It was the third day of Ridge Crum’s bowhunt when the bull finally showed.Crum, 27, was hunting alone in a small, elevated blind over a waterhole on his family’s cattle ranch, which lies near the massive Cibola National Forest. It was Sept. 21, the second phase of New Mexico’s Unit 17 archery elk season. Crum had been hunting this bull since 2021.
“I have a history with this bull,” Crum tells Outdoor Life. “Two years ago I had him at 40 yards, but just couldn’t get a shot at him. Two days later I saw him at 250 yards, but he was headed back up to the mountains in the Cibola.”
The waterhole, and the mountain beyond it where the bull was living. Ridge Crum
Crum didn’t see the bull at all last year, but neither did many other hunters. The bull was living on National Forest ground at about 10,000 feet for much of the season and remained elusive.
The first two days Crum’s 2023 bowhunt went much the same way as his 2022 season. But this year, at least, he knew the bull was back on the ranch. It had shown up on trail camera photos near this watering hole, which is a prime spot for all kinds of game on the ranch.
“I changed tactics a bit on Sept. 21 going into the waterhole,” says Crum, a nonresident who lives in Lakeland, Tennessee, where he owns an active-wear clothing company called Rough Out. “Instead of driving near the waterhole, I decided to walk in along a low drainage area about one mile to get to the blind.”
Crum sat in the blind for several hours without seeing elk. But at 6 p.m. things changed.
Crum sits beside the big 8×8. Courtesy of Ridge Crum
“I heard a bull bugle far away, then a bit later, another bugle closer to me,” he says. “The bull bugled a third time and I knew he was even closer. Then he bugled a fourth time, and I looked out to the waterhole and saw a cow.”
The cow was leading a herd of about a dozen other elk—all cows, and one small spike. Then the giant bull elk Crum had been looking for stepped into view.
“He was unmistakable, and I started shaking while grabbing my bow,” Crum says. “It all happened very fast. He got to about 60 yards, but there were so many cows around him it was impossible to get a clear shot. I was hyper-focused when he moved closer, and knew I’d only have one opportunity to take the bull … I waited a couple minutes watching him, and finally he nudged the cows out of the way, and I could draw my bow, aim, and take a shot.”
The bull, loaded on the trailer. Courtesy of Ridge Crum
The arrow slipped behind the elk’s shoulder at 41 yards. He was hunting with a Mathews V3 and a 2-inch, 2-blade 100-grain expandable Rage broadhead; the arrow just penetrated the hide of the elk’s opposite shoulder.
“At the shot all the cows scattered, but milled around the waterhole, while the bull ran off about 80 yards,” Crum saiys “Then he turned around and stared at the water hole and the cows. Then he staggered a bit and bedded down.”
Crum never lost sight of the bull and watched him carefully through binoculars. The elk stood once but bedded down again and expired. The harem returned to the waterhole to drink, so Crum stayed in the blind until dark and contacted his dad, Kelly. Kelly arrived at about 8 p.m. with the ranch manager, Donny, and Crum’s buddy, Colton Cunningham.
“When they pulled up, we all walked up to the bull, with flashlights on him, and it was just an incredible moment. Once in a lifetime.”
Loading the estimated 800-pound animal was a back-breaker for the four men. But eventually they got it into the truck and returned to the ranch, where they hung, skinned, and caped it.
Cunningham rough-scored the elk at 436 1/8-inches; the current New Mexico nontypical archery elk record is a 420 7/8 inch bull, according to Pope and Young Club records. Crum hopes the 8×8 will be scored as a nontypical elk after the 60-day drying period is up, although the bull could be classified as a typical given its relatively symmetrical frame, and therefore become subject to deductions. The largest hunter-killed typical archery elk in New Mexico measured 398 7/8 inches, and was taken in 2004.
The Crums after wrestling the elk onto the meat pole. Courtesy of Ridge Crum
Regardless of whether it becomes a new state record, Crum is thrilled with the bull. He’s fielded some accusations on social media of a high-fence hunt and other criticism.
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“Our place is cattle ranch, not a high fence operation, and it wasn’t a paid guided hunt,” he says. “The ranch fence has no bearing on elk coming and going as they please … I’m blessed this great bull came off the mountain, jumped our fence, came to the waterhole and I was ready for him.”
A student and varsity cheerleader at Palatka High School in Putnam County, Florida, died Thursday following a tragic accident in the deer woods. Baylee Holbrook, 16, was bowhunting with her father, Matthew, on Tuesday when lightning struck a nearby tree, reports the Palatka Daily News.The tree fell on the pair of hunters and both lost consciousness, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. When Matthew awoke, he saw Baylee was still unconscious.“The father called 911 and began CPR as rescue personnel rushed to the scene,” the statement reads. “Deputies arrived first and took over life saving measures until rescue arrived and could transport the teen. Rescue personnel got the teen to the HCA Florida Putnam Hospital where she was stabilized enough to take to a trauma center.”
