz implemented their own plan for a land grab by introducing legislation that would mandate selling off federally managed public lands. Once again, those efforts failed, largely due pressure from hunters, anglers and other members of the outdoor community. But here we are in 2025 and it’s happening all over again.

Fortunately, the latest proposal to sell off millions of acres of National Forest and BLM lands by Senator Mike Lee from, you guessed it, Utah, was met with resounding public opposition. Hunters, in particular, led the charge to defeat that portion of the Big Beautiful Bill.

But remember, while we won this round, this issue is sure to rear its ugly head again, and it will likely happen sooner rather than later. And in fact, some of our most cherished and pristine wild places—federally managed public lands such as the Boundary Waters and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—are still directly threatened by policies laid out in the Big Beautiful Bill. Hunters need to remain vigilant. The battle continues to protect our public lands from those who view America’s natural landscapes as nothing more than political capital to be sold off to the highest bidder.

Hunters have to contend with a variety of diseases that afflict game species. Large-scale avian influenza outbreaks among many waterfowl species are causing increasingly common die-offs. Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) regularly wipes out significant portions of whitetail deer herds around the country. Declining ruffed grouse populations in the eastern United States, which have been greatly diminished from loss of habitat, are now contending with additional mortality due to West Nile Virus.

Some elk herds in the Pacific Northwest are suffering lower survival rates and reduced birth rates from a pathogen known as elk hoof rot. Entire herds of bighorn sheep have been wiped out by bacterial pneumonia infections transferred from domestic sheep. The list goes on, but the future of hunting in the United States is threatened most seriously by Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

Though CWD was first discovered in captive mule deer at a Colorado research facility nearly sixty years ago, it wasn’t until a couple decades ago that state wildlife managers and hunters really started paying attention to its ever-growing and widespread impacts. Today, the debilitating and always fatal disease has spread to deer and elk herds in thirty-six states, with new cases regularly showing up in new places. It’s clear that CWD is here to stay, and evidence now shows the disease is beginning to have noticeable impacts on deer numbers in some places.

A recent study in Wisconsin, where CWD prevalence rates in whitetail deer herds are among the highest in the country, found that the long-term effects of the deadly prion disease lowered survival rates among female whitetails enough to reduce populations. Additionally, CWD fatalities are even higher among bucks than does, meaning there are fewer older, trophy-class bucks around.

The deleterious effects of CWD certainly aren’t limited to Wisconsin or whitetail deer, either. Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana all have a growing CWD problem in their mule deer and elk herds, and as prevalence rates increase, it’s reasonable to expect a corresponding decrease in mule deer numbers.

CWD deniers be damned, the repercussions it could ultimately have on American hunters is staggering. If CWD ultimately leads to significantly reduced deer, elk, and moose populations, the end result would be significantly reduced hunting opportunities. Additionally, though CWD infections have only been discovered in cervid species, the affliction is in the same family of fatal prion infections like Mad Cow Disease (cattle), scrapies (sheep), and Jakob-Creutzfeld disease (humans). If infected deer were someday found to be responsible for transferring CWD to domestic livestock or humans, the entire management strategy for wild deer populations throughout the country would change overnight.

In some places, management practices are already shifting to a more aggressive approach towards mitigation. Mandatory testing efforts are increasing throughout the United States. Some state game agencies have taken things further by banning baiting, which can concentrate a lot of deer in a small area, increasing infection rates. And some states are allowing, even encouraging, hunters to kill more deer in areas of high prevalence in an attempt to reduce densities and hopefully slow the spread of CWD. In the future, the only certainty is that CWD will continue to impact more and more hunters across America.

Roughly half the states in the country have enacted provisions in their constitutions that formally acknowledge their citizens’ rights to hunt and fish. And, regardless of what their state constitutions say, most hunters view hunting as something they have the right to do. In reality, hunting is more of a privilege than a right, and that privilege can be taken away. In fact, it’s already happened numerous times in several states.

Successful ballot box initiatives in California, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, and Michigan have led to the banning of bear baiting, spring bear hunting, mountain lion and bear hound hunting, and even dove hunting. In other states, trapping for predators and furbearers has been banned or restricted.

And nearly every year, many other states are threatened with new ballot box measures aimed at stripping away hunting privileges. The people behind these initiatives and voter referendums are anti-hunters and animal rights extremists. Hunters who write off these people as crazy tree-hugging hippies need to understand that these are actually well-funded organizations that excel at planning and publicizing campaigns that can result in fooling the general public into voting for laws that ban hunting.

