The MeatEater

Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Cory Calkins, Maggie Smith, Alex Plachta, and Roman Schnobrich.

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This week, Tony shares not only why he loves venison, but what he does to ensure that every meal of deer meat is as good as it can be.

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Editor’s Note: This column originally was published by Lee Montana Newspapers. “As you’ll read in this powerful op-ed from our own Steven Rinella and now BHA CEO Ryan Callaghan, the spectacular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is once again at risk. But this time with national implications. This latest attempt to remove protections surrounding the BWCA is unprecedented in its method, and if successful, could be replicated on public lands all across the country. Whether you live in Minnesota, Montana, or Maine, HJR 140 deserves your attention.” - Mark Kenyon, Director of Conservation

We have hunted, fished and paddled Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, just like millions of Americans. This is where fishing and hunting legends are made – and one of the only places in the Lower 48 where those opportunities still exist.

The Boundary Waters is the backcountry experience we all dream about. The water is so clean, you can dip a cup in the lakes and drink. You can catch 200 fish and bag a limit of grouse in a day. It’s that kind of place. And it’s available to us because President Teddy Roosevelt set it aside in 1909 and because, in 1964, Republicans in Congress unanimously voted to strengthen protections to conserve it in perpetuity.

Today, it faces one of the most serious threats in its history.

In 2023, after years of rigorous review and nearly unanimous public support, a 20-year mineral withdrawal was established in the Rainy River Watershed, home of the Boundary Waters. That decision reflects both science and common sense: Some places are too important to gamble.

However, a Chilean mining conglomerate, Antofagasta, continues to push the Twin Metals project, a proposed sulfide-ore copper mine immediately upstream of the Boundary Waters. At the behest of this foreign company and Congressman Pete Stauber of Minnesota, the Interior Department recently took steps to facilitate a Congressional Review Act vote, or CRA, to overturn the mineral withdrawal. The CRA is a blunt instrument infrequently used and intended to challenge agency rules. It was not designed for dismantling public land management decisions rooted in decades of law, science and public engagement.

Just days ago, on Jan. 12, Rep. Stauber took the next step and introduced HJR 140, which would revoke critical Boundary Waters protections. Stauber wants to fast-track the Twin Metals mine – all so a Chilean company can send American minerals to our nation’s adversaries, namely China.

Now, America needs minerals, and we support development of our domestic resources. But this is not the way. And this is absolutely not the place. What’s being pushed now does not respect the American hunter or angler, and it sure looks like a big giveaway, with Antofagasta planning to ship concentrates from Twin Metals straight to Chinese refineries for processing and sale.

Furthermore, if Stauber’s maneuver is successful, it wouldn’t just reopen the door to Twin Metals; it also would set a dangerous national precedent, enabling Congress to use the CRA to unravel public-land decisions anywhere in the country.

This is both a defining moment and a test of leadership.

And this is where the bipartisan House Public Lands Caucus comes into the picture. Created last year to make sure our public lands and waters are shielded from dangerous ideas in Congress, HJR 140 is exactly the type of proposal caucus members must work together to strike down.  Republicans and Democrats pushing in the same direction can protect our outdoor heritage by making sure that our wildest places, like the Boundary Waters, remain in public hands.

This is not a narrow Minnesota issue. It’s a test of whether beloved public lands across the country can be stripped of protections with a simple majority vote, no filibuster and little public scrutiny.

That’s why Montana has an important role to play in what happens next. Our state is shaped by mining, timber and other extractive industries. Montanans have lived with the legacy of mining, both positive and sometimes damaging. We know that mines work in some places and in other places they are unacceptable. Hundreds of people spoke up in conservative Ravalli County to make this exact point just a few weeks ago.

Hunters and anglers are uniquely positioned to help determine what happens next – not just to the Boundary Waters or in Montana, but for the future of how our entire nation approaches conservation. We know the value of public lands, public access and the outdoor economy. It’s up to all of us and our champions in Congress to demonstrate that commitment in a meaningful way.