Baylee was transported to UF Health in nearby Gainesville. She passed away from her injuries at 9:32 a.m. on Sept. 28.
“Our entire community is completely devastated by Holbrook’s loss,” Putnam County School District superintendent Rick Surrency said. “The outpouring of love at a vigil [for Baylee] showed just how much she meant to her friends and community members.”
Baylee particularly loved turkey hunting and bowhunting with her dad. Baylee Holbrook / Facebook
“She transcended every group of kids,” Palatka High principal Cathy Oyster told the Palatka Daily News before the vigil. “She was the most inclusive loving kid you could meet.”
Baylee also loved to boat, turkey hunt, and bowhunt, especially with her father. Matthew addressed his daughter’s tragic death in a Facebook post.
“Baylee Faith Holbrook you are my best friend,” he wrote. “Our 16 years together you have made me better. You’ve made me a better man. A better father … We talked just as much smack to each other as a person could possibly stand. You’ve told me when I’m wrong even when everyone else agrees with me. You’ve loved me on those days when I felt defeated and constantly told me to give my struggles to Jesus. Everyone knows our opinion whether they wanted to hear it or not. Handing you to your Heavenly Father today is something I thought I’d never do but something you’ve been preparing me to do all along.”
In a statement announcing its response to the accident, PCSO also warned residents of increased storm activity in the area.
“The last two days we have seen an increase in lightning strikes in our area and we want to remind our community that the forecast is predicted several more days of increased rain, thunder and lightning,” PCSO wrote. “Storms can come quickly and lightning can strike up to 10 miles away from any rainfall.”
Longtime bowhunter Jacob Milton tagged the biggest buck of his life off his family farm on Nov. 18. When he finally took his shot on the nearly 200-inch deer, it was the culmination of 13 days of hard hunting. He’d already had a dozen close encounters with the buck, and he remembers being strangely composed when he released his arrow that evening. If it wasn’t for his neighbor sharing some trail cam pics the month before, however, Milton says he never would have started hunting the buck in the first place.The fifth-generation Kansas farmer tells Outdoor Life that he didn’t even know the buck was around until two days before Halloween. (He thinks he saw the buck last year, but that was before its rack blew up.) During the early season, he’d placed some trail cams around one of his honey holes on the farm. It was located on the edge of a 50-acre pasture near a half-acre pond—the same spot where he’d tagged a 148-inch buck last season. He’d seen a nice 10-point and some other good bucks, but he wasn’t getting any giants on camera. Out of curiosity, he reached out to his younger neighbor, who’s also a dedicated deer hunter.
“I just Snapchatted the kid one night, and he sent me pictures of this buck, and I was like, ‘Holy shit,’” Milton says. “I was lying in bed, and I texted my dad right away. I said, ‘I don’t care what we have planned tomorrow. I have to move a camera and put out some corn in the morning.”
The two trail cam pics from the neighbor that started it all. Courtesy Jacob Milton
That next day, on Oct. 30, Milton hunted the same spot near the pond where he’d placed a camera and some corn. He had his first encounter with the buck that night, but it never came closer than 70 yards. Milton hunted there again the following day, and he says he’s still haunted by the close encounter he had with the buck on Halloween.
“He was at 22 yards on the corn pile that evening,” Milton says. “Twenty-two yards and I could not get a shot on him.”
Milton returned to the same spot eight days in a row, sometimes with a friend, and the deer showed itself nearly every sit. Sometimes the buck would be be chasing a doe, other times it’d check out the corn pile—but it was always headed to the water nearby.
“In total, I probably had 10 or 12 encounters under 70 yards with this deer. Five or six of those were within 40 yards, but it was always an iffy situation,” Milton explains. “My buddy started coming with me after Halloween, and [the buck] came in behind us two nights in a row … I could have shot him one of those nights. He was at 52 yards on my buddy’s rangefinder, but I didn’t want to take that far a shot.”
The buck was given a green score of 197 and 1/4 inches. Devon Degenhardt
The two hunters noticed that the deer had shifted its approach to the pond. And since Milton’s buddy had already tagged out for the season, he brought over a second tree stand. They set it up only 50 yards away, where they could better hunt the prevailing south wind.
By Nov. 9, Milton took a break from chasing the buck to hunt elk in Colorado with his dad. During the first day of their hunt, Milton was alerted by the Tactacam app on his cell phone.
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“He showed up that afternoon at 4:30 p.m. standing 15 yards in front of my stand.”
After eating tag soup with his dad in Colorado, Milton headed back to their farm in central Kansas with renewed determination. He’d heard from a group of pheasant hunters that they pushed a giant whitetail off the piece during his time away, and he wasn’t getting many pictures of the buck by the time he was back on Nov. 12. He went out the next day anyway.
