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This week, Cal covers why Neanderthals might have been better doctors than we thought, a bombshell case in Idaho where a game commissioner is accused of wildlife crimes, and more shenanigans from Sen Mike Lee.

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Steven Rinella talks with hot dog expert John Carter of Viskase and Randall Williams. 

Topics discussed: The history of hot dogs; the science of meat emulsions; characteristics of the perfect hot dog; what goes into the dogs; clean factories; skinless casings; the importance of salt and ice; why it’s so tough to make a good wild game hot dog; and more.

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Utah legislators are using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to go after the management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Earlier this month, Senator Mike Lee and Utah’s congressional delegation introduced a joint resolution of approval seeking to overturn the 1.9 million-acre monument’s Resource Management Plan, which was instituted in January 2025.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is located in Southern Utah and encompasses striking red-rock canyons and Native American art and ruins, has long been a spark point in the debate over public land management. The monument was first designated by President Clinton in 1996 under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives presidents the ability to designate national monuments “to provide general legal protection of cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on federal lands.”

Utah politicians, however, have long said that the designation was too large and that its restrictions on resource development were an unnecessary imposition on the local community, prompting the Trump Administration to halve the size of the monument in 2017. The Biden Administration restored its size in 2021, and that decision was upheld in court.

Now, though, Grand Staircase-Escalante is again at the heart of the debate over how to best manage our public lands. “The Antiquities Act was written to protect specific objects and to reserve only the smallest area compatible with their protection,” said Lee in a press release. “Instead, we have a 1.9 million acre, sweeping land-use regime finalized in the last days of a failed president, with generational consequences for rural Utah communities.”

Meanwhile, environmental advocates are slamming the move as an attempt to degrade public land management despite the current management plan being developed with feedback from diverse community members and stakeholders.

“I would argue the plan could not be improved when it comes to outdoor access and the years of local input behind it,” Axie Navas, Director of Designation Campaigns for The Wilderness Society, told MeatEater. “Hunting is allowed in almost the entire monument. Recreational target shooting is allowed in 91% of the monument. Most of the monument is open to grazing, and grazing levels have remained steady since 1996…This plan protects our freedom to explore this special place.”

Jay Banta, a former refuge manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service and a BHA life member, says hunting and fishing opportunities are plentiful within the monument, with opportunities to target species including brown trout, bighorn sheep, mule deer, elk, turkey, and small game.

“There are some really unique hunting opportunities,” Banta said, who’s primarily hunted spring turkey in the designation. “I’ve hunted turkeys in seven or eight states, but there’s no place I’ve been where there are petroglyphs and rock arches and bridges in the middle of a red rock canyon—and really fun and challenging turkey hunting.”

It’s not clear what, exactly, the Utah designation would like to overturn in the current management plan, considering its emphasis on preserving grazing and mixed-use recreational access. Though Utah lawmakers have not explicitly stated what they would like to be changed, Navas and other environmentalists suspect that opening up drilling and energy extraction within the monument are part of the motivation, given Lee’s history on public lands and the stated priorities of the Trump Administration.

“What Lee and [Representative Celeste] Maloy seem to be doing what they are already on the record for doing: sowing chaos in our public land system and trying to dismantle it piece-by-piece,” Navas said. “That is the broader agenda that this seems to be a part of.”

The fight over Grand Staircase-Escalante has broader ramifications than the isolated monument, largely because of Lee’s use of the CRA. Historically, the Congressional Review Act of 1996 has been sparingly used to overturn federally issued “rules.” Beginning in 2025, however, federal lawmakers have begun using the CRA untraditionally, invoking it for everything from dismantling BLM Resource Management Plans (RMPs) to the currently stalled attempt to undo a mining ban in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters. Now, the Lee is turning the tool against a national monument management plan for the first time in history.

“This is precedent-setting and has never happened before,” Navas said. “It enables a handful of Washington politicians to come and swoop in and rewrite management for these beloved public lands.”

Lee’s perspective is that “Congress does not surrender its oversight responsibility simply because an agency labels something a ‘plan’ rather than a ‘rule.’”

However, one of the unknowns for using the CRA to strike a management plan is that it would forbid management agencies from issuing a new rule “that is substantially the same” as the old one. Sources tell MeatEater that how this would play out for a management plan is still unclear, considering its novel use and that most aspects of whatever new plan is instituted would almost certainly closely resemble many of the provisions in the old plan. This dynamic could open the door for litigation, particularly from industry groups.

Under the CRA, a joint resolution requires both houses of Congress to act on it within 60 days, and it cannot be filibustered, meaning it requires a simple majority to pass. Consider making your voice heard on the issue by contacting your local legislators today.

You can’t overlook Wisconsin’s No. 1 ranking when scrolling through the Boone and Crockett Club’s 17,465 record-book entries for white-tailed deer in the Lower 48.

According to B&C’s “Big Game Records Live” online listings, hunters have entered 2,132 Wisconsin bucks (typicals and nontypicals combined) in “the book” since its origins in 1888. That’s 12% of all B&C whitetails for the Lower 48. Wisconsin also produced the legendary “Jordan Buck,” the No. 2 typical B&C whitetail killed in 1914 by Jim Jordan with a .25-20 Winchester in Burnett County.

Four Wisconsin counties rank among the nation’s top 12 counties. Buffalo County is No. 1 with 165 entries; followed by Vernon County, No. 8 with 65; and Richland and Trempealeau, tied for No. 9 through No. 12 with Illinois’ Fulton County and Iowa’s Warren County, with 63.

Wisconsin built much of its B&C dominance recently. From 1999 through 2024, Wisconsin entered 1,537 (72%) of its B&C bucks, which includes 1,105 typicals and 432 nontypicals. That’s 13% of 11,465 B&C whitetails entered from the Lower 48 those years.

Likewise, those top four Wisconsin counties built 78% of their B&C rankings from 1999 to 2024. They also share the same neighborhood in southwestern Wisconsin. The Mississippi River sets the western edges of Buffalo, Trempealeau, and Vernon counties. Just to the southeast, the Wisconsin River forms Richland County’s southern border. If you were a crow and flew from northwestern Buffalo County to the southeastern corner of Richland County, you’d fly 135 miles with one of those four counties beneath your wings for all but 28 miles. And if you hiked that route in summer, you’d seldom leave the shade of oak-dominated woodlands and brushy edges bordering fertile valleys, hillside fields, and stream-fed wetlands.

These deer-rich counties help anchor Wisconsin’s portion of the “Driftless Area,” 24,000 square miles of Midwestern magnificence that also include southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois. This region earned its name from the Laurentide Ice Sheet that bypassed it during the most recent glacial period—the Wisconsin glaciation—15,000 years ago. That great ice sheet never leveled southwestern Wisconsin’s steep hillsides and limestone ridges, nor plowed its dark loess soils and ancient lake bottoms.

The Driftless Area remains lightly developed by today’s standards, and covers all or part of 21 Wisconsin counties. That means 31% of Wisconsin geography produced 780 of the state’s 1,537 (50.7%) B&C bucks for 1999-2024. In fact, the Driftless Area contains nine of Wisconsin’s top 10 B&C counties for 1999-2024 and 16 of its top 21 (76%). The top 10’s only outlier — Polk County, No. 6 with 49 B&C entries — is just 20 miles north of the region.

Unfortunately, the Driftless Area’s many traits that benefit deer — undeveloped landscapes, nutrient-rich soils, abundant croplands, and lengthy river corridors — also helped spread and intensify Wisconsin’s worst outbreaks of chronic wasting disease in the past 25 years. This always-fatal disease kills its victims within 18 to 24 months of contraction. As each case worsens, victims grow increasingly vulnerable to hunting, predation, road-kills, and illnesses like pneumonia.

Wisconsin found its first three CWD cases in 2001 in Dane County on the Driftless Area’s southeastern corner. Those were also the first CWD cases east of the Mississippi River, triggering massive statewide testing (40,147 samples) in 2002. Those tests found 205 more cases, mostly in Dane, 94, and neighboring Iowa County, 107. Next-door Sauk County had two cases, and Richland and Walworth counties found one each. Only Walworth is outside the Driftless Area.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has since identified nearly 16,200 more CWD cases in wild deer, including at least one case in 51 (71%) of the state’s 72 counties. Most cases came from hunter-volunteered samples, even though Wisconsin hasn’t mandated CWD testing since 2012. A 2019 DNR survey found 70% of hunters have never submitted a deer for testing. And only 5.5% of successful hunters submitted deer for testing the past eight years. DNR data also show only 3.4% (352,635) of the 10.44 million Wisconsin deer registered by hunters since 1999 were tested.

The Driftless Area has produced 15,613 (95%) of Wisconsin’s 16,397 CWD cases. During 2025, the region’s 1,820 CWD cases accounted for 89.4% of Wisconsin’s record-setting 2,036 cases. That nearly doubled the 1,064 cases documented only seven years earlier with similar sampling efforts: 17,216 tests in 2018 and 18,262 in 2025.

Further, Wisconsin’s top 12 CWD counties are all in the Driftless Area, and three other Driftless counties make the top 20 CWD list. Iowa County leads with 4,720 cases, followed by Richland, 2,904; Sauk, 2,513; and Dane, 2,100. Only two Driftless counties — Pepin and St. Croix — haven’t detected CWD, while La Crosse County found its first case in 2025.

However, hunters in Driftless Area counties also test deer at higher rates than hunters elsewhere, mainly for food-safety reasons. But more tests don’t guarantee more CWD cases. Jefferson County, just east of the Driftless Area, found its first case in 2005, and has since identified 69 CWD deer from 8,476 (0.8%) tests. Meanwhile, Vernon County (Driftless Area) has found nearly 5 times as many cases (334) with 219 fewer tests (8,257), and didn’t find its first case until 2017, 12 years after Jefferson County’s first.

