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This week, Cal tells you about a green energy plan to launch mirrors into space, a concerning tale of potential hunter harassment, an ancient wolf with a stomach-full of wolly rhino, and so much more.

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Editor's Note: This article has been updated since original publication.

It’s a cool, misty morning in the rolling hills and sand dunes northeast of Casper, Wyoming. It’s the middle of archery elk season—September 18, to be exact. A handful of bulls are bugling and fighting before dawn as Mark (a pseudonym, at request of the hunter) and his three buddies move into position. Both the elk and the hunters are on a small parcel of state land surrounded mostly by private ranches, save for a sliver of BLM through which the hunters hiked in from a nearby county road. It’s the last morning of what’s been a difficult few days of hunting, but it’s finally on.

As the sun begins to rise, a faint buzzing grows louder and louder overhead. Mark recounts to MeatEater what happened next: “As soon as the sun cleared the horizon, we saw a plane in the sky. Soon afterward four-wheelers joined the plane in pushing the elk out of the area. Two from our group were in the elk, one pinned down—surrounded—as the plane made pass after pass on the elk.” Mark said that three ATVs joined the mix. From his perspective, it looked as though they were pushing the elk off the state land and onto private, as though they were herding cattle.

But herding cattle is exactly what the plane was doing. "Perhaps the hunters only saw a few cows due to the topography, but over three hundred pair were moved out of the pasture, and probably a third were in the vicinity of the hunters that morning," said Peter Nicolaysen, co-owner of the ranch.

Regardless, the hunt was blown. Mark and his buddies, pissed off, snapped some pictures and videos of the plane—a small blue-and-white single-prop—and began the trek back to their cars. But they weren’t in the clear yet.

“While leaving, we were shadowed by one of the four-wheelers, which eventually confronted us for recording and taking pictures,” Mark said. “Soon after another joined, shadowing but not confronting us. The plane circled us, keeping track of our location and finally the last four-wheeler showed up—the ranch foreman or owner [identified later as Jon Nicolaysen, a co-owner of Cole Creek Sheep Company]. We were accused of attempted poaching, hunting out-of-season, and finally a threat of getting us charged with trespassing.”

At the time, the hunting party was standing on public land, with valid archery elk tags in their pockets. All three hunters told MeatEater that there are always cows present in the area, but on that particular day there were only a few in the vicinity. From their vantages, the plane and four-wheelers didn't appear to be near the cattle.

The video and ranching staff tell a different story. "In the video, you can see and hear, clear as day, a cow in the immediate vicinity of the hunters," Peter told MeatEater. "The plane circles above the cows so that the ATVs can then pinpoint their approximate location. We are a small crew, and the plane saves us a lot of time and from having to go back days later to pick up a few head."

Mark, and two other members of the hunting party, recall the interaction as tense and confrontational. According to Mark, Jon told the hunters that “he would feel bad if we were hunting deer or antelope, but he had to move his cattle, and the elk were in the way.” After the conversation, Mark called the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) to report what had happened.

Jon, however, recalled the interaction differently. “I felt like the interaction was positive,” he told MeatEeater. “It was like, ‘Hey guys, I was just checking to see where you were, and sorry, we’re moving all these cows.’ And I guess maybe that’s not how they thought it was, but I certainly wasn’t trying to intimidate. I felt like it was a friendly encounter.”

Jon said he might’ve been confused about recent changes to elk tags in the area, but maintains that he never demanded to see tags, and that it’s not his job to check, anyways.

The ranch, he explained, has contracted with a private pilot for about a decade to round up cattle in the area, both on private rangeland and on adjacent public land for which the ranch has grazing leases. The area has rolling topography, making it hard to locate cows, especially if they’re tucked into draws and depressions between sand dunes. Using a plane makes it easier to spot the cows, and their location is then communicated down to the ranch hands on ATVs.

