The Outdoor Life Podcast

Bushcraft doesn't just have a place in the 21st century—it might be more important than ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A kid walks out of the night and into your hunting camp—lost, scared, and half-frozen. Would you know what to do? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rising grizzly populations, mountain town sprawl, and more tourists mean we’re seeing a surge in deadly bear attacks. It’s a good theory. The only problem? It isn’t true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessie Krebs is on a crusade to make the backcountry, and the skills required to thrive there, accessible to everyone—especially the people who need it most. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a backcountry hunt turns into an unexpected survival situation? We talk with Alaska sheep hunter and OL staff writer Tyler Freel about suffering through the hungry side of a fly-in hunt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And if it can’t, who's going to pay to conserve the state’s wildlife and habitat? The list of obstacles looming before Golden State hunters reads like a doomsday letter: Megafires close millions of acres of forest during deer season and consume precious quail habitat; urban sprawl eats up increasingly large sections of wild land; drought turns reservoirs to puddles and puddles to cracked earth; du...

Season 2, Episode 1: When a caribou hunter sets out from his small village in Nunavut, a snowstorm turns his day trip into a five-day ordeal. This episode is based on the story Dreaming on the Tundra by Dac Collins, which appeared in the No. 1, 2022 Issue of Outdoor Life. You can read more stories from this issue on Apple News, and subscribers can access them our iOS, Android, or Outdoor Life apps...

For Season 2 of The Outdoor Life Podcast, we're going to try something a little different. We're still bringing you the storytelling, adventure, and reporting you love, but this time our writers and editors will be telling hunting and survival stories that are, in some way, dedicated to our single greatest survival tool: The one between our ears. We have six new episodes about the survivor's minds...

There’s plenty of debate around crippling rates in waterfowl hunting, but the best duck hunters agree that we can reduce them and put more birds in the bag. Because if the numbers we do have are close to accurate, we duck hunters are losing way, way too many birds. We talked to two veteran duck hunters about how to improve our waterfowl recovery rates. Lee Kjos, a renowned wildlife photographer an...

It took Jace Bauserman 19 years to draw an archery bighorn sheep tag in Colorado. So when he did finally draw, he got to training with his bow, meticulously. He tuned his gear, he perfected his form, and he kept a careful shooting log. But the most important thing Jace did was work on his mental game. Jace knew that he'd feel a wave of anxiousness as soon as the ram of his dreams offered him a sho...

The megadrought in the West and High Plains is hurting big game like mule deer and cold-water fish species like trout and salmon. Scorching temps are evaporating moisture from browse and creating dry tinder for the wildfires that are growing bigger and more frequent. Meanwhile, drought is hitting the Dakotas hard and causing problems in the prairie pothole region. The real question: Is this the ne...

Wisconsin wolf hunters nearly doubled last winter’s harvest quota. In the West, bounties are being paid for dead wolves. Meanwhile, the wild canines are increasing their range and redistributing big-game populations. Prodded by a celebrity-voiced campaign, the Interior Department is being pressured to return America’s wolves to the Endangered Species List. What will we do about wolves? Read the fu...

What does it take to compete at the highest levels of shooting? We discuss this with Vincent Hancock, who just took Olympic gold for the third time in International Skeet in Tokyo. Hancock is the only shooter in Olympic history to win multiple golds in skeet and he did it in dramatic fashion this summer. First, he staged a long-term comeback to Olympic excellence after a disappointing finish in Ri...

As the ammunition shortage drags on, there’s one bright spot for hunters and shooters: The Remington ammunition plant in Lonoke, Arkansas, is up and running, almost at full capacity. While Remington went bankrupt last summer and sold off its properties in the fall, the factory had all but gone dark. But last week, Remington opened its doors to a handful of outdoor media and we got to the chance to...

The National Wild Turkey Federation has been at the center of nearly every trend affecting wild turkey dynamics since its inception in 1973. Over its 48 years, it’s grown to about 250,000 members and has raised tens of millions of dollars to help state agencies increase the nation’s wild turkey flock to between 6 and 7 million birds. Now, however, the national turkey population has been slipping a...

Despite the predictions that overpopulated snow geese would destroy the tundra (and thus themselves), it seems snows aren't actually eating themselves into extinction. They've adapted to find different wintering grounds. They migrate around the most pressured hunting areas, and they are even cropping up in new nesting areas where they've never been seen before. It turns out, there was plenty that...

Desmund Manaba was born and raised on Molokai, Hawaii’s fifth largest island and home to a staggering population of axis deer. He started hunting the non-native animals when he was eight, and has been watching their numbers explode ever since. Axis deer are destructive to the island’s terrain, vegetation, crops, and ranchland. But where there are indisputable problems, Manaba has also found opport...

Why are so many outdoorsmen and women coming down with long-lasting cases of Lyme disease? Lyme has been around for decades and it's very common, especially in the Northeast. It turns out that there are conflicting opinions within the medical community over what it takes to detect and treat Lyme disease. Plus, there's a serious knowledge gap in areas where Lyme disease is relatively new. This week...

Hunting regulations vary widely, and seemingly illogically, from state to state. This is partly because states have different habitats, species, and hunting traditions. But, it’s also because hunters (and the general public) can't seem to agree on ethical hunting practices. This week, contributor Christine Peterson explains how she recently got into reporting on hunting ethics and regulations whil...

We are in the heart of an unprecedented ammo shortage. But what’s causing it? Are ammo companies stockpiling supplies to intentionally increase demand (and prices)? Is the military buying up all the civilian ammo? Are ammo scalpers driving the price increases? And, when should you buy your next box of hunting ammo? We answer all those questions and more in this week’s episode. For more reporting o...

An Alberta bowhunter named Shawn O’Shea killed an incredible 449 4/8-inch non-typical bull in September 2020. Even though that bull is an all-time world record, the story of the hunt went mostly untold until the Pope & Young Club unceremoniously posted about it in late March. In this episode, Hunting Editor Andrew McKean tells the story of O’Shea’s hunt and explains why the modest bowhunter ultima...

In late January, a small-town crime made national news and shook the waterfowl hunting world to its core. During the final week of Tennessee’s duck season, two hunters were shot and killed on Reelfoot Lake. A third hunter—suspected of killing both young men—was missing for nearly a week before his body was discovered. One witness survived. All four men involved in the incident were loved and highl...

Coming soon, the Outdoor Life Podcast is a brand-new series that brings in-depth journalism to the issues and controversies that are most important to sportsmen and women. It covers hunting, fishing, conservation, and more.  Hosted by Editor-in-Chief Alex Robinson and the editors of Outdoor Life. Edited and produced by Senior Deputy Editor Natalie Krebs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...