Wisconsin has taken contradictory approaches to CWD. From 2002 through 2010, the DNR aggressively tried to reduce deer herds across Dane, Iowa, Sauk, Richland and other nearby counties. Those efforts included months-long either-sex gun seasons and earn-a-buck regulation, i.e., register an antlerless deer before shooting an antlered buck.

Those tactics reduced deer herds in Dane, Iowa, Sauk, and Richland counties to an estimated average of 16,740 by late 2011, which kept CWD rates at 4.6% for Dane, 8.6% for Iowa, 3.2% for Sauk, and 1.5% for Richland. But earlier in 2011, state lawmakers outlawed earn-a-buck and forbade gun-hunting before late November’s nine-day firearms season. By 2014, acting on the advice of Gov. Scott Walker’s “deer trustee” — Dr. James Kroll of Texas — “passive CWD management” became state policy).

Deer populations and CWD boomed in response. By 2020, deer numbers increased 92% in those four counties, peaking on average at an estimated 32,139 deer per county. Similarly, CWD rates hit 17% in Dane, 29% in Iowa, 26% in Sauk and 19.6% in Richland.

By 2024, CWD rates flattened to 17% in Dane and 25% in Iowa, but soared to 33% in Sauk and Richland. At those high levels, CWD helped cut deer populations in Dane, Iowa, Sauk and Richland by 13% to 28,035, on average.

So how does Wisconsin’s Driftless Area keep producing record-book bucks despite record-setting CWD cases? For starters, CWD didn’t reach most of Wisconsin’s 21 Driftless Area counties until 15 or more years after its discovery in 2001 and 2002.

Plus, even where prevalent, CWD and deer — and hunters — aren’t evenly distributed. Isolated valleys, woodlots and other pockets of cover can create disease hotspots and deer safe havens. On Dec. 10, 2025, for example, a Dane County hunter, Steven Loomans of Madison, shot a 12-point buck he green-scored at 191-7/8 inches as a typical and 206-6/8 inches as a nontypical 18-pointer.

Further, even in Wisconsin and even without CWD, Booner whitetails are rare. Bucks must reach ages 4½ to 6½ to reach physical maturity and fully express their genetic antler potential. Wisconsin bucks typically face heavy hunting pressure. In 2011, when hunters killed 150,839 bucks statewide, most (54%) were yearlings (18 months old). Still, when a state-record 159 bucks from 2011 entered B&C’s record book the next year (2012), it represented only 0.10% of Wisconsin’s buck kill. (Bucks usually enter B&C’s book the year after they’re killed.)

They’re even rare in Buffalo County. During its biggest B&C years, its 10 B&C entries in 2000 represented 0.33% of its 3,037 buck kill in 1999. And Buffalo County’s 13 B&C bucks in 2010 were 0.42% of its 3,084 buck kill in 2009.

B&C entries also vary annually without obvious changes in predation, hunting pressure, food quality, or winter severity. Even though Buffalo County tallied 109 B&C entries for 1999-2024, it had only one entry in 1999; two entries in 2002, 2018, 2019, and 2020; and zero entries in 2013, 2017, 2023, and 2024.

Therefore, at least for now, you’ll find no distinct trends or CWD-driven warnings when expanding the view to analyze 642 B&C entries for 1999-2024 from 14 productive Driftless Area counties in Wisconsin: Pierce, Pepin, Dunn, Buffalo, Trempealeau, La Crosse, Vernon, Crawford, and Grant, which are on or near the Mississippi River; and Columbia, Dane, Iowa, Sauk, and Richland in CWD’s core area north and west of Madison.

Those 14 counties’ combined B&C entries ping-ponged annually during 1999-2024 — ranging as low as 11 and as high as 60 — even as CWD spread farther across landscapes and more densely within infected herds. Yes, B&C entries for that group fell 11% from 340 in 1999-2011, when CWD was relatively new, to 302 in 2012-2024 entries, when CWD was accelerating. And yes, those counties’ annual B&C totals never fell below 13 (2010) for the 1999-2011 entries, but fell to 12 (2019) and 11 (2024) for the 2012-2024 entries.

Those same 14 counties, however, enrolled 105 B&C bucks the last five years (2020-2024), a 15% increase from 91 the first five years (1999-2003), even as gun-hunter numbers statewide fell 14% from 644,460 in 2012 to 553,652 in 2024.

Bottom line: B&C entries are neither consistent nor predictable. And hunters help make it so. When hunters kill a potential Booner, it’s on them to find a certified scorer to measure the rack, and pay the club its $40 entry fee. Many hunters do neither. Some want to keep things secret. Others care little about antler scores and records.

Shane Indrebo, co-owner of the North American Shed Hunters Club since 2019, knows something about all that. He lives in Buffalo County and grew up helping his parents Tom and Lori operate Bluff Country Outfitters since 1993 from their farm near Cream. Since 2006, Indrebo has also taken studio-quality photos for hunters and their bucks. Each session takes roughly an hour, and one to two hours to edit and organize the images. At $300 per session, Indrebo takes 25 to 30 big-buck portraits during slow years and 50 in good years. That’s over 500 hunters/bucks the past 20 years.