Sometimes there’s unfortunate overlap with elk, Jon explained: “We have never done anything like use an airplane to harass or herd wildlife. And harassing hunters, that is not at all what we were doing. Now, I acknowledge that it might have ruined their hunt. But if you have elk and cattle in the same 100 yards or whatever, and we’re relying on the airplane to help us find the livestock, then, you know that’s kind of the way it goes. We’re not chasing the wildlife away. We’re not chasing the hunters away. And if the pilot says, ‘Hey, I think there’s some guys on the ground out here, just so you know,’ then because the land is not fenced separately and it’s split ownership out there, I do have the right as a private landowner to kind of see if they are abiding where they’re supposed to be.”

Jon said he’d had the day planned to move cows for a long time, and he couldn’t change his ranch operations on account of hunters in the area. Indeed, Mark and his hunting buddies corroborated that before the 18th, they’d had several days of good, uninterrupted hunting in the same spot.

The whole interaction that day could’ve been chalked up as an unlucky run-in between public land user-groups if the story had ended there. But it didn’t. One of the ranch hands recognized someone in the hunting party as a prominent member of the local community, and passed that information along to ranch management.

That afternoon, one of the hunters received a text message from Peter Nicolaysen—Jon’s brother. Peter texted the hunter, asking for the names of everyone in the hunting party, and questioning why the hunters had reported the incident to WGFD. The text string, which MeatEater viewed, left a salty taste in the hunter’s mouth.

Peter, who was busy gathering cows on the opposite side of a 10,000 acre pasture and had no interaction with the hunters in the field, told a slightly different story of the text interactions. "Our employee was visibly shaken from the event and was able to identify Mark. I wanted to understand whether the employee had reported the information to me accurately and since I had Mark’s cell number, I texted him and asked to see the video he took to make sure everything went as reported. There was never any request for contact information and certainly nothing was stated to suggest an intent to intimidate or even contact the individuals. Mark declined to give me the names and videos and accused the ranch employees of harassment."

Ultimately, two Wyoming game wardens and a BLM law enforcement officer paid the ranch a visit to assess the situation. WGFD declined to comment, but Jon said that no citations were issued.

Still, something about it didn’t sit right with Mark. This wasn’t a one-off experience. Mark said that he hunted the area roughly 20 to 25 days this fall, and estimates that he saw a plane in the air about 95% of the time, and that from his vantage, “the elk were under that plane or darn close to it every time.” Other public-land hunters, he added, have similar stories from hunting in the area.

However, just because hunters saw a plane in the area, doesn't mean it was connected to the ranch. "This was not our plane (we don’t have any aircraft)," Peter explained to MeatEater in an email. "The pilot was not our employee, and he doesn’t coordinate with us when or where he flies. What we do know is that the plane was helping us gather cows one time in this pasture, and two times in the adjacent pastures from August through October. If the plane was in the vicinity above our ranch on other occasions, it had nothing to do with us, and we were not and are not aware of it."

“Threatening hunters on public land and harassing them is beyond okay,” Mark said. “Harassing wildlife is another disgusting practice as well. Making excuses, trying to find hunters that are involved, and possibly attempting to intimidate them…that doesn’t work for me.”

On the ranch’s behalf, Jon said a couple phone calls before the hunt could’ve gone a long way. “He doesn’t need my permission to get to BLM or state land if it’s legally accessible…but it would be kind of nice if somebody is like, ‘Look, I got four guys, we saved up all this time and money to hunt, this is the day we’re going to go out there, this is the week we want to go out there.’ I mean, I’m easy to find. I could have said, ‘Hey, I am so sorry, but I’ve got this airplane and we’re moving 600 cows and we’re going to be in and out of there. If you can do it like the day before or the day after, it’ll probably be a much better hunt.’”

There are different interpretations of what occurred out on the Wyoming prairie that day in mid-September. What is clear, however, is an underlying tension between public-land hunters and landowners in the area. In this case, the hunters were understandably upset that their hunt had been ruined. And the ranchers, for their part, might not have exercised very good discretion by engaging them. The mutual respect that guides interactions in the field was lacking.

Ultimately, Casper is a small community—the hunters, ranchers, and law enforcement mentioned in this article could all contact each other with one or two phone calls. Though unconfirmed, there doesn’t seem to be any ongoing investigations in the incident, leaving it a matter of morals and ethics in acting while afield, both for hunters and landowners.