Together we urge House members – including our own delegation – to oppose HJR 140 and its wrongheaded goal of dismantling Boundary Waters protections.

Some places are worth fighting for. And just like Teddy Roosevelt and the many conservation-minded Republicans since, we believe that the Boundary Waters is one of those places.

Feature image via Charlie Williams.

Update: HJR 140 passed through the House of Representatives with a vote of 214 to 208. The resolution now heads to the Senate for consideration. If you want your voice heard about the future of BWCA, contact your Senators now.

Editor's Note: HJR 140 passed through the House of Representatives with a vote of 214 to 208. The resolution now heads to the Senate for consideration. If you want your voice heard about the future of BWCA, contact your Senators now.

Last week, Minnesota Congressman Pete Stauber introduced a resolution that would undo a three-year-old mining moratorium on over 225,000 acres in the Rainy River watershed—upstream of the famed Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA). The move not only threatens one of America’s most iconic wild places but has broader ramifications for the future of public land management elsewhere in the country.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is a large wilderness comprised of over 1,000 lakes in Northern Minnesota. According to Lukas Leaf, executive director for Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, it’s widely regarded as a world-class destination for its walleye, lake trout, smallmouth bass, and northern pike fishing. It also offers plentiful opportunities for grouse, black bear, whitetail deer, and duck hunting. The recreational and ecological significance of the area prompted conservationists to push for protections on the Rainy River watershed upstream of BWCA—and in 2023, Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a 20-year mining moratorium in the area.

However, since early in his second term, President Donald Trump signaled he would like to undo those protections to allow Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of a Chilean mining conglomerate, to develop a sulfide-ore copper mine.

“The mine is proposed directly upstream of the Boundary Waters,” Leaf said. “This type of mining has a terrible track record, and if it were to pollute those waterways with heavy metals or acid mine drainage, it would spread throughout that lake-land wilderness.”

To undo the mining moratorium, Stauber introduced what’s known as a resolution of disapproval (HJR 140) under the Congressional Review Act on Monday, January 12. The political maneuver is particularly notable because the Congressional Review Act has historically been used to review federal land rules and not to overturn mineral withdrawals.

“Essentially, what Stauber is saying is that the Biden Administration did not properly submit a mineral withdrawal for over 5,000 acres even though they did so through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act,” Leaf explained. “If this moves forward, it could be applied to similar actions in other parts of the country.”

Additionally, rules revoked under the Congressional Review Act cannot be reinstituted, meaning it would likely not be feasible to reinstitute similar mining protections in the region in the future.

“Mining in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters would pollute one of the crown jewels of America’s public lands and pose a toxic threat to the Wilderness and the approximately 250,000 people who visit it each year,” said Wilderness Society government relations director Jordan Schreiber in a press release. Congress should reject this legislative scheme, which relies on unprecedented treatment of a public land order, and defend this critical landscape for present and future generations.”

Experts say that Stauber’s resolution could be voted on as soon as Wednesday, January 21; a similar measure is being considered for legality by the Senate Parliamentarian. Leaf says that it’s all hands on deck to protect the famed wilderness area by calling your local representatives. He adds that the perspectives and political clout of hunters and anglers are especially important.

“I started going to the BWCA when I was 12 with my dad and his friends for the spring fishing opener for lake trout,” Leaf said. “I’ve spent nearly 250 nights there. It has shaped me into the outdoorsman that I am today. My dad and I used to call it ‘going to church.’ A lot of people resonate with that when it comes to the Boundary Waters.”

When I first started tracking whitetail bucks in the big woods, things always seemed to go the same way. I’d find a buck track, and then I’d meticulously follow it through the forest all day long without ever seeing the buck that made it.

It frustrated me because I thought I was doing everything right. I’d stay on the trail for miles, picking my way along like a ninja as I crept through the woods, trying to move slowly and stay silent so I could sneak up on the buck. But it never worked. Frustrated with my lack of results, I talked to a few more experienced buck trackers about what I was doing wrong, and they all told me the same thing—I wasn’t going fast enough.

