The MeatEater

Most deer hunters focus on the problems they face when it comes to killing big bucks, but they'd be better off reframing their thinking to be more solution-based. This isn't easy to do, but it is a trait that most successful hunters share.

Connect with Tony Peterson and MeatEater

Tony Peterson on Instagram and Facebook

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop MeatEater Merch

When the U.S. acquired the West with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched two scientific expeditions to explore it. Lewis & Clark became legendary. The historical fiction that follows indicates that with a different outcome, Freeman and Custis would have been famous westerners, too. Here, then, is Part II.

Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon.

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

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

Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop MeatEater Merch

On July 24, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) opened up a two-week-long public comment period as a request for information on the implementation of drain tile setbacks. Before I lose you with that very exciting opener, know that this is a crucial time for hunters and conservationists to raise our voices for waterfowl and more in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR).

The PPR, affectionately known by hunters as “The Duck Factory,” spans North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Montana (it also reaches far into Canada). It’s critical breeding and nesting habitat for migrating waterfowl, but the wetlands also support other wildlife while maintaining healthy waterways and ecosystems.

Within the PPR are small wetland easements on private land. These were easements were made possible by the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program (SWAP), where landowners are paid by the federal government to permanently protect wetlands located on their lands. The legal agreement states that wetlands within easements cannot be drained, filled, leveled, or burned. However, if they dry up from natural causes, landowners are then allowed to farm, graze, or hay on the land.

There are fewer wetlands in the PPR than ever before. This makes these small easement areas invaluable assets for wildlife. If you’ve ever bought a federal or state duck stamp, made a Pittman-Robertson purchase, or supported the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, you’ve invested money in protecting these easements. That said, it’s in your best interest to protect your investment by ensuring they remain intact.

According to the USFWS, when landowners sign easement agreements, they agree to refrain from certain activities that drain surface water from or nearby the wetlands. This is where the drain tile issue comes in.

Using drain tile is a common practice in agriculture to remove excess water from fields with underground pipes. This helps with soil drainage and can save crops in flooding. However, when installed too close to a wetland, it can pull water away that well, makes a wetland, wet.

In 2024, the USFWS finalized a rule that established setback distances for drain tiles is based on the best available science to ensure wetland areas aren’t drained. These distances are calculated by local USFWS offices, who will work with the landowner for tile planning. The distance is determined by a variety of factors like local soil characteristics, tile depth and diameter, and field topography.

The ruling also protects landowners who installed drain tile under USFWS guidelines from legal ramifications if the distance calculated was insufficient to protect the wetland area from drying up.

Organizations like Ducks Unlimited have praised the rule for keeping drain tiles far enough away from wetlands to protect them. But now, the USFWS has issued a "Request for Information" that could be a first step in eroding those protections. One suggested alternative is to implement Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) guidelines, which offer a fixed distance for drain tile setbacks rather than a scientifically calculated measurement currently used by USFWS.

Right now, nothing is set to change in regulations—yet. But the agency is specifically requesting information on the efficacy of the ‘24 rule, if it did or did not work as intended, and specifically how the service should calculate drain tile setbacks in the future.

The comments received now will determine the next steps the agency takes. Click here to add your voice to the conversation before the August 7 deadline.

This week Cal covers wildfire smoke, a new duck season in Louisiana, and a mixed bag at the end of Colorado’s fur ban saga.

Connect with Cal and MeatEater

To learn more and get involved with any Cal to Action, click here.

Cal on Instagram and Twitter

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop Cal's Week in Review Merch

Steven Rinella talks with journalist and author Burkhard Bilger about: the lone star tick; alpha gal syndrome; Lyme disease; treatments; cockfighting; and more!

Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network

Steve on Instagram and Twitter

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

Logging cuts, also known as clear-cuts, are some of the best places to find mature bucks in the big woods. They provide a focal point in an otherwise monotonous landscape. You can also readily spot them while e-scouting. The problem is, everyone else realizes this too. While clear-cuts attract deer for bedding or browse, they also attract a lot of pressure.

Luckily, whitetails adapt regardless of hunting pressure, and logging cuts can still hold mature bucks. You just need to stop hunting them like everyone else. Take a step back and evaluate how you’re hunting an area. After that, you’ll need to get some boots on the ground, ask the right questions, and look for the subtle details everyone else overlooks.

Whether you’re dealing with a new or familiar hunting spot, you need to ground truth a clear-cut to validate, or invalidate, its condition. E-scouting is a great starting place, but boots-on-the-ground observations will always reveal more than GPS data is able to. Clear-cuts change quickly over a few years, and what you once knew may no longer apply.