It's no secret that snow and ice can disrupt the lives of people who don't get a lot of it. Brent's no different, and it may affect him more than most. He's snowed in at his studio and talking about a smorgasbord of things today that may or may not go together. You'll just have to listen and see what we mean. It's random stories time on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.

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Hosts Brody Henderson, Seth Morris, and Cory Calkins chat with Chef Lukas Leaf of Modern Carnivore and Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters about the recent threats to one of our county's most cherished wild places, stage a crew Hot Tip Off, talk with NWF's Jeremy Romero, and read some listener emails.

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An Idaho man recently received his just desserts after a slew of wildlife infractions that authorities were able to identify because of his shockingly careless attempt to dispose of the evidence.

According to an Idaho Fish & Game (IDFG) press release, the investigation began in early October 2024 when a local rancher came upon a cardboard box filled with deer hide, bones, hooves, and blood—well before the season opened. The rancher reported the box to a local IDFG officer, who soon realized that the box actually still had a shipping label affixed to it containing a local address. Seriously.

The officer went to that address and met with property owner Carl Van Loon of Cottonwood, Idaho. Initially, Van Loon denied that the box belonged to him. Then, presented with the label, he claimed someone must have taken it from his dumpster. The officer, unsurprisingly, told Van Loon that he doubted that was the case and suspected he would find fresh deer meat in Van Loon’s coolers, which prompted the man to admit to illegally poaching the deer 12 days before the season and without any valid hunting license or tag. The IDFG officer seized the meat and antlers and issued a citation.

But Van Loon’s mind-numbingly bad decisions didn’t end there. The next day, the same IDFG officer was patrolling the area when he heard a rifle shot from Van Loon’s property. Upon arriving, he found a hunting blind set up near a salt block, water trough, and feeder, despite baiting for elk and deer being illegal in the state.

After executing a search warrant, the IDFG officer found more evidence of baiting, as well as photos and texts with evidence of multiple poached deer and an illegally taken moose. Van Loon eventually took a plea deal that resulted in 10 days of incarceration, $10,000 in civil penalties, and a lifetime hunting, fishing, and trapping ban.

“What do you care what I do on my own property?” Van Loon had told the IDFG during his initial interview with a fish and game officer. “I’m not hurting nobody by grabbing deer and putting them in my freezer.”

However, as an IDFG spokesperson put it, “wildlife belongs to all of us. By taking game illegally, Van Loon was stealing wildlife from his neighbors who enjoyed viewing them. Van Loon was stealing the chance for Idaho sportspersons to be allowed a legal opportunity for fair and ethical chase under Idaho’s game laws.”

And after trying to dispose of the evidence in a box with his own address on it…it’s no surprise he got caught.

Featured images via IDFG.

On the surface, spotting scopes have limited applications for most hunters. The whitetail crowd can put them to use for dialing in summertime bachelor groups munching away in the beans. The western crowd can employ them for on-the-job recon to locate bedded mulies, bands of early-season elk in the high country, and really any stalkable critter.

That might be good enough, but it doesn’t have to be. There are ways to utilize long-range glassing to not only monitor critters, but figure out exactly how you can either ambush them, or crawl into range before you run out of daylight. One of the best ways I’ve found to do both is to utilize a phone scope to film the action, and then review it in real time.

For the bulk of my freelance writing career, I carried an elk-hunt-sized pack with me almost everywhere I went. This was simply so I could lug along my DSLR camera gear. It doesn’t take long with a camera body and a couple of lenses to fill up a daypack, and it was a nonnegotiable part of my hunting.

It also made me realize that if I spotted a bedded mule deer in the breaks somewhere, I could take a high-resolution image of it, no matter how far away it was, and then zoom in to see not only the deer, but the trees around it. The lay of the land. The routes I might take to get into bow range, and often, whether he had any buddies with him that might blow the stalk.

It didn’t take me long to realize that the same option existed with whitetails. Whether I was trying to dial in an exact tree to kill a velvet buck in early September, or figure out what cottonwood to set up in for a cruiser on a western river bottom, the option to take a picture and zoom in just helped me understand my potential setups before ever going into the red zone.