The fact is that tracking isn’t still-hunting. Sure, there are times when you may have to sneak up on a buck, but for the most part, tracking is about trying to play catch-up with an animal that has twice number of legs as you do. If you move too slowly or spend too much time trying to work out their trail, you’ll often end up never seeing the deer. So, if you want to be a consistently successful big buck tracker, you have to know how and when to move fast.

Knowing how to age deer tracks is the first step in knowing how fast you have to go to catch up with your buck. Fresher tracks that were made the morning of or even the night before your hunt can be followed at a more leisurely pace, while older tracks often require a practical sprint in order to close the distance. While determining the freshness of buck tracks can be complicated, especially for inexperienced hunters, there are a few simple ways to determine how fresh buck tracks are and how fast you have to move.

The easiest way to establish the freshness of a buck track is to follow the weather. When you know when and how much snow you’ve had in the last few days, you can determine how fresh a buck track is by the amount of snow that’s filled it in. For example, if you’ve had an inch of snow in the past day or two, older deer tracks will be partially filled in, while newer tracks worth following will be snow-free and clearly defined. The same can be done when you’ve had recent warm spells, with older tracks looking melted or at least partially melted around the edges, while newer tracks will still be distinct.

Of course, when you’ve had steady weather patterns, it can be more difficult to determine how old a track is, but it’s still possible with a bit of studying. Just like when you take a brand-new tray of ice cubes out of the freezer versus one that has been in there for a few days, new and old buck tracks will look distinctly different. Newer tracks will seem cleaner, clearer, and more defined, while older tracks will seem cloudier and crumpled around the edges. Of course, just because the tracks you find seem old or snow conditions seem tough, it doesn’t mean you can’t still catch up with your buck. You just have to move faster.

“It’s totally possible to catch up with a buck on a track that’s a couple days old” says avid tracker, registered Maine hunting guide, and Benoit Tracking School instructor Timmy Bolduc. “You just might have to haul ass to do it. The thing is that whitetail bucks tend to have their own home territory where they stay around that usually isn’t more than 10 or 12 square miles around. They’ll hang in this area as long as there’s food and does around, so even if the track is several days old, that buck will often be a lot closer than you think. Sometimes, you can practically jog through the woods on an old buck track and see where he beds down and slows down to feed, and eventually, you’re going to freshen up that trail until you’re suddenly right on top of him.”

One of the biggest mistakes that buck trackers make when trying to quickly track down a buck is keeping their head down. They lock onto the tracks like a beagle on a rabbit and walk through the woods with their eyes on the ground, trying to see where the buck is going instead of looking around the woods as they move to see where the buck is.

“You’ve got to keep your head up,” Bolduc told MeatEater. “It’s the thing that makes all the difference from shooting that big buck and coming home empty-handed handed and not enough hunters know how to do it right. You’ve got to go as fast as you can go, but still see everything around you. There’s an art to it, and it’s what separates the best trackers in the woods, those guys like the Benoits and Hal Blood, from your average Joe.”

Bolduc and many other big buck trackers believe that, like all skills, learning to move quickly through the woods while still seeing everything around you takes practice.

“It’s not something you can pick up on right away,” says Bolduc. “There’s a real skill in swinging your eyes left and right and seeing everything around you, and then glancing down at the tracks real quick to make sure you're heading in the right direction. You’ve got to spend some time in the woods before the season. Walk around in the woods and swivel your head, try not to break your stride, and just take quick glances at the ground. It takes practice, but you’ll be surprised how quickly you learn to pick out objects like roots, rocks, logs, branches, etc. that are in your path and how you’ll automatically step around them without having to look down or pick your way along.”

In addition to moving quickly while walking silently and safely, practice keeping your head up while walking through the woods, and begin training your eyes for what to look for. Spotting a buck before it spots you in thick timber can be a real challenge, but if you spend a lot of time in the woods looking for deer, you’ll eventually learn to see them more easily.