If you’ve ever walked around a logging cut, then you know there is almost always a deer trail tracing the outside boundary. Don’t waste too much time, but walk that perimeter and note every deer trail entering and exiting the cut. Drop waypoints on any hubs you find. Water holes, creek crossings, and scrapes on intersecting trails are all important details that can help you hone your scouting efforts.

At some point along the cut’s edge, you’ll see an old two-track lane where machines brought logs in and out of it. You should be able to see where that lane branches. Follow the main path first, then investigate the branches if time allows. This will give you a basic understanding of how deer move in the area.

Once you have an idea of how deer generally use a specific clear-cut, you’ll need to dial in your scouting efforts to look for buck sign. Glassing, observation sits, and trail cameras are great options for gathering intel. The goal is to determine how deer are using the area during daylight hours.

Try to determine whether the deer are feeding in the cut at night and returning to timber in the morning or if they’re bedding and browsing in the heavy cover all day. It might seem like they’re bedding in plain sight, but if you’ve hunted a thick cut, you know how easily any deer can disappear. Especially mature bucks.

While you might find the obvious sign for most of the herd, mature bucks tend to operate a little differently outside of the rut. Bucks reach maturity by avoiding danger, so by the time one reaches its fifth birthday, it’s pretty good at staying alive.

A concentration of big rubs would be a great sign, but in low deer-density areas, you might not get that. Don’t overlook tracks. If you happen to find a big one, drop a waypoint or even take a picture. That way, you can compare it to others that you find.

In a logging cut, not every trail belongs to a mature buck, but it can pay to follow a few obscure trails. You just need to find a place where a mature buck can loaf for extended periods of time and let his guard down.

One old buck I scouted over a few years spent a good portion of his time feeding in a clear-cut. Occasionally he daylighted there, and I always wondered what was different on those days. One summer while scouting, I found a giant bed tucked between a pine and a laurel bush. It was in the direction he usually entered the cut. I figured that had to be a place he would spend the last minutes of daylight before making an appearance.

A deer trail led away from that bed and down a steep, rocky hillside that seemed like a place most deer would avoid. At the bottom, the terrain leveled into a flat dotted with smaller rocks. In the center of the flat, without much surrounding cover, there was a scraggly tree. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to break up a buck’s outline.

Behind that tree was another giant bed. A well-worn trail wrapped around it with fresh scat nearby. It didn’t scream typical hill country buck sign, but it taught me to stop making assumptions about mature bucks.

Even mature bucks let their guards down. There will always be a place and time where he feels a false sense of security. It’s our job as deer hunters to figure that out.

A lot of times, these places happen to be staging areas. Maybe it’s a transition or a soft edge that leads from a clear-cut into the timber. Sometimes you might find a track in these places or a rub near a subtle trail. You might find browsing sign that other hunters overlook. Other times you’ll have to listen to your gut and just hunt it with the best possible conditions.

Either way, experience and observation are the best teachers. Pay attention to the small details and create theories based on what you find. If it doesn’t work, keep trying. That’s half the fun of it.

Brent’s still in the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan, where a filled bear tag opens up the door for an unforgettable fishing adventure. Look out! This country boy has a fly rod and he’s not afraid to use it. Bring your safety glasses, we’re going fishing on MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast.

Thank you to our sponsors, Case Knives and Stor-Mor.

Shop This Country Life Merch

Connect with Brent and MeatEater

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop This Country Life Merch

In this explosive Blood Trails miniseries, a dream Caribbean vacation becomes every hunter's worst nightmare.

When Oklahoma hunter Ryan Watson is stopped at the Turks and Caicos airport after security discovers four forgotten rifle cartridges inside an old duffel bag, he expects to lose the ammunition and catch his flight home. Instead, he and his wife are taken away by plainclothes officers, threatened with 12 years in prison, and thrust into a justice system that will change their lives forever.

As more American hunters are caught in the same legal trap, a disturbing pattern begins to emerge. What initially appears to be a simple customs violation unfolds into a story of harsh mandatory sentencing, questionable law enforcement tactics, filthy jails, and a prison that human rights investigators say is unfit for human habitation.

In Chapter 1 of Blood Trails: Paradise Prison, host Jordan Sillars follows the first Americans caught in Turks and Caicos' sweeping firearms crackdown, revealing how an honest mistake became an international incident—and why what happened next was far more complicated than the headlines ever suggested.

How do a handful of forgotten hunting cartridges lead to a global diplomatic controversy? It all starts here.

Want more Blood Trails? Check out the Case File.

Follow Blood Trails on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon.

Connect with Jordan Sillars and MeatEater

MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Blood Trails on Instagram

Jordan Sillars on Instagram

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater crew discuss: Monumental changes to Bears Ears, Wildfires on prediction markets, CO ain’t your trapping friend, Permanent Daylight Savings hunting, changes to the Endangered Species Act, and more!

Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network

Steve on Instagram and Twitter

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube