The MeatEater

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Janis Putelis, Randall Williams, Nate Mason, Max Barta, Alec Zimmer, Reva Hansen, Eric Hamburg, and Cade McParland.

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The chips fly around the poker table as the crew wagers which topic will come up more: Lake Pickle and his turkey hunting woes, or Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker’s fly fishing trip to Patagonia.  Confessions of past wrongdoing come up to try to clear the conscience to gain some favor in the turkey hunting woods.  Host Clay Newcomb is joined by special guests Jordan Blissett, Lake Pickle, and Lacey Pickle.

Thank you to our sponsor, Tecovas.

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A 34-year-old hunter mentoring a 3-year-old child helped the youngster aim at and shoot another man and a 7-year-old child after mistaking their movements for a turkey in western Racine County. The incident occurred on Sunday, April 12, during Wisconsin's two-day youth-only turkey season.

Pellets from the 12-gauge shotgun struck the 7-year-old’s head, along with the man’s left hand, shoulder, and backside as they hunted turkeys on state forest lands in the Rochester township. Lt. Renee Thok, the Department of Natural Resources’ hunter-education administrator, said the victims were likely facing away from the shooter when hit. DNR investigators do not believe the parties knew each other.

The victims were treated at a nearby hospital. The wounded mentor, age 40, was released Sunday evening (April 12) after receiving treatment, but the child remained in the hospital with non-life-threatening wounds Tuesday afternoon (April 14).

Thok said the DNR would not release names or genders of the two youngsters, given their ages. She also declined to release the names of the mentors, pending further investigation.

The incident occurred when the shooter’s mentor saw movement and thought it was a turkey’s fanned tail. The man then kneeled beside the 3-year-old to help hold, aim, and fire the semi-automatic shotgun at the movement about 35 yards away.

Thok said the woods had a brush understory, but it wasn’t dense. “It wasn’t a field, either, but there was some cover between them,” she said.

A review of online DNR hunting-incident summaries since 2007 found this shooting involved the youngest shooter and victim on record. Previously, a 9-year-old boy shot a 48-year-old man in the upper right arm with pellets from his 20-gauge shotgun while hunting mourning doves in Walworth County in September 2012; and a 13-year-old boy shot a 9-year-old boy in the foot with a .22 rifle while plinking at birds in Polk County in May 2019.

All Wisconsin hunters born on or after Jan. 1, 1973, must pass a state-certified hunter education course to hunt alone or mentor others on hunting. The DNR incident report said the 3-year-old’s mentor did not have a Wisconsin hunter-safety certificate, but he was “military-exempt” because of training received in the armed forces.

Thok wouldn’t predict if the child’s mentor would face prosecution. She said the DNR assigned a recreation warden to investigate the incident. Once the agency finishes its investigation, it will turn over its evidence and findings to the Racine County district attorney.

“The DA will decide whether to press charges,” Thok said. “I’m just glad everyone will be OK. For the sake of both juveniles, I hope this incident doesn’t deter them or anyone else from hunting again, because hunting is a safe activity. This is a reminder that you can’t be complacent about safety.”

Wisconsin is one of an estimated 35 states with no minimum hunting age. Wisconsin’s minimum hunting age was 12 throughout the 1900s, but in 2009 lawmakers lowered the restriction to age 10 for children being mentored. In 2017, lawmakers passed a bill to let parents decide when their children can hunt with a mentor. Under this law, mentors must remain within arm’s reach of the child.

Youngsters must buy a hunting license once they’re 12, but they cannot hunt alone until age 14, provided they pass the state’s hunter-education course.

Wisconsin held its first modern turkey season in 1983 after restoring the birds to the Badger State beginning in 1976. The statewide harvests during the spring turkey season surpassed 50,000 gobblers and jakes in 2024 and 2025. The state’s general spring turkey season opened Wednesday, April 15, and ends May 26.

Turkey hunting in Wisconsin is generally a safe activity, even though hunters wear camouflage clothing from head to foot to avoid being spotted by these sharp-eyed birds, which see colors like blaze-orange extremely well.

While sending out the equivalent of 208,000 to 230,000 hunters each spring the past 20 years, Wisconsin recorded four fatalities in 31 shooting incidents during turkey season. No one got shot during three of the past four seasons, and the state’s most recent shooting fatality during turkey season was 2017.