Indrebo isn’t surprised when hunters don’t enter lower-end Booners in the book. To qualify for B&C’s all-time records, a whitetail’s rack must net-score 170 inches as a “typical” or 195 inches as a “nontypical.” Those minimums have been B&C standards since at least 1968.

“A large majority of big bucks never go into the record books, but I also think most elite bucks end up in the books,” Indrebo told MeatEater.

Indrebo said “elite” bucks score in the high 180s to low 190s as typicals, and 220s to 230s as nontypicals.

“Some bucks get labeled ‘200’ when they’re shot, but by the time they dry 60 days and get measured, a 189 nontypical won’t get entered,” he said. “Some guys will say, ‘I don’t want my name in no book.’ But when it’s a 189 typical, they start hearing some crap. When their buddies show interest, they realize it’s special. They feel peer pressure to go to a deer show and get it scored.”

Indrebo thinks Buffalo County’s B&C dominance isn’t just habitat, herd size, and limestone bluffs. “You see similar habitats throughout the Driftless Area,” he said. “Some of the biggest racks and sheds we’ve scored come from Richland County (80 miles to the southeast). But I’m not surprised there’s fewer entries across the (Mississippi) River in Minnesota. A lot of their record-book entries are from before 2000. Things are different there; maybe because their gun season opens during the rut in early November, two weeks before our (gun) season.”

Dan Storm, the Wisconsin DNR’s deer-research scientist, said B&C entries are as much about people as deer. “There’s more of a tradition for entering deer in some areas,” Storm told MeatEater. “Buffalo County has twice as many entries as Trempealeau County (109 vs. 52 for 1999-2024), but there’s no way Buffalo County produces twice as many bucks worthy of entry. Those counties border each other, and they’re nearly identical in size and habitat.” (Buffalo County covers 709 square miles, of which 527 (74%) square miles is deer range. Trempealeau County covers 742 square miles, and 514 (69%) is deer range.)

In contrast, two Minnesota counties across the Mississippi River registered just over half as many Booners for 1999-2024 as Trempealeau County’s 52. Winona County had 29 B&C entries those years and Wabasha 27. South of there, Houston County had 42 entries. Iowa’s northeastern counties along the Mississippi River differed little. Allamakee County had 39 entries for 1999-2024, followed by Dubuque, 36; and Clayton, 34. Across the river in northwestern Illinois, Jo Daviess County had 35 entries.

All eight of those Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois counties are in the Driftless Area, as are Wisconsin’s eight river-border counties. But of Wisconsin’s eight counties on the Mississippi River, only Pierce, 41 entries; Pepin, 27; and La Crosse, 23; had fewer B&C entries than Houston Counties’ 42: Buffalo,109; Vernon, 57; Trempealeau, 52; Crawford, 49; and Grant, 42.

MeatEater’s Spencer Neuharth, host of the MeatEater Trivia podcast, links Wisconsin’s B&C dominance more to pride than deer habitats or genetics. “It’s anecdotal, but I think Wisconsin has a prouder group of hunters than anywhere else in the country,” Neuharth said. “Part of that pride is entering their names in the record book. I love that. It's really cool. I’m jealous of it, actually.”

The late Charles Kuralt of CBS-TV News made similar comments about Wisconsin in the early 1980s after touring the state for his “On the Road” reports. Kuralt noted the state’s small-town pride in Hayward, which proclaimed itself the “Musky Capital of the World;” and Fremont, the “White Bass Capital of the World;” Monroe, the “Swiss Cheese Capital of the World;” Eau Claire, the “Horseradish Capital of the World;” and Iola, the “Bowhunting Capital of the World.” Kuralt finally exclaimed, “Wisconsin is the capital of the capitals of the world.”

Make no mistake: Neuharth thinks Wisconsin’s B&C entries are legitimate, whether it’s all-time (2,132 Booners) or 1999-2024 (1,537). Still, he doubts Wisconsin hunters killed 32% more Booner-class bucks in 1999-2024 than did Illinois hunters (1,168 entries) or 157% more than Texas hunters (599 entries).

“My argument gets stronger when you look at Boone and Crockett black bear entries,” Neuharth said. “Wisconsin kills about as many black bears (3,724 in 2025, and 4,432 in 2024) as any state, but it has over twice as many Booner black-bears (959, all-time) as second-place Pennsylvania (467), and nearly four times as many as Alaska (257).

“Buffalo County also has three black bear entries,” Neuharth continued. “That’s the same amount as Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods County and more than Montana’s Flathead County (2). Both of those counties are much bigger, and have better bear habitat than Buffalo County. So, all that feels inflated.”

Then again, that awareness suggests that if one state could use B&C entries to detect trends in CWD data, it’s Wisconsin. And when it comes to antler size, what’s the alternative? No state wildlife agency maintains systems for scoring antlers and cataloguing big bucks annually, historically or regionally. Nor do states track how many bucks taxidermists handle each year. And even if states tracked taxidermy workloads, how would they account for business fluctuations caused by economic factors, hunting-license sales, hunting and habitat conditions, and perceptions of each taxidermist’s skills or pricing?