After more than 10 encounters with the buck, Milton made the last one count. Devon Degenhardt
“My fiancé, she’s a trooper,” Milton says. “The day after we got back from our elk trip, I was back in the deer stand.”
He keep hunting hard every day until Nov. 18, when the buck came in to his stand again. This time, the shot opportunity was golden. The buck was standing perfectly broadside at 21 yards when Milton released his arrow. He double-lunged the buck, and it ran only 68 yards before falling over dead. Milton says he’ll wait until after the 60-day drying period to get his buck officially scored, but he’s already had the owner of Kansas Trophy Experience take measurements of the rack. He measured it as a nontypical with 18 scoreable points, and gave it a green score of 197 1/4 inches.
An overjoyed Jacob Milton holds onto one of the buck’s drop-tines alongside his fiance, Katie Pralle. Devon Degenhardt
In hindsight, Milton chalks up his hard-won success to all the support he got from his hunting buddies, his fiancé Katie Pralle, and, of course, the deer-obsessed kid who lives on the neighboring farm.
“Me and him, we communicate back and forth because we don’t have much pressure in this area and there are some really good deer over here,” Milton says. “I still can’t believe he sent me pictures of that buck, but he did, and he was thrilled when I finally got it. There were no hard feelings or anything. He killed himself a pretty nice one this season, too.”
đăA decade of research, litigation, and listing proposals has resulted in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classifying wolverines as threatened in the Lower 48, the USFWS announced on Wednesday. This classification will add the elusive mustelid species to the federal endangered species list and apply the protections of the Endangered Species Act to every wolverine across its home range in the Rockies, Cascades, Sierra Nevadas, and other high-alpine mountain ranges in the Lower 48. (For more on the history of wolverines and the listing debate, read here.)Along with the threatened classification, the USFWS is considering an additional rule that would exempt take of wolverines by researchers and forest managers from federal charges stemming from ESA violations. It would also protect lawful trappers who accidentally catch wolverines while targeting other furbearer species. Under the ESA, to “take” includes to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” Any take of a listed species can result in $25,000 to $50,000 in fines and potential jail time. A 60-day comment period on the interim 4(d) rule begins on Nov. 30.
“Current and increasing impacts of climate change and associated habitat degradation and fragmentation are imperiling the North American wolverine,” USFWS Pacific regional director Hugh Morrison said. “Based on the best available science, this listing determination will help to stem the long-term impact and enhance the viability of wolverines in the contiguous United States.”
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The endangered species list includes species that are both threatened and endangered. Species listed as threatened are at severe risk of becoming endangered, while species listed as endangered are at severe risk of becoming extinct in part or all of their range. At most, 300 wolverines live in the Lower 48. Due to their tendency to stay in remote alpine ecosystems and avoid humans, they are especially difficult for biologists to study. Population counts are difficult to nail down, and there’s a chance that the total number of wolverines is actually much lower than 300.
In Alaska, wolverine populations are considered stable and are a legally trappable species.
When Indiana bowhunter Drew Rutledge started getting trail cam photos of one particular buck four years ago, he knew it had potential. By 2022 the buck was a heavy 10-pointer, and Rutledge says it had grown significantly by the time this season rolled around.“I’ve got hundreds of photos of the deer over the last four years, and I watched him grow bigger and bigger,” the 34-year-old from Mt. Vernon, Indiana, tells Outdoor Life. “I figured last year his rack was about 165 inches. This year his rack became massive, gaining two more points and putting on a lot of mass.”
Rutledge says he tried hunting the buck last year when he had around eight close encounters. On one sit the deer came within 18 yards of him following some does, but the buck never presented a clean shot. Patterning the buck was always a challenge, he explains, because the buck was far-ranging and rarely showed itself on camera during daylight.
“Of all the photos I have of that buck, 95 percent of them were at night,” he says. “Sometimes he’d just disappear, then show again at night, usually during a south wind, which isn’t good for hunting his favorite food plot on our 260-acres of family land.”
So, earlier this year, Rutledge re-worked the property. He planted different crops in the foot plots and created additional water sources. By late October, the buck seemed to be sticking around the property more often. He was getting plenty of pictures of the deer, but the consistent south wind made it hard for Rutledge to hunt the food plot.
Re-working the food plot helped Rutledge bring the buck in more consistently. Courtesy Drew Rutledge
Rutledge slipped quietly into a ground blind at about 3 p.m. on Nov. 17. It was a spot that usually had deer activity later in the day, and he didn’t see anything until after 4 p.m. That’s when two does emerged from a timbered spot and walked into the food plot that was bright green with ripe radishes and turnips. Five minutes passed and he saw more does moving around in the timber just over 100 yards away.