But recent history has shown that when hunters organize and band together, they can defeat anti-hunting “ballot box biology” initiatives. In Montana, a 2016 attempt to ban trapping failed to garner enough votes to pass. In 2024, a ballot box initiative that would have outlawed mountain lion and bobcat hunting in Colorado surfaced. In the end, a majority of voters rejected the initiative in a major victory for hunters and science-based wildlife management. That result can be attributed to hunters finally taking a cue from their anti-hunting adversaries by raising money for an organized, united campaign.

Keep in mind, anti-hunters and their ballot box initiatives aren’t going anywhere. They’ll continue to be a thorn in the side of hunters in states across the country. When the next one pops up, it will require hunters nationwide to use the same tactics that gave us a win in Colorado.

Another increasingly troublesome trend is the rising number of anti-hunters appointed by governors to serve on state wildlife agency commissions. These boards of commissioners play a key role in steering the policies that dictate the actual work that’s done by wildlife management agencies.

In states such as Washington and Colorado, among others, we’ve already seen commissioners taking an aggressively anti-hunting approach to wildlife management by ignoring the advice of managers and biologists regarding the implementation of season dates, bag limits, harvest quotas, and other hunting regulations. The most effective action hunters can take to oppose anti-hunting wildlife commissioners is to stay informed of their intentions by attending their public meetings. Then stand up and let your voice be heard.

The few bad eggs out there that get caught poaching or trespassing are bad enough to give all hunters a black eye. But even among hunters who follow the law and do what’s ethically right, sometimes we’re still our own worst enemy.

For example, some hunters who don’t hunt mountain lions or trap furbearers just shrug their shoulders at ballot box initiatives that could ban those practices. Others have argued that while it's sporting to shoot pheasants over a fine pointing dog, taking a bear with a pack of hounds isn’t fair chase. Those hunters need to wake up. Anti-hunters are setting up the dominoes to fall—they want to end ALL hunting.

Which brings up the often ridiculous infighting that takes place among some hunters. A traditional bowhunter that attacks the majority of archery hunters who use modern compound bows isn’t doing anyone any favors. The same goes for compound bow users who cast aspersions on crossbow hunters or a big game rifle hunter that believes taking any shot at an animal beyond three hundred yards should be illegal.

Then there are hunters who take pot shots at other hunters for killing small or young bucks. The saying “my tag, my hunt,” comes to mind here. And what about hunters who selfishly complain they’re missing out on opportunities to fill their own deer tag because of special youth seasons? Or those that decry hunter recruitment efforts like mentorship programs when older hunters are aging out and participation rates are falling among youth hunters?

The point here is that while we don’t all agree on everything, it serves absolutely no purpose for us to attack each other. Some hunters might willfully scoff at the idea that hunting is under existential threat in the United States. Others may simply take their privilege to go hunting for granted.

Still, others are rightfully concerned about existing and emerging threats to hunting. History shows those concerns are legitimate, just look at what’s already been lost. Pay attention. Stay engaged. And take a kid hunting.

With the recent victories for Sunday hunting advocates in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, you might be wondering whether any states maintain their old blue-law prohibitions on getting out in the field.

The answer is more complicated than you might think.

So-called “blue laws” originated in colonial New England and prohibited a variety of activities on the first day of the week. These included things like shopping, playing sports, selling alcohol, and, yes, hunting.

Most states repealed their blue laws long ago, but until just last week, 10 East Coast states have maintained their prohibitions on sportsmen in one form or another.

For decades, hunting rights groups like the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers have lobbied to repeal these laws. Hunters who work real jobs (as opposed to outdoor journalists) can only hunt on the weekend. Prohibiting Sunday hunting leaves them with a single day each week to get out in the woods.

“The term ‘weekend warrior’ is sometimes used disparagingly, but the truth is most hunters have little choice in the matter when it comes to time in the woods,” MeatEater’s Brody Henderson wrote all the way back in 2019. “Weekdays are consumed by the responsibilities of work, school, and family, and hunting happens on Saturdays and Sundays. For most hunters, it is hardly the perfect scenario, but it works well enough. Now, just imagine if you lived in a state where ‘blue laws’ restrict or outlaw Sunday hunting.”

This campaign to repeal blue laws saw some big steps forward in the last few months. The Pennsylvania state legislature had already opened some Sundays to hunters, but they recently voted to empower the Pennsylvania Game Commission to allow Sunday hunting during all seasons. We’re still waiting to see how the Commission will use its newfound authority.