If this were all about science, and not wall-worthy antlers, the best method is age-class data. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin DNR hasn’t systematically collected those details since 2015. That’s when it ended mandatory in-person deer registration and switched to mandatory electronic registration. Although the agency could impose temporary in-person check stations to collect data, Wisconsin’s political climate has blocked that option.

Storm, the Wisconsin DNR researcher, thinks CWD is probably reducing big-buck numbers, but he can’t predict or specify how it affects B&C entries. “That’s a different question,” he said.

Wisconsin native Jim Heffelfinger, the wildlife science coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, thinks it’s still too soon to identify CWD’s impacts on B&C entries, or the age structure of Wisconsin bucks.

“At this point, the numbers you’re showing are erratic,” Heffelfinger told MeatEater after looking at the 1999-2024 B&C data for southwestern Wisconsin. “It’s like the saying about measuring with a micrometer, marking with chalk, and cutting with an ax. Those numbers so far lack the resolution to detect anything caused by CWD. It would be better to get all the age-structure data and analyze that.”

Professor Mike Chamberlain at the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry made similar comments. Chamberlain helped do a 2021-2024 study of CWD’s impacts on Arkansas’ deer herds. The four-year project documented CWD reduced Arkansas’ deer numbers 17% annually, on average; with buck densities declining 23% annually.

“There’s nothing obvious in (Wisconsin’s 1999-2024 B&C data) at this time, but I think it’s too soon,” Chamberlain told MeatEater. “You wonder what those numbers will look like in 10 years, or maybe 20 or 30 years. At some point, it seems logical the numbers would have to drop off, given the high CWD prevalence in some Wisconsin counties.”

Meanwhile, CWD rates mostly keep rising in Wisconsin, even though it hasn’t spread at the same rate in every direction, nor does it infect herds equally, no matter their numbers or population densities. In general, CWD in Wisconsin spreads faster in areas with clay-based soils, rural corridors, and areas of connected woodlands, abundant edge cover and high percentages of deer range. On the other hand, it spreads slower in sand-based soils, well developed areas, and open agricultural areas with large cultivated fields.

For example, Madison’s metro area with 700,000 residents has hampered CWD’s spread in eastern Dane County and beyond. Also, a four-lane highway heading west from Madison helps separate northern Iowa County from its southern half. CWD isn’t as prevalent in the relatively open agricultural landscapes south of the highway, which extend into Lafayette County and then Illinois. But CWD prevalence remains high north of that highway in Iowa County’s oak ridges, brushy ravines, and edge-rich valleys.

A recent eight-year DNR study by Storm’s team in northern Iowa County found CWD kills more female deer than do hunters once an area’s infection rate for does hits 29%. That rate has been exceeded across many parts of Dane, Iowa, Sauk and Richland counties. The rates are more obvious at the township level (36 square miles), than at the larger county-level scale. For 2025, Richland County’s CWD rate was 36% overall (both sexes), while CWD rates for its 16 townships ranged from lows of 21% and 23.5% to highs of 44% and 50%.

Regional CWD prevalence charts in 2024 also show those differences:

–Iowa County’s CWD rates in 12 regional charts vary from 25% to 47% for adult bucks, and 20% to 35% in adult females.

–Sauk County’s CWD rates in 10 regional charts vary from 30% to 58% for adult bucks, and 19% to 38% for adult females.

–Richland County’s CWD rates in eight regional charts vary from 40% to 55% for adult bucks, and 25% to 30% for adult females;

–Dane County’s CWD rates in two regional charts range from 25% to 35% for adult bucks, and 22% to 23% for adult females.

–Northwest Columbia County’s CWD rate was 55% for adult bucks and 35% for adult does.

–Northeastern Grant County’s CWD rate was 45% for adult bucks and 33% for adult does.

Meanwhile, many hunters in Wisconsin’s core CWD counties don’t need B&C data to confirm what they’re seeing firsthand. In Iowa County, buck kills have plummeted since gun-hunters killed a record 4,738 antlered bucks in 1995, and 1,978 bucks in 2011. During November 2024’s nine-day gun season, they registered 916 bucks. And during November 2025’s nine-day gun season, they registered 894 bucks. The last time Iowa County’s buck kill was near or below 900 in back-to-back gun seasons was 1970 and 1971—55 years ago.

Jason Munz grew up on his family’s farm in Iowa County, which had 33 B&C entries for 1999-2024. Munz arrowed a 12-pointer with an 18-inch spread in November 2023. That’s his biggest buck since he began bowhunting at age 12 in 1993. Even so, Munz said deer hunting grew increasingly difficult as CWD spread death. His family rarely found dead-heads during his youth, but his father found six in Spring 2023 alone, including one scoring 140 inches.

“When we see a big buck on our trail cameras, if we don’t shoot him that year, we never see him again,” Munz told MeatEater. “Maybe someone on a nearby farm got him, but we don’t know. They just disappear.”

Likewise, Paul Annear grew up bowhunting on his family’s farm in Richland County, which entered 59 B&C bucks for 1999-2024, including eight Booners in 2012, six in 2005, and four in 2011and 2021.