“Then the big buck just popped out of the woods at 120 yards,” says Rutledge. “He stood still on the field edge for 15 minutes watching the two does that were coming straight to me across the food plot …. I knew he had to come across the field with the wind blowing from him to me to get to the does, and they just kept walking across the field right toward my blind.”
The does were 30 yards from Rutledge’s ground blind when the giant 12-point started moving. The buck didn’t seem inclined to expose himself in the open field with the wind at its back. But that was the only way he could check the pair of does that now were 20 yards from Rutledge.
The buck stopped at 40 yards from Rutledge and presented a clean broadside shot. But the veteran bowhunter believed the buck would come even closer, as the does were still near his blind. So, he waited before drawing.
“When he was walking at 25 yards I tried to grunt-stop him, but he didn’t hear me,” Rutledge said. “I grunted a second time louder while at full draw. He stopped, snapped his head up, and stretched his neck. I knew I only had a couple seconds to shoot, so I let my arrow fly and hit him right behind the shoulder at 22 yards.”
The buck is a 12-point with good symmetry. Courtesy Drew Rutledge
The deer ran only 50 yards and Rutledge watched it fall over. He walked over and finally put his hands on the buck after four long years.
“I thought the whole time it would score about 170-inches,” said Rutledge. “I was stunned when a good friend of mine, who’s scored lots of bucks, measured it.”
The symmetrical 12-point’s green gross score was 185 2/8 inches, with a net score of 175 2/8s inches. After a 60-day drying period, the buck will be officially scored, and will almost certainly become a Boone and Crocket and Pope and Young record deer.
Read Next: The Best Food Plots for Deer of 2023
The buck will be mounted by a taxidermist and is destined to hang on a wall beside another buck Rutledge killed a decade ago. That buck was taken just 100 yards from where Rutledge’s most recent 12-point was killed.
“When I shot my other mounted buck 12 years ago, I figured I’d never get another deer bigger than that 181-inch whitetail,” Rutledge explained. “Now I feel the same way about my 12-point, 185-inch buck. But you never know—I’m still young and have a lot of bowhunting ahead of me.”
It was mid-morning on Nov. 13, and South Dakota bowhunter Shauna Woodward found herself in the heat of the rut. Glassing from one of her favorite spots on the 1,000-acre cattle ranch that she and her husband own in Spink County, she saw bucks chasing does and fighting each other. As she sat and watched the action, she waited patiently for an unusual, palmated whitetail buck she’d nicknamed “Moose” to show itself.“I was near a grove of cedar trees, with a strong 20 mph wind blowing,” Woodward tells Outdoor Life. “I was glassing the trees, looking for the palmated buck. I couldn’t move around much because there were deer everywhere—bucks fighting, snort-wheezing, crashing the brush.”
Woodward had first seen the buck on the property in 2021. It was 4×4 whitetail with an unusual rack configuration, but it was clearly a young deer and she passed on it. By the time the 2022 deer season started, a record drought had affected many of the bucks in the region, and Woodward explains that their antlers were brittle and breaking off.
“We had cell camera [photos] of the deer, and almost all of them had busted racks, including Moose. So, we shot no bucks on our farm in 2022,” she says. “This year, though, Moose just exploded. He put on a lot of mass and his palmated antlers were much larger.”
A trail cam photo of “Moose” taken in 2021. Courtesy Shauna Woodward
By Nov. 13, with the rut in high gear, Woodward was searching hard for Moose as she sat on the ground and glassed near the cedar grove.
A few minutes later she spotted antler tips coming over a hill, and she recognized Moose from around 50 yards away. All she could see was the deer’s head and rack, so she had no chance for a shot with her bow.
“Moose was very smart, and mostly nocturnal,” she explains. “He saw the 4-pointer walk away, and he sensed something wasn’t right. He wasn’t spooked. But he followed the 4-pointer into the cedar trees that were about 300 yards away.”
Looking through her binoculars, Woodward watched the bucks running does through the cedars. She knew they had an elevated blind near the edge of the cedars, so she picked up and moved slowly and carefully to that spot. Woodward eased into the blind around 10 a.m., and she was now about 200 yards from where she last saw the two bucks chasing does.
Read Next: Hunter Accidentally Blows Up Blind, Then Tags Palmated Buck
“Through my binoculars I spotted a doe pop out of the trees, moving toward me,” she recalls. “Moose came out following the doe, then ducked back into the cedars. There were other bucks there, too, raising cane and snort-wheezing. They all were moving slowly towards me in the blind but hidden in the cedars.”
She listened to the deer that were in the heavy cover only 40 yards from her blind. Then the 4-pointer ran out of the cover, followed by a young deer.
“That’s when the doe ran out and passed me at 20 yards,” Woodward says. “I couldn’t see well except through a tight shooting lane. But I figured Moose was going to be behind the doe. So I drew my Hoyt 50-pound bow, and watched the opening for Moose.
