The MeatEater

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Laura Mascari, Reva Hansen, and Cade McParland.

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Host Clay Newcomb begins a new series on the American Civil War with historian and educator, JD Hewitt, of The History Underground. Clay invites you to go on a journey to ask the question that still divides Americans more than 160 years later: What was the Civil War really about? From slavery and states’ rights to Southern identity, economic power, abolitionists, and the lasting cultural memory of the Confederacy, Clay and JD attempt to navigate one of the most complicated and emotionally charged subjects in American history with honesty and nuance. The conversation traces the roots of the conflict from the founding of America through the rise of King Cotton, the contradictions of Thomas Jefferson, the expansion of slavery westward, and the radical actions of John Brown that helped push the nation toward war.

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We’re excited to announce the upcoming launch of our newest podcast, Future Wild with Mark Kenyon.

No stranger to the MeatEater audience, Mark Kenyon has been on the team since 2018 and hosted the Wired to Hunt podcast since 2014. Future Wild represents an exciting new foray for both MeatEater and Mark, now our Director of Conservation, into previously unexplored frontiers of the hunting, fishing, outdoors, and conservation realms. This podcast will consist of one-on-one interviews pairing Mark with world-class subject matter experts to explore topics relevant to the future of our wild world and outdoor pursuits.

Future Wild enters the scene amidst a backdrop of sensational headlines about the AI apocalypse, attacks on public lands, wildlife declines, an urbanizing American culture and its impacts on hunting and fishing, and growing recreational and development pressures on open spaces. Future Wild is here to answer the questions inherent to these times, being asked by the deeply curious and passionate in the hunting, angling, and outdoor communities.

This new podcast will feature deeply researched and far-ranging conversations with experts within the hunting and fishing community and unconventional voices drawn from the wider environmental, outdoor adventure, and science communities. Early episodes feature guests such as Patagonia founder and angler Yvon Chouinard, New York Times best-selling science writer David Quammen, rock climber and host of The Dirtbag Diaries podcast Fitz Cahall, and prominent caribou biologist Jim Dau.

“While my love of whitetail hunting and the Wired to Hunt brand that I built still remains strong, I’m excited to expand the scope of the wild ideas and questions I can explore through this new Future Wild project,” Mark said.

In addition to his work hosting the Wired to Hunt podcast and related films for MeatEater, and his role as Director of Conservation, Kenyon also sits on the national board of directors for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and the National Deer Association. He’s also the author of That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America’s Public Lands and his soon-to-be-published follow-up title, Before They’re Gone: The Rough-and-Tumble Fight to Save America’s Wildlife.

“As my outdoor passions and curiosities have diversified over the years, my desire to publicly explore the wider world of wildlife, wild places, and hunting and fishing has grown too,” Mark explained. “Future Wild is the perfect arena for this exploration, and now is the perfect time, as the world we live in is seemingly changing faster than ever.”

The first episode with Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard drops next Wednesday, May 27, on the newly dubbed MeatEater Conservation feed (formerly Cal of the Wild), along with the weekly show, Cal's Week in Review.

Sources tell MeatEater that the U.S. Congress will act soon on a proposal to repeal the Roadless Rule, which was enacted in 2001 and safeguards some 58 million acres of public land in 39 states from new road development. H.R. 7695 would nullify the rule and also “require the Secretary of Agriculture to construct certain roads on National Forest System lands, and for other purposes.”

The Subcommittee on Public Lands is expected to consider the bill as soon as this Thursday. Should the bill pass out of committee, it would then go to Congress for a full vote.

The action on the proposed bill comes as Trout Unlimited recently released a report highlighting the ecological and recreational benefits of the Roadless Rule, such as protecting critical big game habitats. For instance, 93% of roadless areas in Montana encompass summer elk range, and 99% of roadless areas in Utah are deemed crucial or substantial mule deer habitat. Elk harvest in roadless areas can be up to 10 times higher than in “heavily roaded landscapes.”

“Inventoried roadless areas provide some of the most intact big game habitat left in this nation, while also providing accessible, high-quality hunting opportunities,” MeatEater’s Director of Conservation Mark Kenyon said. “I killed my first bull elk in a roadless area, a memory I’ll never forget and an experience made that much richer by the undeveloped, wild landscape that surrounded me. It would be a profound tragedy if our children, and our children’s children, did not have those same opportunities.”

Other conservation benefits of roadless areas highlighted in the report include the fact that they span just 2% of the country but support around 25% of all species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Additionally, around 70% of them contain habitat for native trout or salmon species. Those watersheds are known to be significantly healthier than those in roaded areas.