“Most of the time you’re not going to see that buck standing right in front of you,” Bolduc told MeatEater. “Instead, you’re going to catch a glance of his antlers or his body or the flick of his tail. It can take some time for your eyes to pick up on these things, but it’s a bit like riding a bike. You might need a warm-up every year, and you’ll miss some things, but if you keep your eyes up and keep looking around as you move, after two or three days, you’ll be right in, and it becomes automatic. Every little flicker, every little movement, every little thing that looks out of place, you learn to see it, and that’s how you’ll spot your buck when you’re on the move.”

The biggest fear that deer hunters have when tracking down a buck is that they’ll jump it up. The fact is, though, that when you’re trying to track down a deer quickly, jumping a buck is almost inevitable. Just because you jumped the buck doesn’t mean that your day is over. In fact, it often means that the hunt has only just begun.

“You play the same game whether that track is smoking fresh or three or four days old, and that’s closing the distance,” Bolduc said. “You’ve got to catch up to that buck, and the fact is you’re probably going to jump him, and that’s okay, because when you’re trying to track a buck down fast, you’re trying to get him to make a mistake.”

When a whitetail buck is jumped by a hunter, either out of his bed or from where he is feeding or following a doe through the woods, he very rarely goes very far. Most of the time, he’ll bound a few yards until he feels like he’s out of danger, and then he’ll return to feeding, go back to the doe, or he’ll bed back down. If you give the deer some time—say 30 minutes or so—and then get right back on his trail at the same pace, you’ll very likely catch up with that buck again, again, and again until he gives you a shot.

“Bucks are curious animals just like the rest of us,” Bolduc said. “From that point where you jump him forward, every time you come up behind him again, he’s going to wonder what’s behind him. You might jump him four or five times throughout the day, but one of those times, he’s just going to stand there, wondering what’s behind him for a little too long, and that’s his mistake. It’s part of the game of tracking quickly; you’ve got to keep at it and dog that buck. When he jumps, give him some time and then get back after him. Stay determined and try to get him to stand for one second too long, because that’s where you’re going to get your shot.”

Like every other aspect of the tracking game, getting that shot at a big woods buck can take practice, and it’s a good idea to rehearse by training your freehand shooting before you head into the woods. Set up a target and then walk at it at different angles, practicing how to stop and then quickly raise your rifle and fire accurately until it becomes second nature. This is a great activity to practice during the summer so that you have plenty of time to hone your quick-shooting skills before the tracking snow hits the ground.

I still remember the first time I successfully tracked down a buck. I cut his tracks early in the morning, and recognizing they were a little older, I started practically jogging behind him as I took up the trail. After a couple hours, I noticed that the tracks were getting fresher and fresher, and before I knew it, I looked up on a ridge, and there he was, broadside in the sunlight.

As I walked up to the beautiful big woods 8-pointer, I had a distinct feeling of both accomplishment and surprise. Over the years, I had spent so many hours slowly picking my way along and tracking bucks until dark without ever actually seeing them. Now, after learning how to speed up, not only did I finally have my first tracking buck on the ground in front of me, but as I looked at my watch, I realized I was going to be able to get him home just in time for lunch.

This week Cal talks Public lands on capital hill with the founders of the non partisan public lands caucus Representatives Gabe Vazquez of New Mexico and Ryan Zinke of Montana.

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This episode is a field report. Where we go and interview outdoorsmen, hunters, and anglers from all walks of life to get their opinions on different wildlife related issues. Today, we will be discussing the current hot topic of mallard declines in the lower Mississippi alluvial valley. We will be asking these different hunters about what they have seen through their own experiences duck hunting throughout the years, and what they think could be causing the declines.

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Steven Rinella talks withTom Seaton, lead biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wood Bison Restoration Project. 

Topics discussed: Where and when buffalo are considered wildlife and not; how to bring wild buffalo to Alaska; how much habitat is really there for wild buffalo?; is there truly a conflict between agriculture and and bison, or is it just perceived?;  the brucellosis red herring; what's wood bison?; when you end up with fewer animals alive than you introduced; how easy it is for bison to drown; the challenges to reintroduction; and more.