“I heard him grunt, and then he appeared walking fast after the doe. I let him reach the opening at 20 yards, led him a bit, and shot.”
Woodward found the buck lying 80 yards from where she shot it with her bow. Courtesy Shauna Woodward
The arrow hit the buck a bit farther back than Shauna wanted, but it passed completely through the deer. After quietly slipping out of the blind, she checked her arrow and headed home to wait for Moose to expire.
“I love the archery tradition so deeply and want only the quickest, best bow shot to be made,” she says. “I knew the arrow wasn’t perfect, so I waited a few hours to return to the spot with [my husband] Richard to look for Moose.”
Woodward came back around 2 p.m. that day and found a good blood trail. They tracked slowly and carefully to avoid bumping Moose. Two hours later, she found the buck dead only 80 yards from where it was hit.
Read Next: Bowhunting in -30 Wind Chill on the Frozen North Dakota Prairie
Woodward says Moose was looking a little ragged from the rut and only weighed an estimated 175 pounds. The buck’s unusual palmated rack was still in tremendous shape, though, with at least a dozen points. The estimated 6.5-year-old deer hasn’t been scored yet. A taxidermist who is doing a shoulder mount will eventually take the measurements, but Woodward says the numbers aren’t that important to her.
“I’m just glad to finally put my hands on Moose,” she says. “It’s a culmination of a lot of work and expense to grow good bucks into great bucks. And it’s about passing on the ethical hunting tradition to our kids and grandkids.”
On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $110 million in grants to fund 19 wildlife crossing projects across the country. These projects aim to reduce the million-plus wildlife-vehicle collisions that occur on American roadways each year; Tuesday’s announcement represents less than a third of the $350 million that USDOT will invest into its Wildlife Crossing Program over the next five years.Funding for the first-of-its-kind federal program was authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that was signed into law in 2021. It will support a variety of wildlife-related projects including the construction of highway overpasses and underpasses, the addition of fencing along busy roads, and other research-based strategies for improving public safety while enhancing habitat connectivity across the landscape. The 19 projects will occur in 17 states, including the lands of four Indian Tribes.
Speaking from his office in D.C., Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg discussed the announcement with Outdoor Life. He touched on why wildlife crossings can be a vital addition to American infrastructure, and how the development of this new program has helped him see our road system in a new light.
“This is something that’s really new for the Department of Transportation,” Buttigieg says. “I did not realize coming into this job that I would spend nearly as much time as I have learning about anadromous fish, mountain lions, and elk migrations. But it’s something of deep human, economic, and safety importance, and it has great importance from a conservation perspective as well.”
How Crossings Can Save Human Lives and Benefit Wildlife
Even if you’ve never crashed into a deer or swerved to avoid a jackrabbit, chances are you know someone who has. This is especially true if you live outside a major metropolitan area.
Hundreds of American motorists die as a result of wildlife-vehicle collisions each year. Gina Ferazzi / Getty
A 2008 study by USDOT’s Federal Highway Administration found that, on average, there are more than one million vehicle collisions involving wildlife in the U.S. each year. These collisions cost the public more than $10 billion annually — primarily in the form of medical bills and damaged vehicles. The economic costs seem trivial, however, when compared to the roughly 200 fatalities and 26,000 injuries to drivers and passengers as a result. The critters on the other end of our bumpers fare worse: An estimated 2 million wild animals are killed by cars in America every year.
Our fates on the road are, in a sense, intertwined, as both humans and wildlife must travel to survive. When road workers paved the nation’s first stretch of asphalt in 1870, cars had only recently been invented. In the decades that followed, more gas-powered vehicles started showing up on America’s roads, but they didn’t travel fast enough to have much of an impact on wildlife. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that economy-class cars could maintain speeds above 60 mph. The term “roadkill” was coined roughly 20 years later.
“You look at our roads on a map, and it looks like a little ribbon. It seems like it couldn’t have that much of an impact,” Buttigieg says. “But it effectively cuts off one side from the other, whether you’re talking about [a deer] in an urban neighborhood or a predatory big cat that needs a large radius to hunt in.”
Road-killed whitetail deer are a common sight in much of rural America. Ferenc / Adobe stock
These effects are most prominent in areas where migratory species like mule deer and pronghorn antelope are present. Accordingly, Western states have begun to lead the way in re-engineering roadways to benefit wildlife. The Utah Dept. of Transportation built the country’s first wildlife bridge in 1975, and the state has constructed more than 50 additional crossings since then.
Other states like California and Washington have made similar strides in recent years. A 2022 study by Washington State University that focused on the 10-mile stretches surrounding these structures found that wildlife crossings in the state have already resulted “in one to three fewer wildlife-vehicle collisions on average per mile per year.”