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater crew discuss: Randall and Phil's film from BuckFest and The Big Buck Hunter Championship; Jordan Sillar's Blood Trails, Season 2 drops; a Land Access Initiative update; Etsy bans fur; how birding improves your brain health; South Dakota becomes the first state to remove suppressors from the list of controlled weapons; Pennsylvania changes to blue and flathead catfish regulations; Bigfoot sightings in Ohio; and more. 

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Time is flying by, but that doesn't mean you have to waste it. This week, Tony explores the reality of using our time wisely before it's too late and regret what we missed out on in the whitetail woods.

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The Tuckertown Gamelands along the Yadkin River have been a cornerstone of public access in the state of North Carolina for decades. Hardwood ridges echoing with the gobbles of wild turkeys and traced by the trails of whitetail deer. Long miles of shoreline bordering waters teeming with bass, catfish, crappie, and more. For more than sixty years, hunters and anglers in the state have enjoyed access to this nearly 4,000-acre stretch of privately owned lands made open to the public. But that’s all now threatened by the proposed sale of this landscape by Alcoa, the corporation that has long held these lands but no longer can do so.

Three Rivers Land Trust, a local North Carolina organization, has begun a campaign to fundraise and purchase the ALCOA-owned lands along the Tuckertown Reservoir and transfer ownership to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, permanently securing them as publicly accessible gamelands. And we’re excited to announce that we’ve chosen this project to be the focus of our 2026 Land Access Initiative.

In an effort to help save the Tuckertown Gamelands, MeatEater and our friends at onX have each committed $100,000 to fund a 30-day matching initiative to jumpstart the Save Tuckertown fundraising effort. This means from April 14 to May 14, every dollar donated by participants in the campaign will be matched by onX and MeatEater, up to the combined $200,000 total.

In a world where public lands and access seem increasingly in the crosshairs, this is a unique opportunity to be a part of a public access win. Together we can make a real tangible difference in keeping this swath of wild land publicly accessible and open to hunting, fishing, and recreational access of all types. It’s a chance for all of us to put our money where our mouths are and to truly ‘keep it public.’

So here’s how you can help. From April 14 to May 14, visit SaveTuckertown.org and make a donation to the campaign. Every dollar you donate will be matched through the MeatEater and onX matching commitment, so milk that for all its worth and take advantage of this chance to make your dollars go further.

From there, my ask is simple. Spread the word! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your enemies, tell them all.

Let’s help get as many folks across the country involved in saving these lands along the Tuckertown Reservoir. Let’s keep it public. Let’s prove that we as a hunting and angling and outdoors-loving community can do this kind of work on our own. And then let’s do it again somewhere else. Because we know this isn't unique just to North Carolina. Someday soon something similar might arise in Michigan or Montana or Mississippi, and I hope, in fact I’m confident, that we as a community can step up again in those cases too.

Hunters and anglers have a long history of facing challenges head-on and, instead of pointing fingers, simply rolling up our sleeves, figuring out what we can do ourselves, and then getting to work. We can do that here to help save Tuckertown, and then we can keep on going.

This is in fact exactly what you and we have been doing through the MeatEater Land Access Initiative for years now. Beginning in 2020, MeatEater kicked off the Land Access Initiative with one simple mission: to improve access to public lands and waters for hunters and anglers. And from there we set out to do that by fundraising, in partnership with our community, to bring new public access projects to life.

With your participation, we helped Kingfield Township, in Maine, acquire its first piece of public land—a 215-acre swath of forest, wetlands, and pond. We contributed to the Montana Great Outdoors Project, helping to acquire a conservation easement on 150,000 acres that protected critical wildlife habitat and ensured public access in perpetuity, and later helped secure another 300-acre parcel along Montana’s Yellowstone River to be made public and accessible forever as well. Finally, our Land Access Initiative also contributed to the Corner Crossing Legal Fund, which has helped unlock access to many thousands of acres of landlocked public ground across the West.

So thank you all in advance for participating in this latest round of the Land Access Initiative and for helping us “keep it public.” Make your donations at the link below and make your dollars go further from April 14 to May 14 by taking advantage of MeatEater and onX’s combined $200,000 matching commitment.

Visit SaveTuckertown.org and make your donation to the campaign today.

Patience gets thrown around a lot in general hunting advice. Whether it’s pulling an all-day hunt during the whitetail rut or waiting another hour on that gobbler that went silent, patience usually pays off. You’ll punch a lot of tags if you learn to embrace patience. But sometimes you need to throw it out the window (not completely) when the occasion arises.