CWD took roughly 15 years to reach Annear’s land from its original sites 40-plus miles to the southeast, but eight of 11 deer he’s killed since 2019 had the disease. He has no doubt CWD—not hunters or epizootic hemorrhagic disease—decimated his area’s herd the past five to six years. Plus, neither the Annears nor their neighbors changed their buck or doe management those years.

In 2020, Annear had at least one photo of 30 different bucks he estimated to be ages 3.5 or older. But in 2024 and again in 2025, his trail-cameras photographed only eight to 10 bucks in that age class, even with 20 more trail-cameras on his family’s 115-acre property than in 2020.

His trail-cameras also photograph sick, skeletal deer in their fields, woods, or creek. “So many people claim those sick, skinny deer are EHD victims,” Annear said. “But deer dying from CWD also go to water, and they live long enough to waste away. EHD kills deer in five to 10 days. That’s too quick for deer to lose much weight.” Further, EHD only strikes sporadically, and only in short outbreaks from late summer through the first frost.

Annear’s experience echoes what brothers Lloyd and Mike Purnell report farther east in Richland County. In 2006, the Purnells’ four properties covering 700 acres were CWD-free. In 2019, they found 10 dead deer. In 2020, they found eight bodies before April, usually just inside the woods near fields with cut corn or other crops. One doe died surrounded by corn.

During 2024, the Purnells and their friends shot 20 deer by mid-December. Nine (45%)—all bucks—had CWD. One year their properties’ overall infection rate hit 55%, with roughly half being does. In 2025, eight of 14 bucks (57%) they shot had CWD. “We had a 140-class buck running around last fall, but that’s the biggest we’ve seen in a while,” Purnell told MeatEater.

What lies ahead, now that Wisconsin’s CWD detection rates set records the past four years and seven of the past 10?

Bryan Richards was the U.S. Geological Survey’s longtime emerging-disease coordinator until retiring recently after decades of CWD work. Richards foresees a “new equilibrium” for deer herds in CWD-endemic areas. That means high disease rates, lower deer numbers, smaller and younger herds, and few “trophy” bucks.

“At some point, it’s impossible Wisconsin won’t see fewer (B&C) bucks,” Richards told MeatEater. “How many bucks can reach age 5½ in counties where young bucks have a 20% chance of having CWD at 18 months, and a 40% chance by age 4½ and 5½? Not many. A true Boone and Crockett whitetail is really, really rare to start with. With CWD, put a couple more ‘reallys’ in that phrase. CWD kills every deer that gets it, including half the bucks that must reach maturity to grow huge antlers. ‘Rare’ is a small number. ‘None’ is even smaller.”

How will CWD affect Wisconsin’s top five B&C counties, four of which didn’t detect the disease until 2015 or later?

–No. 1 Buffalo County’s first CWD case was 2022. It now has 34 cases. Its 2025 detection rate was 4.3%

–No. 2 Richland’s first case was 2002. It now has 2,904. Its 2025 detection rate: 36%.

–No. 3 Vernon’s first case was 2017. It now has 334. Its 2025 detection rate: 14%.

–No. 4 Trempealeau’s first case was 2023. It now has 22. Its 2025 detection rate: 4.2%.

–No. 5 Crawford’s first case was 2015. It now has 263. Its 2025 detection rate: 13.2%.

Storm said there’s no reason CWD won’t infect Buffalo and Trempealeau counties any differently than it did Richland, Vernon or Crawford. All five of those counties have fertile soils and high percentages of deer habitat. Buffalo County is 74% deer range; and Richland is 81%; Vernon, 71%; Trempealeau, 69%; and Crawford, 81%.

Once CWD detection rates hit 5%, the disease is considered “endemic.” That is, it’s not going away. After CWD reached 5% in Sauk, Iowa and Richland counties, it hit 10% to 15% within three years. If Buffalo and Trempealeau’s CWD rates follow suit, their infections would hit 10% by 2028 and 20% by 2031. And if Buffalo and Trempealeau infections mimic Richland’s, CWD rates would surpass 30% around 2035.

Mike Purnell and Paul Annear long feared CWD would hurt Richland County’s deer herd, and now they’re living with its impacts.

“Deer numbers are way down, and big bucks are nonexistent,” Mike Purnell said. “It’s a new world because of CWD.”

Annear doesn’t think whitetails will vanish from his area, but the average age of “mature” bucks has dropped from 5½ to 6½ to 3½ and 4½ for his area. If he could go back to when CWD first appeared, he would encourage and follow more aggressive deer management.

“It’s not too late in many areas of the country to do something,” Annear said. “Ignoring CWD might help short-term hunting opportunities, but it doesn’t protect the future of deer and deer hunting. I doubt there’s a perfect way to manage CWD, but sitting around accepting it doesn’t seem right, either.”

It's turkey week and Brent's got a tale hot of the presses from a recent trip to Mississippi. The ups and downs of chasing the King of Spring are well described oil this epic hunt with good friends down in the Magnolia State. This is so good it should be a movie, and it is! You’ll be able to see this hunt from First Lite very soon. Until then enjoy the narrative version right here on MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast.