How These Wildlife Projects Were Chosen
Looking at the 19 grant-funded projects that were just announced, many of the applicants were state transportation agencies that couldn’t otherwise fund such ambitious work. One $22-million grant will allow the Colorado DOT to build a dedicated wildlife overpass spanning six lanes on Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs. The burly bridge will benefit elk and the other migratory species that inhabit the transition zone between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. It will also make driving north-to-south safer for the constant stream of motorists who travel between Colorado’s two most populous cities.
Similarly, an $8.6-million grant awarded to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will fund the construction of an overpass spanning U.S. Highway 93 in Montana’s Ninepipe National Wildlife Management area. Although the highway receives far less traffic than I-25, it’s a stretch of road that’s notoriously deadly for grizzly bears.
A wildlife overpass spanning the Trans Canada Highway in Banff National Park. Craig Zerbe / Adobe stock
Most of the big-ticket grants that were announced on Dec. 5 will fund projects in these and other Western states. This is because there are more migratory species criss-crossing the West, and modern GPS tracking has given biologists a better understanding of their migration patterns. Many of these animals are also bigger and deadlier. (Research shows that human fatalities are 13 times more likely when a car hits a moose versus a whitetail deer.)
The federal program isn’t strictly focused on the West, however, and eight of the wildlife-crossing projects moving forward are in the Midwest, South, and East. With a few exceptions, most of these projects are more based around research than road construction. One grant that was awarded to the Connecticut DOT, for example, will fund a statewide plan to identify critical habitat blocks and wildlife corridors used by whitetails, black bears, wild turkeys, and other animals.
Buttigieg says picking and choosing between the overwhelming number of project applications USDOT received was a challenge. He explains that their foremost consideration was weighing which projects would be most effective and save the most lives. They also leaned toward proposals that were well thought out and detailed in terms of maximizing federal dollars.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg at a construction site in Ohio. Brooke LaValley-Pool / Getty
“There’s always more ideas and proposals than we can say yes to, but you know, we started at zero,” Buttigieg says. “This is not the only round, either. And those that didn’t make the cut but had a pretty compelling case — we encourage them to come back again next year.”
In August, USDOT launched a similar infrastructure program that benefits aquatic species by contributing $196 million toward repairing and replacing many of the outdated culverts that run underneath U.S. roads. When these critical structures are damaged or compromised, they can cause flooding and restrict fish passage—sometimes blocking it entirely.
Read Next: The Key to Solving Big-Game Migration Conflicts? Roadkill
Buttigieg sees the programs as two sides of the same coin, and he believes their successes will serve as further proof that America’s fish and wildlife are worth investing in.
“If you can eat into a problem that costs the public $10 billion a year with a tiny fraction of that in terms of investment, that’s a pretty good return,” he says. “So, even in a kind of cold, hard financial sense, I think these efforts are going to prove themselves.”
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The longest-operating gun manufacturing plant in the country will close its doors in March after 195 years of making Remington guns. RemArms, the reimagined brand offshoot of the Remington every hunter and shooter has known for two centuries, announced the change in a letter to union leaders Thursday, reports the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
“I am writing to inform you that RemArms, LLC has decided to close its entire operations at 14 Hoefler Avenue, Ilion, NY 13357,” the letter reads. “The Company expects that operations at the Ilion Facility will conclude on or about March 4, 2024. The Company did not arrive at this decision lightly.”
OL visited the Ilion plant in 2019. Model 870 shotgun receivers wait to be hand-buffed (left); an Ilion employee matches stock and forend wood for walnut-stocked 870s. Andrew McKean
The decision is noteworthy for Remington fans, but not altogether surprising given the recent turmoil at Big Green. The Remington Outdoor Company filed for bankruptcy in July 2020, laying off 585 employees without severance benefits and halting operations in Ilion. In fall 2020, an investment firm named The Roundhill Group purchased the manufacturing plant, along with a second Remington facility in Tennessee that made handgun barrels, and renamed the company RemArms. (Meanwhile Ruger bought Marlin, which had been under Remington ownership since late 2007. Remington Ammunition is now a separate company from RemArms firearms.)
In May 2021, 230 RemArms employees returned to the Ilion plant to continue operations. The company was focused on mass-producing Model 870s shotguns and Model 700 rifles, and restocking shelves before hunting season rolled around, director of product management Adam Ballard told Field and Stream at the time. (Outdoor Life has since tested the RemArms 870 Fieldmaster, which has replaced the RemArms 870 Express.)
“It is extremely disappointing to hear that RemArms LLC is closing its Ilion plant,” he wrote on Thursday. “The workers in Ilion enabled RemArms to rise from the ashes of the Remington Arms bankruptcy in 2020-21. Without these workers and their dedication to producing the best firearms in the world, this company simply would not exist … This announcement by the company is a slap in the face to all of them. The timing adds insult to injury for those affected. Merry Christmas from RemArms.”