This lesson recently dawned on me during a successful turkey hunt. Two gobblers fired off right at daybreak. I quickly cut the distance to them and set up. After a few soft calls they came within gun range but hung up on the other side of a yaupon thicket. I had no shot and occasionally caught glimpses of them through the brush.

They gobbled their brains out for nearly three and a half hours before another tom heard all the ruckus and joined them. Eventually they fed down the creek drainage about 70 yards from their original location. I knew I had to cross that thicket if I wanted a chance to notch a tag that day. I waited for them to gobble again so I could pinpoint their new position and make a move.

Luckily, I didn’t hesitate. Just as I crawled through that yaupon and crossed a small ditch, I caught the tip of a tail fan just over a small rise. After a few soft clucks and some scratching, I heard footsteps. Eventually, a bright white head crested that knoll at about 17 steps. He didn’t even flop, and his buddies wasted no time in flogging him as soon as he hit the ground.

In that situation, conventional wisdom might tell you to stay put. But ignoring it opened up an opportunity. Who knows, maybe they would have decided to cross that thicket. I didn’t wait around to find out.

Patience isn’t just about knowing when to stay; it’s also about knowing when to move. You might have the self-discipline to sit in the same spot all day, but that doesn’t do you much good if you never get a shot opportunity.

I heard these birds first gobble around 6:40 and didn’t pull the trigger until almost 11. Patience played just as big a role in killing that turkey as the setup maneuver did. The key is knowing when to strike. If you can tell a turkey keeps gobbling and strutting in a particular area, moving 50 yards one way and then back, you probably have enough room and time to make a move, depending on the cover.

The same goes for whitetails (or any other game) for that matter. You can sit in the stand from daylight to dark, but if you watch the deer cruise by you just out of range all day, you’re approaching patience the wrong way. If you observe deer taking the same trail throughout the day, you probably need to move your setup within shooting distance. Sure, you’ll run the risk of getting busted, but if you can do it quickly and quietly, that’s the key.

This past year while bowhunting in Missouri, I made a similar adjustment. I hung a set well before shooting light and hunkered down for the day. I watched three does and, eventually, one buck cross the creek at the same spot and decided to make a move. Less than an hour later, I had two young bucks and then a few does make the same crossing. I didn’t loose an arrow that evening, but I went back the next day and blew a chip shot at 20 yards. Did it work out perfectly? No, but I was at least in the game instead of watching the deer stroll by well out of bow range.

I’m sure he didn’t coin this phrase, but my dad would say, “If you think long, you think wrong,” anytime I was stuck between deciding on one hunting spot or another. There’s a lot of truth in that statement, especially when you’re dealing with in-field decisions.

Sometimes, you only have seconds, like when a turkey pops behind a tree and you need to swing. Or when you need to take the first, best shot available before a whitetail dips out of range. I’d almost always rather take the chance than freeze. I’m not talking about taking unethical or low-percentage shots. And, yes, there are times when you live to hunt another day, but the fun part is learning how to make the necessary moves under pressure.

It’s also easy to mistake patience for freezing. You might tell yourself you’re being patient when you’re actually doing the easy, less risky move by staying put. It’s a lot of work to tear down and set up your stand again, but it might be necessary if you want to punch a tag instead of practicing your wildlife photography.

In the turkey woods, you can tell yourself that gobbler will eventually break. After all, it’s easier than making a huge loop around the creek bottom that he doesn’t want to leave. If you think sitting in the same spot requires patience, try painstakingly crawling through the leaves to get in a better position to call that bird. Sure, you’ll risk blowing a hunt when you make risky moves, but at least you’ll have tried, and I can live with that.

This week, Cal talks about two unique wildlife management tactics in Wyoming, invasive fly infestations, a ferret eradication program across the pond, and what to make of the major shakeup of the U.S. Forest Service.

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Steven Rinella talks with author Peter Stark.

Topics discussed: Peter's brand new book, The Lost Cities of El Norte: Coronado's Quest, the Unconquered West, and the Birth of American Indian Resistance; the psychological story of the Coronado Expedition; Coronado's traumatic brain injury; reconnaissance party explorations and first contact with tribes; a foundational moment for indigenous resistance; Coronado's failure; and more. 

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