Nowadays, I don’t need to use my high-end Nikon for that job. I can just use a phone scope adapter, which is way better for a couple of reasons.

Two years ago, I posted up on a peak above the Little Missouri River in western North Dakota to glass for whitetails. I saw a pile of them, and I filmed every decent buck I saw when I could get them to stay visible long enough.

In the moment, it was just fun to see a bunch of public land bucks doing their thing, but later in my tent while I was planning out my hunt, the videos showed their true value. I could watch them, and zoom in to fence crossing to analyze potential stand trees and ground blind sites. I could see exactly how they crossed the river, and which trail they took up the bank to feed.

While I could see all of that in real-time when I was watching, I wouldn’t be able to remember specifics from each potential location by the time I walked in to hunt, which might be days later due to the weather or some other factor. The buck that crosses the river half a mile away looks so simple until you hike in three days later and realize that in a 200-yard stretch, there are five crossings, and you’re not confident on which one he took.

The downside of having a spotter fitted with a phone scope is that it’s distracting. You’ll want to film every critter and take pictures. There is nothing wrong with that, but it can result in a little mission creep. The goal is to figure out how the deer or elk or antelope or whatever you’re after, use the land, and then capitalize on that.

What I do to keep myself from missing important moments is film when an animal is on the move. Where a buck jumps a fence, or five bucks jump a fence, is far more important to me than where they spread out and feed in a sage flat.

How they approach a stock tank, or how they exit a high-country basin an hour into the morning, is the information I want to know the most. That’s the movement I want to be able to watch a few times, so I know if I can slip in and set up there. This also allows me to make a note of the wind direction tied to specific travel, and factor that into my setups.

In this way, a good spotter, with a phone scope, and then a cross-check on onX to see the land from above, is the best way to figure out not only how animals use the landscape, but how you need to use the same landscape to get in and stay undetected.

On this episode of In Pursuit with Rich Froning, Rich sits down with Father Steven Gadberry (the same Father Steven you’ve seen on the Shawn Ryan Podcast) for a mix of backcountry stories, real faith, and a lot of laughs.

They relive the “Gunnison days”—two guys who had no business being that deep in the mountains, a bull elk at 54.5 yards, and the kind of near-miss you never forget. Then it gets even crazier: a snowstorm that turned into a full-on survival scramble, getting turned around on the ridge, and the legendary GoPro freakout that still makes camp laugh.

From there, Father Steven shares why solo time in the mountains can be miserable at first—but powerful once the noise finally dies—plus the simple practices he leans on out there: Scripture, journaling, and silence. They also hit whitetails, kids getting into hunting, and why the “trophy” talk is mostly noise—any hard-earned animal is worth celebrating.

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This week on the show we’re chatting with author Brad Stulberg about routines, habits, and goal-setting practices and philosophies that can help each and any one of us achieve excellence in our pursuits as hunters, archers, marksman, or almost any other pursuit.

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It’s been decades since a major ammo company has given a .25-caliber rifle cartridge a second glance. Prior to this year, the 57-year-old .25-06 Remington was the most recent quarter-bore to achieve any kind of commercial success, and many had given up on the category after the rise of 6.5mm and 6mm options.

But now, inexplicably, the quarter-bore is making a comeback. Hornady released their 25 Creedmoor in May of last year (click here for a deep dive into that cartridge), and just a few weeks ago, Weatherby came out with their own take on the .257–the 25 RPM.

I’ve been on the quarter-bore bandwagon for a while, but it’s not like hunters have been clamoring for more mid-power cartridges. Can Weatherby’s new offering give you an edge over other .25’s, or is it just a play to get ahead of the next hot ammo trend? Keep reading to find out.