A RemArms representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An auto-reply email to Outdoor Life stated, in part, “RemArms is excited to expand our facilities in Georgia, a state that not only welcomes business but enthusiastically supports and welcomes companies in the firearms industry.”
An employee at the Ilion plan inspects the bore of a VersaMax barrel in 2019 (left); buffing 870 actions. Andrew McKean
The statement was part of a November 2021 press release from Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s office announcing that RemArms would be moving its global headquarters to LaGrange, Georgia, and building an advanced manufacturing facility there, as well.
Eliphalet Remington II founded Remington as a rifle barrel manufacturer in 1816; the Ilion plant became operational in 1828 and produced thousands of firearms for the Union Army in the Civil War. The company also produced some of the nation’s first commercially available typewriters in Ilion from 1874 to 1886, although it is unclear whether they were manufactured in the same plant.
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“The Ilion facility and its workforce truly remain a valued asset to the company,” then-Remington CEO James Marcotuli told shooting editor John B. Snow in 2016, during the gunmaker’s 200th anniversary. “There’s a ton of experience and knowledge there. We’ve been producing Remington products in Ilion since 1816. In that time, we’ve produced more than six million Model 700s, nearly four million Model 1100s, and 11 million Model 870s.”
A clarification was made on Dec. 1, 2023: A previous version of this article mislocated the word “shotgun” when referring to Model 870s and Model 700s. It has been updated to reflect the appropriate category of firearm for those models.
Jeremy Williams likes to hunt his family’s 500-acre parcel near the Susquehanna River in south-central New York. He goes down to the river often, and last summer he spotted a giant buck near the bank while catfishing. Williams watched where the deer bedded, and then came back to place trail cams in the area. By October, he’d learned the buck’s habits well enough to make his move.
“He was only 20 yards away from me on Oct. 10,” Williams tells Outdoor Life. “But I was shaking so bad I missed him clean, sending my arrow three feet over his back.”
Trail cam pictures of the same buck taken on Oct. 6, 2022 (left) and Oct. 7, 2023. Courtesy Jeremy Williams
Eager to redeem himself this season, Williams kept an eye on his trail cams and he kept getting photos of the buck. A few other hunters in the area had spotted the buck, too. But he wasn’t an easy deer to pattern.
“I’d been bowhunting him on [our] family’s land in low, thick areas because I believed that’s where he lived and bedded,” Williams says. “But as the [2023] bow season wound down, and gun season was about ready to start, I figured I better change tactics to get him.”
Williams decided he’d hunt from a climbing stand on top of a steep hill instead, where he thought the buck might be cruising the ridgelines for acorns. He thought the height might give him an advantage, and he also swapped his compound for a .308, even though he prefers to hunt with a bow when he can.
A trail cam photo of the 12-point buck taken in late August. Courtesy Jeremy Williams
“He was well within bow range when I shot him, and I wish I’d had my bow with me that morning,” he says. “He only ran about 50 yards, stopped, and I shot again.”
Both hits were good, and Williams waited for a bit before recovering the buck—only the second deer he’s ever taken with a rifle. Williams didn’t weigh the deer after field dressing it, but he estimated its weight around 200 pounds.
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It’s a classic, wide 12 pointer with a green gross score of 181 1/7 inches. He’ll have the buck scored officially after the 60-day drying period is up, and Williams says there’s a chance it could be a new Tioga County record. The current record, another 12 point, had an official score of 180 1/8 and was taken in 1989, according to Williams. (No typical whitetails appear listed in the Boone and Crockett record database for the county.) Williams says both deer have similar-looking racks, which is a testament to the good genetics in the area.
“The buck killed in 1989 was taken just across the Susquehanna from where I shot my deer,” he points out. “And a shed from my deer I found last year was just 200 yards from where I shot him. He died not far from the river where I first spotted him while catfishing last summer.”
I was talking myself out of an evening sit. It had been a long season, I had family in town for Thanksgiving, and my three girls—all under age eight—were missing their dad just about as much as I was missing them. But almost as though he could read my mind, my brother-in-law, who has been one of my closest friends since before I married his sister, called me as I was coming out of a morning stand and told me to finish strong. You never know what the late rut will bring.
So for the evening I headed to a patch of public land about an hour from Des Moines. It’s a long, narrow chunk of ground surrounded by ag. Little draws drop off a ridge down to the fields. I had hung cameras there maybe five years ago and had gotten photos of some good bucks, but I quit running cameras shortly afterward. They disappoint you, either because they don’t get any pictures, or because they get pictures of bucks you never end up seeing when you hunt.