Enter the raffle for an Alaska mountain goat hunt: https://ohfak.org/raffles/chugach-mountain-goat/

Enter the raffle for an Alaska buffalo hunt: https://ohfak.org/raffles/delta-bison/ 

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Two years ago, I was ready to throw hands at the next person to tell me to go mobile. I had only recently ditched ladder stands for climbing stands, which I considered mobile enough. The last thing I wanted to do was learn a new hunting system.

I put up a brave fight against peer pressure, but ultimately caved. I’m in my second season of stacking up deer from saddles and ultralight hang-on stands while my climbing stands collect dust. I hate to admit it, but the masses were right. Mobile hunting is undeniably deadly for whitetails, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass. Literally.

The saddle movement is the wildest trend I’ve seen so far in my hunting career. It put the entire whitetail world in a chokehold overnight. Saddles are unbeatable for dialing in on deer movement, especially on public land when you just need to cover ground efficiently and adjust your setup on the fly.

I love my saddle for the strategic advantage it gives me–I just don’t love how it feels. Even in a perfect tree, I often find myself fidgeting after an hour or two in an attempt to shift weight off of an aching hip, knee, or ankle. And in mobile hunting, the trees are rarely perfect.

Lightweight stands offer some relief for longer-duration sits or volume hunting a hot location, but even the best mobile hang-ons sacrifice comfort for packability. Tiny platforms and seats don’t leave much room for movement if you need a good stretch during an all-day sit, and standard seat cushions can leave a lot to be desired.

Investing in a more adjustable saddle and a larger platform made saddle hunting much more tolerable for me. Knee pads are a popular solution for periodically relieving your leg joints. Although I prefer my redneck life hack of strapping my turkey hunting seat cushion to my tree to rest my knees on. I add that same cushion to the rock-hard factor- issue seat on my hang-on stand, and it makes a world of difference. There are plenty of adjustments you can make to improve your mobile experience, but you have to accept that you won’t be box-blind-with-an-office-chair comfortable while you punch your tags.

Box blinds and ladder stands aren’t just easier on your butt—they’re easier on your brain. When I started mobile hunting, I found myself yearning for the old days when I could just run on autopilot because once my stands were set, they were set for the season. All I had to do was show up.

Adjusting to constant decision-making was the hardest part of going mobile for me. It’s a struggle to make the right choice and not second-guess yourself when you have so many options available to you. And it’s especially tough to sit tight when you have the power to move.

I often have the urge to move 50 yards down to the next creek crossing, or bail on a property after one quiet sit. The ability to make quick adjustments is a net benefit of mobile hunting, but bouncing around too much is guaranteed to cost you deer.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable when you’re waiting on a whitetail. But, to be consistently successful as a mobile hunter, you have to learn to ignore your wandering eye and let every setup play out before you make a new plan.

If potentially blowing out a good spot isn’t enough encouragement for you to stay put, you’ll eventually find yourself burned out on playing musical trees. Mobile hunting gives you the freedom to move around, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

Every setup is a significant investment of time and energy, and few things will wear you down quite like pulling everything in the dark for the fifth night in a row. Even the lightest platforms and climbing sticks on the market start to feel heavy two miles in, and there’s so much more a mobile hunter needs to account for.

All the things that are set-it-and-forget-it for the non-mobile crowd–like bow hangers, backpack hooks, haul lines, and lineman belts–have to be top-of-mind with every move. I can’t tell you how much profanity I whispered the first time I pulled my climbing sticks and looked up to see my bow hanger stranded 20 feet overhead. Or the frustration I’ve felt digging around for my haul line because I got lazy and didn’t put it back in its designated backpack pocket.

The gear management side of mobile hunting comes with a significant learning curve. A lot of it requires trial and error. But, if you stay organized and develop a good system, you’ll save yourself a lot of headache and learn that it might just be worth all the trouble.