TU’s report also highlights several reasons why nullifying the roadless rule may not be economically beneficial, either, such as the fact that keeping roadless areas intact impacts just 0.2% of the nation’s timber demands from national forests. Meanwhile, the national forest system already has a deferred maintenance backlog of $10.8 billion, with approximately half of that related to existing roads. It’s important to note that roadless areas are not equivalent to wilderness areas, and they do allow for active forest management and science-based wildfire mitigation.

“America’s roadless areas are the quiet workhorses of our public lands,” TU CEO Chris Wood said. “They produce the cold, clean water that trout and salmon depend on, they give elk and mule deer the space they need to thrive, and they offer hunters and anglers access to quality hunting and fishing that’s getting harder to find. The Roadless Rule has stood the test of time because it strikes a simple balance—protecting these irreplaceable places while still allowing smart forest management. Rescinding it would be a costly mistake for fish, wildlife, and the outdoor traditions that depend on them.”

Conservation groups are urgently asking folks to make their voices heard on the issue. Now’s the time to show up for our roadless areas before it’s too late.

Every angler out there maintains an unshakable faith that whatever they’re doing will eventually work, even when there’s evidence to the contrary. We target specific hatches, return to the same spots, use the same lures and baits, and hope we’re doing the right thing to get the job done.

But sometimes you still get skunked. Then, anglers will say things like “the fish weren’t biting” or “it's called fishing, not catching" or "the big one got away.” The truth is fish are always biting, you can always catch them, and you let the big one get away. In reality, you probably aren’t learning from your mistakes.

Most of us learned how to fish as children from an older mentor. They in turn learned from someone else, and so on. Each of these elder anglers passed on their own grains of wisdom, which most anglers take as gospel. However, most of these “facts” about fishing are actually just opinions. Common ideas like big fish only eat big baits, fish stop biting in the rain, or that the best time to fish is always dawn or dusk aren’t actually true, at least not 100% of the time.

Many anglers continue to make mistakes because they continue to practice or believe fishing lore, especially when it’s incorrect. It only takes a little willingness and a few fish to debunk some of these angling myths.

Just because something worked once doesn’t mean it will work every time. Yet, many anglers stick with a lucky lure or bait, fishing technique, or magic fishing spot even when they don’t work. Instead of trying new techniques, baits, or areas, it’s easier to stick with what you know, and that can be a fishing trap.

Just because you caught a bunch of fish on a certain lure or bait in a certain area doesn’t mean you’ll do it again. Fishing holes change. Just because a stream had a pile of fish one year doesn't mean it will next. Habitat changes. Floods, fish prey, and climate conditions can change overnight. Don’t keep going back to the same spot that produced for you way back when, especially if you’re getting skunked. If you only stick to what you know, you’ll never evolve as an angler.

Whether it’s because you learned a specific technique from your grandfather or you and a buddy had a record day at your favorite fishing spot, anglers get sentimental about fishing. And, sentimentality will make you stick with certain baits, techniques, or fishing holes even when they don’t work. Get your lines and emotions tangled, and you’ll repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Everyone makes mistakes on the water. The key is to learn from them so you don’t make the same ones again. When it comes to fishing, a lot of us have blind spots for our shortcomings. If you can set aside the fishing lore and nostalgia, you’ll have plenty of chances to grow as an angler. And, yes, that should mean more fish.

Charlie Russell and L.A. Huffman became famous for their nostalgic art about the Frontier world they experienced in the West. But with a fascination with what Russell called “Dreamtime Montana,” exactly what were they trying to tell us about the West’s future?

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What's right and what's wrong when it comes to deer hunting invovles more than just regulations and laws. Our personal choices matter, and hunters who explore their ethics and try to do right by the deer are far more likely to feel good about their hunting every season.

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Setting a healthy column of gunpowder behind a .22-caliber bullet is nothing new in the world of cartridge design. The .220 Swift has been around for nearly 100 years, and the .22-250 Remington existed as a wildcat cartridge long before Big Green standardized it in 1965. Double-deuce bullets are cheap and widely available, so it makes sense to neck down a bigger case, load a .22 projectile, and let ‘er rip.

But as you’ve no doubt heard by now, maximizing velocity is no longer the Holy Grail of hunting cartridges: enter the 22 ARC and the 22 Creedmoor. Neither can compete with the .220 Swift or the .22-250 in a race, but that’s not what these modern cartridges are designed to do. The ARC and the Creed are meant to use heavier, more streamlined bullets that buck the wind and offer superior downrange performance.

But which is better? Both have been released within the last few years, and both operate within the heavy-bullet framework. If you’re unsure why you might choose one over the other, you’re not alone–and you’ve come to the right place.

The case is the key difference between the 22 ARC and the 22 Creedmoor. The ARC uses the 6.5 Grendel as its parent case while the Creedmoor is based on the .30 Thompson Center.

What does this mean? The Creedmoor can fit 40% more powder down its gullet.