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In March of 2025 Mississippi passed Senate Bill 2280, creating the state’s first required turkey stamp for turkey hunters. Funds from this new stamp are earmarked for wild turkey conservation, supporting habitat restoration, management, and research.

The 2026 season marks the first year that hunters must purchase a stamp alongside a Mississippi hunting license. Non-exempt residents will pay just $10, and the tag will cost non-residents $100 and is required for both private and public lands.

“Our state is a special place for turkey hunting,” Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks Executive Director Lynn Posey said. “The Wild Turkey Stamp ensures Mississippi will remain at the forefront of turkey conservation for future generations.”

The Magnolia State’s new turkey stamp not only ensures long-term funding for turkey conservation, but it also reveals concerted efforts at the state and national level to address the Southeast’s declining turkey numbers over the past quarter century. Collaboration between MDWFP and the NWTF’s Mississippi chapter provided a catalyst for the passing of SB2280, bringing the turkey stamp to life.

In a similar move, the state of Georgia has proposed HB432, which would require hunters to possess a turkey permit in addition to a general hunting license starting after the 2027 season. Permits would be free for residents and $100 for nonresidents. It’s unclear at this point if the funds would be earmarked specifically for turkey research or wildlife conservation more broadly.

Mississippi opened its 2026 spring season on March 14. Hunters can purchase their turkey stamps online or in person anywhere licenses are sold.

Feature image of turkey stamp via MDWFP.

Most turkey hunters love to watch longbeards put on “the show.” There’s nothing quite like a tom gobbling his head off as he struts all the way to your gun barrel with iridescent feathers gleaming in the sun. Unfortunately, that’s not the case most of the time. Even though I’ll hunt four states and guide half a dozen hunters this year, I might get to see the show one or two times if I’m lucky.

In fact, most of the time the show gets canceled. This happens often in the early season when the toms are henned-up and spend the entire day shadowing their flock. Instead of calling it quits, I like to pivot to an ambush hunt. Merriam-Webster defines "ambush" as “to attack by surprise from a hidden place.” There are other methods of getting close to noncommittal birds too, like spot-and-stalk or reaping (the act of crawling behind a tail fan to get within range), but this is about finding a good hiding spot and waiting for the birds to come to you.

The keys to a good ambush are patience and knowing where the turkeys want to be and when they want to be there. Hopefully, you can glean some insights from the hunts detailed below for when the show inevitably gets cancelled for you.

On my first day turkey hunting in Florida, I heard distant gobbles on the roost. I chased a few of those distant gobbles for the next hour until the jungle went quiet. So, I decided to pound some miles and look for sign.

By the time 11 am rolled around, the heat became unbearable. I circumnavigated a large opening, hundreds of acres big, but I wasn’t expecting to see birds in those conditions. So, I was quite surprised when I saw a flock of turkeys fleeing that opening. It was disheartening to spook the only birds I laid eyes on that day. Instead of chasing them, I went to investigate why they were there.

I immediately noticed a lot of dust bowls. Another road intersected the road I was on and trailed into the woods. The road showed lots of tracks going both directions. I figured the flock would be back the next day at about the same time and made note of it.

After a similar morning to the first, Richard, Garrett, and I headed back to the dust bowl spot around 10 am the next day. We hid in the shaded woods just off the road. After a few minutes, we watched the first hens peck their way down the road. Moments later, the first tail fan emerged. Eventually, the tom gave me a shot, and Richard turned his legs into arepas the next day, which you can watch here. No, it wasn’t the typical show, but it was a successful ambush and a delicious way to eat turkey legs.

Max Barta and I were hunting Rios with Jesse Griffiths in Texas early last spring. Max and I roosted birds the night before, which made for great listening the next morning, but we could not convince the flock to come our way. Once the birds left our zone and went quiet, we looked at onX and realized they were headed in the general direction of a crossroads where Jesse had killed birds before. It was a spot where two grassy senderos (paths cut through Texas brush) met.

Knowing the birds traveled the senderos, we decided to set up where they intersected. We made a big loop, found a few big shrubs we could lean on, nestled in, and waited. About 45 minutes passed, and as I started thinking about our next move, Max whispered, “Here they come.”

The flock filtered in and out of the brush. When a strutter entered my periphery at less than five yards, I couldn’t shoot. I was afraid to swing my gun barrel and spook the entire flock. I waited, and he eventually strutted right into my red dot.

“Blauksh” went the twenty gauge, and a few days later Jesse made the best fried turkey tender, mashed potato, and biscuit meal I’ve ever tasted. This was a travel route that these turkeys had probably taken thousands of times in their lives. We just needed to be there.

After three super early mornings in Nebraska’s Ponderosa pines, Brody Henderson and I were dragging our tails, with no dead turkeys to show for our efforts. We just could not seem to convince either of the toms to come our way after flydown. It occurred to me that these birds had shown a high fidelity to this roost location. There was a good chance they’d be back again. And this time, we’d be waiting for them.