Connecticut saw a big win as well. While public land hunting remains closed on Sundays, the legislature voted by wide margins to open it up on private land. The property must be more than 10 acres for rifle hunting, and migratory bird hunting remains closed, but bowhunters with access to even a few acres of private land just expanded their season by 14%.

Last year, Delaware also opened most hunting opportunities thanks to a bill that added game bird hunting (turkey, waterfowl, etc.) to their Sunday hunting allowances.

But those recent successes are tempered by varying levels of openness in seven other states. Massachusetts and Maine have retained a total ban on Sunday hunting, while in New Jersey, firearms hunting remains closed on the Lord’s day.

Here’s where things stand in all 10 states, courtesy of a brief prepared for MeatEater by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation:

Connecticut – Public land Sunday hunting remains closed, as does rifle hunting on private properties of less than 10 acres. Migratory bird hunting also remains closed.

Delaware – Most opportunities are now open thanks to a bill last year that added game bird hunting (turkey, waterfowl, etc.) to their Sunday allowances. Two prior bills opened deer hunting on private lands and on specified public lands (some public lands still remain closed).

Massachusetts – Complete ban.

Maine – Complete ban.

Maryland – Most deer and turkey hunting on Sundays are open in nearly all counties, but some counties differ from each other on the specific days that are open and legal hunting hours. Migratory game bird hunting remains closed.

North Carolina – Firearm hunting on private land opened in 2015, with some exceptions. In 2017, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) was granted the ability to open public land Sunday hunting on state Game Lands. To date, 51 game lands and four national forests have been opened, but there remains some public lands that are still closed (despite the Commission now having the authority to open them). Other Sunday hunting restrictions still in place include:

New Jersey – Sunday bow hunting for deer is permitted on WMAs and private land, but not on state parks and forests, county parks, or other public lands. Firearm hunting remains closed on both private and public lands.

Pennsylvania – Following last week’s bill signing, the Pennsylvania Game Commission now has the ability to regulate Sunday hunting for all game species during all seasons.

South Carolina – The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has the ability to open public land Sunday hunting to more public acreage (with legislative approval), and Sunday hunting is also allowed on private lands throughout the state (without the same exceptions NC has). Now, thanks to the 2023 expansion, public land Sunday hunting is open on seven WMAs and two National Forests, which encompass nearly 700,000 acres of public land. There remain some public lands that are not yet open, despite the agency now having the ability to do so.

Virginia – Sunday hunting on private lands and public waterways (waterfowl) was opened following 2014 legislation. Public lands were then added in 2022. Sunday hunting for deer or bear with the use of dogs remains prohibited.

Maine, it should be noted, is a particularly tricky situation with hunters on both sides of the debate. Many landowners in Maine allow hunting on their properties without requiring hunters to ask permission. But according to a 2022 survey, 44% of landowners who currently allow access say they would be more likely to restrict access if Sunday hunting was allowed.

It’s unclear how many of these landowners would follow through on this threat, which is part of the reason hunters are divided. According to that same survey, 69% of hunters support Sunday hunting while only 23% oppose.

Efforts to repeal Sunday hunting bans in Maine and Massachusetts have so far failed, but with all the victories over the last 20 years, it may be just a matter of time before these states join the rest of the country.

Steven Rinella talks with Joash Vomo, Executive Director of the Robin Hurt Wildlife Foundation and Anti-Poaching & Community Coordinator.

Topics Discussed: Buy a raffle ticket for the chance to win TRCP’s annual turkey hunt with Steve and Jani; subsistence poaching vs. selling poached game meat on the black market; snares big enough to catch a cape buffalo; homemade muzzle loaders; the punishment for poaching a giraffe, Tanzania’s national animal; how a poacher becomes an anti-poacher; community-based conservation; patrolling waterways; how black mambas can stand on their tales, chase cars, and kill you in a matter of minutes; and more. 

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America’s pronghorn antelope has long struck observers as a beautiful feature of western landscapes, but as an enigma. Why does it run so fast? Why can’t it jump obstacles? And for those who really know its biography, why did its population fall from 15 million to a mere 5,000 over the course of a single century? This episode answers all those questions by arguing that the pronghorn is an American original who, like us, is the sole remaining member of a large, ancient family of animals. And that it seems enigmatic only because it is one of the few survivors of America’s Pleistocene extinctions, with behaviors strongly shaped by the vanished world to which it evolved.

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Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men"

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