That means the Creed offers more velocity at the muzzle than the ARC–though not as much as you might think. Using an 80-grain ELD-X bullet and a 24-inch barrel, the Creedmoor flies 3285 feet-per-second (fps) at the muzzle while the ARC hums along at 3010. Using a 70-grain bullet, the Creedmoor jumps up to 3550 fps while the ARC remains 300+ fps behind at 3125 fps.

As you might expect, that added velocity means less drop and wind drift, and more energy downrange.

Handloaders will point out that the ARC can be loaded hotter. Because it was designed for AR-platform semi-automatic rifles, Hornady introduced the cartridge with a maximum average pressure of 52,000 PSI. That’s lower than what you can get away with in a bolt-action platform, so some handloaders have claimed to achieve better velocities using their own recipes. I can’t condone or recommend that, but it’s worth noting.

Also worth noting: your results may vary. This data is derived using a 24-inch barrel. If the barrel on your rifle is shorter–as it almost certainly is if you’re shooting an AR-15–your velocities might be lower. The powder you use will also impact bullet velocity, so even with a 24-inch barrel, the bullets fired from your gun might be faster or slower.

The 22 ARC is an excellent cartridge. Its velocity proves the efficiency of its design, and it adheres wonderfully to the heavy, high-BC bullet philosophy so many hunters have adopted. But when it comes to ballistics, it’s tough to overcome case capacity. The 22 Creed pushes bullets faster–and gives hunters all the downrange benefits that come with that advantage. For that reason, the Creedmoor wins this round.

Winner: 22 Creedmoor

It’s been a minute since we published a Caliber Battle, so as a reminder, “shootability” refers to how easy a cartridge is to shoot. This category considers recoil, but it also considers the cost and availability of the cartridge.

The newness of both cartridges might make availability an issue. Midway USA lists 10 options for the 22 Creedmoor, six of which are in stock. There are only five options of the 22 ARC, though all of them are available as of this writing. (For comparison, the .223 Rem. has 149 options.) You can, of course, find many other online retailers, but I looked through several, and Midway’s selection is representative.

You might have luck finding the 22 ARC or 22 Creedmoor in your local sporting goods store, but I wouldn’t pin my hopes on that the day before a hunt.

Part of the reason for that limited availability is that it doesn’t look like many of the big ammo makers have adopted either cartridge. There are a few smaller manufacturers loading the 22 Creedmoor, but other than Hornady, Nosler is the only large company to offer the new .22. I don’t see either cartridge listed at Federal, Sig Sauer, or Remington, and Hornady appears to be the only one offering the 22 ARC.

The good news is that you won’t pay much more for either the ARC or the Creedmoor than you would for another premium centerfire rifle cartridge. The 22 Creedmoor runs between $2.20 per round all the way up to $5.50. But that $2.20 cartridge uses 80-grain ELD-Match bullets, so it’s still a high quality option.

The 22 ARC is noticeably cheaper. Hornady is the only manufacturer, but they offer options between $1.42 per round for 62-grain ELD-VT loads to $1.90 per round for 70-grain CX Superformance loads. The ARC’s smaller cartridge lost the Ballistics battle, but it does make the 22 ARC cheaper to produce–and shoot.

It also gives the 22 ARC extremely mild recoil. Recoil impulse depends a lot on the weight of a rifle and its action. But despite its larger powder charge, the 22 ARC will feel a lot like shooting a .223 Rem. It’s extremely pleasant to shoot at the range, and the minimal recoil helps hunters make accurate shots in the field.

The 22 Creedmoor isn’t unpleasant to shoot, but the recoil is noticeably stiffer. Most hunters compare shooting the 22 Creed to the classic .243 Winchester. The published recoil data lists the 22 Creedmoor kicking with 10-12 foot-pounds of recoil energy while the 22 ARC hits with 4-5 ft.-lbs. Neither is substantial, but the Creedmoor’s extra powder gives it more kick even when using identical bullets.

The ARC might be marginally harder to find than the Creedmoor, but its cheaper cost and lighter recoil earn it the nod in this category.

Winner: 22 ARC

Both the 22 ARC and the 22 Creedmoor are phenomenal varmint and predator cartridges. The range of bullet weights and styles are tailored for this class of animal, and both cartridges shoot flat and hit hard at extended ranges without doing too much damage to the animal’s hide.

Few would question the viability of these cartridges for predators, but some might raise their eyebrows at shooting a deer-sized animal with an 80-grain bullet. I don’t think that concern is warranted. If you hit a deer in the vitals with an 80-grain ELD-X bullet (available from the factory in both cartridges), that animal won’t be going very far. Thousands of deer are killed every year with .223 Rem. rifles, and the .243 Win. kills even more. The 22 ARC and 22 Creed sit between those two, which if you’re trying to kill a whitetail, is a pretty good place to be.