We went back early that afternoon, just as the light was thinking about turning golden and soft. We planned to split the ridge. Brody would hunt the north end, and I would set up on the south end. As I crested the hill, I saw a hen and a tom feeding around the curve of a small finger ridge. I dropped back, made a small loop ahead of them, slipped over the main ridge, and sat down quickly next to a towering ponderosa. I readied my gun in the direction the birds should come from. They stuck to their path of travel, and I soon had a bird flopping down the grassy slope.

The average turkey uses about 200 acres per day. Within those 200 acres are places they want to be, whether it’s for roosting, water, food, or loafing. Your job is to find these places and intercept the turkeys as they move between them. So next time the gobblers don’t want to play, don’t quit. Instead, head to the nearest spot you know they hang out late-morning and set the ambush.

I’d been having a back-and-forth with a bird since he flew down from the roost. I would stroke a few whispered yelps on my pot call, and he’d thunder back a response that echoed off the hardwoods. He was working his way toward me, but it was slow going. It was obvious he wanted the hen he thought I was to come to him. He didn’t want to step a single toe into the little clearing where I set up.

I set a hen decoy just at the edge of the brush where I sat, hoping it might be enough to coax that wary gobbler off the neighbor’s property and into my lap. After a solid 20 minutes of small talk, I finally caught a bob of red, white, and blue just inside the neighbor’s tree line. Then he threw up a fan. I yelped a few more times, striker against glass. He dropped the fan, and I thought the jig was up. But then he let loose one more gobble before making a beeline for my decoy. I squeezed the trigger on the 20-gauge before he closed half the distance.

Decoys aren’t magic. For every successful decoy hunt, there are probably five busts. Done right, they can turn a wary gobbler into dinner. Done wrong, they can send him running. But getting the placement, posture, and timing right can help tip the odds in your favor. Decoys aren’t a failsafe. There are times when you’re better off without them. Here are a few things to consider before you lug that full decoy spread into the woods.

There’s plenty of debate in the turkey hunting world about a turkey’s intelligence. A lot of that comes from the fact that these birds, with brains the size of a walnut, regularly outsmart even the most experienced turkey hunters.

Here’s the truth. Wild turkeys aren’t solving complex equations or writing poetry. They don’t need to. What they have is a survival instinct that’s been sharpened over millennia as a prey species, and it shows up in ways that regularly frustrate turkey hunters.

Part of that edge is their eyesight, which borders on unfair. They can see about three times sharper than a hunter with 20/20 vision, and they catch movement at distances that don’t seem possible until you witness it.

Turkeys know what a turkey is supposed to look like. Their eyesight is sharp enough to pick apart the details, and those details matter. Think about how you react to a department store mannequin. For a split second, it might pass as a person. Then the cracks show. No movement. Stiff posture. Skin that looks wrong. It only takes a heartbeat to realize it isn’t real. A gobbler does the same thing with a decoy.

A decoy doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be convincing long enough to stall that moment of doubt. Sometimes that’s lifelike paint. Sometimes it’s a little natural movement. Either way, you’re buying time.

And not all birds react the same. Young gobblers are easier to fool. I’ve had jakes stick around strutting at a hen decoy with their buddy lying dead a few feet away. They come in curious and reckless. Longbeards and seasoned old hens are a different story. They’ve seen enough to be suspicious. They rarely rush in.

I’ve watched a good decoy pull a bird those last few yards when calling alone wouldn’t get it done. I’ve also watched a gobbler hit the brakes, stare holes through a setup, and disappear like he’d seen a ghost. Same hunter. Same gear. Different bird.

Certain situations make decoys more trouble than they’re worth. Birds that have been pressured, whether through a long season or on public land, have survived close calls and probably seen some unnatural setups. They are more likely to give your decoys the side-eye and a wide berth than to come in close.

Hunting public land with decoys, where they are as likely to draw the attention of another hunter as they are a gobbler, can put your safety at risk. You might not have a problem with this in the plains states, but toting decoys east of the Mississippi on public land can be risky. If you’re hunting thicker vegetation, the risk might not be worth the reward.

It’s also a smart move to skip the decoys in the fall, when gobblers are more interested in feeding and moving through the woods than they are with chasing the ladies.

And if you’re running and gunning, moving quickly to cut off birds, decoys can slow you down.

These are all situations where it’s better to just leave the decoys in the truck.

Decoys can pull a hesitant bird in or make a cautious bird suspicious. The key isn’t just knowing how to use them. It’s just as important to know when not to use them. Sometimes the best setup is no setup at all.

Join Rich Froning and the Mayhem Hunt crew, on In Pursuit, as they break down what it looks like to bring your family into the hunting lifestyle and why it matters more than the hunt itself.

From getting kids involved early to balancing time away, this episode covers how to make the outdoors something your family actually enjoys. The guys share real moments—from missed shots to backyard campouts—and practical ways to make it fun, not forced. They also touch on the upcoming Mayhem Hunt Camp and why it’s built for anyone looking to get started the right way.

At the end of the day, it’s not just about the hunt, it’s about investing in your family and becoming better because of it.

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