Like the 25 Creedmoor, the 25 RPM (Rebated Precision Magnum) promises to modernize the quarter-bore. The 1:7.5” recommended barrel twist rate can stabilize 133-grain bullets even while traveling 3,000 feet-per-second (fps) at the muzzle. The large case body diameter, low body taper, and 35-degree shoulder mimic modern cartridges by maximizing efficiency, but it wouldn’t be a Weatherby cartridge if it didn’t also maximize velocity. The 25 RPM can push a 107-grain bullet (a more traditional weight for a quarter-bore) a whopping 3,350 fps at the muzzle, while the 117-grain pills scream along at 3,150 fps.

The 25 RPM is a necked-down version of the 6.5 RPM case, which is a derivation of the old 284 Winchester. That means the new 25 can use the same common bolt face as a .308 Win., 243 Win, 6.5 Creedmoor, and 7mm-08 Rem, but the overall length mimics the .300 Win. Mag. (3.34 inches). It’ll need a long action to accommodate that long cartridge, but that’s the price you pay for hitting those velocities.

Weatherby is currently offering the 25 RPM with four bullet options (velocities from a 24-inch barrel):

A box of 20 will cost you between $80 and $110 if you order directly from Weatherby, and as of this writing, only the 117-grain Hornady SST is in stock. Big online retailers like Midway USA aren’t yet stocking the 25 RPM, though I’d expect that to change soon.

Here are some additional specs on the new cartridge:

There’s no doubt the 25 RPM is impressive, but how does it measure up against other quarter-bores, both old and new?

Turns out, pretty well.

When stacked up against the 25 Creedmoor’s hunting bullet option (128-grain ELD-X), the 25 RPM has the Creed beat on velocity, energy, and trajectory–despite shooting a slightly heavier bullet.

It’s important to keep in mind that the 25 Creedmoor is only working with 60% of the 25 RPM’s case capacity. The fact that the Creed gets as close as it does is impressive, and the lighter charge will produce less recoil, which some will appreciate more than the extra velocity and energy. Still, if you’re looking for a quarter-bore that can really pack a punch, the 25 RPM will be a better option than the Creed.

I also pulled ballistic data for the 25-06 and 257 Weatherby Magnum and stacked them up against the 25 RPM and 25 Creedmoor using similar bullet weights.

As you can see, in this comparison at least, the 257 Weatherby Magnum has its newer counterpart beat in all three categories. That incredible 3,400 fps muzzle velocity allows the older cartridge to maintain a velocity and energy advantage out to 500 yards, and it also drops less at every distance.

Of course, much like the previous comparison, the 257 Wby. Mag. is working with more powder than the 25 RPM. Guns chambered in that cartridge are also unable to stabilize the high-BC, heavy-for-caliber bullets that the RPM is designed to shoot. Those bullets will buck the wind better at any distance, and if you increase the distance to about 700 yards, the RPM drops less than the older Magnum.

The RPM and the Creedmoor are remarkably similar in this comparison, but the 25-06 struggles to keep up. It performs relatively better with lighter bullets, but if you want something to compete with the RPM’s 117-grain options, it won’t be as fast, flat, or powerful as the newer option.

I haven’t had a chance to get my hands on the 25 Weatherby RPM, but if the published ballistic data pans out, it will be an excellent addition to the growing stable of quarter-bores. It offers the screaming hot velocities we’ve come to expect from Weatherby, but it also tempers those speeds in favor of heavy, high-BC bullets preferred by long-range shooters.

I still tend to favor the Creedmoor as a deer cartridge. It has more than enough juice for those critters, and its smaller case will produce less recoil than the RPM. The .25-06 also does a fine job accomplishing what many see as the quarter-bore’s niche: stepping down to predators and varmints with light, fast-shooting bullets and punching up to deer and other big game. If you already own either of these cartridges, the RPM won’t do that much more.

Still, it’s impossible to deny that Weatherby’s new cartridge offers more peace of mind for longer range shots, and its velocity and energy advantages make it more suitable for stepping up to larger animals like elk. Those 107-grain pills are absolutely screaming out of the barrel, and they’ll make quick work of whatever coyote happens to get in the way. It looks like a solid cartridge from a legendary company, so when it comes to hunting cartridges, I say, the more the merrier.

This week, Tony explains what's happening to nonresident hunting opportunities and makes the case for why bird dog owners should consider traveling to hunt before it's too late.

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