You’ll be able to do many of the same things with both cartridges, but there are differences at the margins. As we covered earlier, the Creedmoor’s superior ballistics give it an edge at extended ranges and in windy conditions. If you want to hit a deer at 400 yards, the Creedmoor will drop five fewer inches than the ARC and drift one fewer inch. It’ll also be traveling about 200 fps faster and hitting with about 200 additional foot-pounds of energy. All of those things make success more likely, especially if the shot isn’t perfectly broadside.

On the other hand, if you like hunting with an AR-platform rifle, the 22 ARC is your jam. A wide variety of manufacturers offer an AR model chambered in 22 ARC, and it’s easy to build your own. You can also convert an AR-15 you already own to fire the 22 ARC cartridge. Doing so requires installing a 22 ARC barrel and a 6.5 Grendel bolt, but neither task is difficult with the right tools. You may also need to purchase new magazines since some have experienced feeding issues with standard AR mags.

Whether you’re more attracted to the 22 Creedmoor’s superior ballistics or the 22 ARC’s AR compatibility depends on what you like to hunt. Coyote hunters will likely appreciate the semi-auto functionality of an AR-15 while deer hunters might prefer higher velocity and bullet energy. Personally, I think the Creedmoor’s superior ballistics make it a more versatile cartridge. I’ve hunted with an AR-15 many times, but that platform doesn’t give me as much of an edge as a cartridge that shoots faster and hits harder. That benefit will be more useful than semi-auto functionality, which is why this round goes to the Creedmoor.

Winner: 22 Creedmoor

Without knowing anything else about your preferences and priorities in the field, I would in general recommend the 22 Creedmoor over the 22 ARC. It offers better velocity and energy while still being comfortable to shoot. The ammo isn’t prohibitively expensive, and it’s a little easier to find on the shelves than the 22 ARC. Rifles are also easy to come by, though you might have to order one online.

The 22 ARC is a really cool cartridge, but I don’t see its benefits outweighing the Creedmoor’s for most hunters. That might not be true of you. You might be a coyote and hog hunting machine who values a semi-auto platform above a little extra velocity. If that’s you, go with the ARC. But if you’re a whitetail hunter who occasionally targets coyotes, I think you’ll be happier with the Creedmoor.

Overall Winner: 22 Creedmoor

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has proposed an amendment to statewide hunting regulations that would require all harvested mountain lions to be reported in Texas.

Currently, mountain lions are classified as non-game animals in Texas alongside species such as coyotes, bobcats, bullfrogs, and rabbits. Under current TPWD regulations, there are no closed seasons or bag limits for non-game species, and hunters with a valid license may take them year round by lawful means on private property.

State officials began taking a closer look at mountain lion management back in 2022, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission organized a stakeholder working group made up of landowners, livestock producers, private land managers, trappers, and natural resource professionals to evaluate the future of lion management in Texas.

According to the proposal, the group reached a “broad consensus that the current approach to data collection (voluntary reporting) is inadequate, because voluntary reports represent an unknown proportion of the total harvest, and that better data on mountain lion populations and demographics is necessary to make meaningful population assessments, guide research efforts, and inform agency actions, if any are necessary.”

For a species that has historically seen limited statewide oversight, the proposal would dramatically increase the amount of harvest data collected by TPWD.

Under the proposal, hunters would be required to report harvested mountain lions through the department’s website or mobile app within 24 hours. Reports would include information such as the county of harvest, method of take, and the amount of time devoted to the activity resulting in the harvest.

The amendment would also require hunters to submit biological samples within 60 days of harvest using prepaid mailers provided by the department. Required samples would include at least one complete premolar tooth and a small tissue sample for analysis. Alternatively, hunters could coordinate directly with TPWD personnel for sample collection within seven days of the reported harvest.

What the proposal could eventually mean for mountain lion management in Texas remains unclear. However, historically, mandatory harvest reporting has often been one of the first steps wildlife agencies take before developing more structured management systems for a species.

According to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, “mandatory harvest reporting is considered a foundational component of wildlife management because it provides biologists with critical data used to monitor population health, evaluate hunting pressure, and guide future management decisions such as bag limits and season structures.”

What we do know from the proposal is that Texas wildlife officials are looking for more reliable biological and harvest data on mountain lions across the state.

The required premolar tooth samples could allow biologists to estimate the age of harvested lions, helping researchers better understand population structure, survival rates, and the number of young versus mature animals being removed from the population. Tissue samples may also provide additional information on genetics, sex ratios, disease presence, and how lion populations are connected across different regions of Texas.

Combined with mandatory harvest reporting, the data could give TPWD its most detailed look yet at mountain lion demographics and harvest trends statewide.

Public comment on the proposed amendment will remain open through 5 p.m. on May 27, 2026, and can be submitted online through TPWD’s Comment on Proposed Regulations and Transactions page.