But I had marked a tree on the property that was intriguing, and I still had the waypoint in my phone. It grew at the end of a long hardwood ridge, where the oaks transition into sticker brush, buckbrush, and pines. I thought that might be a good place for the end of the rut, maybe to intercept a buck coming out of or heading into that bedding area.
Courtesy J.D. Vandenburg
It was the last Saturday of bow season and I expected the parking area to be full, but surprisingly there were no vehicles. Still, the number of empty Hot Hands wrappers strewn around was a sign that it had been hammered during the rut, and on my way in I passed a couple of tree stands, a mock scrape, then a Shoot-n-See target hung from an oak tree. Somebody had been target practicing about 30 yards from the tree I wanted to sit in. It wasn’t exactly pristine wilderness.
I’m what you’d call a hang-and-hunt hunter. I use a saddle and climbing sticks and hang on a tree I’ve identified earlier or where the deer sign points me. There’s not much public land in Iowa, and what’s accessible are small, heavily pressured parcels. But I try to adapt by hunting mid-week when I can, and I’m thankful for a spouse who lets me go. I’m an auction representative for an over-the-road truck company, trying to help companies sell their used equipment, so it can be hard to get time away. Plus, my oldest daughter likes to be involved. Her thing is packing out a deer heart so we can cut it up and eat it when we get home.
I had just gotten settled when I heard noise down the ridge. I’d seen squirrels everywhere on my way in, so I looked around the tree expecting to see a squirrel. Instead, I saw the right side of a buck’s rack coming out from behind a big pine tree. Based on what I saw, I immediately knew it was a deer I wanted to shoot. I grabbed my bow and tried to get my release on, but the adrenaline was already starting to shake up my body. Somehow, my D-loop was backward on my bowstring. I couldn’t understand how to clip my release in, so I ended up just grabbing the loop with my fingers and turned it around and got clipped in. The deer never stopped moving, and somehow I got to full draw.
I shoot a single-pin sight, and all the time I was thinking he’s at 20 to 25 yards, walking from left to right. His head was down, like he was looking for something. Maybe he was on a hot doe, or maybe he was run down, or maybe he was headed home, I don’t know. I got my pin on his vitals, but he was cruising. I gave a “baahp” to get him to stop, but it was like he didn’t hear it or he just ignored it. He went behind a cluster of hardwoods with some gaps but no good shooting lanes. I was waiting for him to come out the other side, also aware that he was about to hit my wind.
I’m freaking out in milliseconds. He comes out the other side and one more time I “baahp” him, but he still doesn’t stop. I immediately knew I’d have to shoot while he was walking, which is a shot I just don’t practice. Hindsight is 20/20, and I should have followed through with my swing, but I stopped my bow and hit him high and a little back. My initial feeling was just total sickness.
He ran off about 20 yards and looked back in my direction. He’s right there, at 40 yards in the open timber. Broadside. I almost tried to get another arrow in him, but I worried he would see me moving and bolt out of there. So I stayed totally still and he started trotting again. I thought I saw him stumble a little bit, but it was one of those things: Did I really see him stumble or am I making it up in my mind because I wanted to see it so bad? He walked maybe another 50 yards and then out of sight.
All sorts of thoughts flitted through my mind. How am I going to walk out in order not to bump him? How should I approach when I come back tomorrow? How much is it going to snow tonight?
I called my brother-in-law. It was about 2:30 p.m. when I shot and I figured my brother-in-law wasn’t quite out to his own stand. When he picked up, I told him I’d just shot the biggest buck I’ve ever seen. Because, when he was walking away, I could see how big he was.
“I probably just shot a 200-incher,” I told him, “I think he’s a 14-pointer.”
I was immediately aware how ridiculous that sounded, but that’s what I said. I walked him through my shot. Based on all that, he thought I should stay in my stand until dark, and then try to find my arrow. So I used my binocular to scan the ground, and I’m 90 percent sure I spotted my arrow, with red on the white fletching.
It wasn’t clear how big the buck was until it trotted away into the woods. Courtesy J.D. Vandenburg
Then I spotted a little blood on the trail through my binocular. About that time, I heard a long, extended grunt. My first thought was that there’s another hunter in the woods, maybe in that stand I had passed on my way in.
The longest hour of my life goes by, and my anxiety began to rise as the snow started to fly. I texted my brother-in-law, who said he thought it’d be okay if I got out of my stand to look for my arrow.
“Just be a ninja and don’t get any wild hairs to go tracking him,” he added.
I scanned the woods again, and this time I thought I could see a chunk of a main beam, but it was 150 yards away through the timber and I couldn’t confirm it. So I somehow sat on the tiny foot platform and glassed under some branches and I see a back leg kicked back, and at an angle that didn’t look like he was bedded down. Like he was dead.
I’m not gonna lie. I kinda lost it there in the tree stand. Not like I was screaming, more like I was weeping. I couldn’t even believe it. I don’t have the words to describe exactly what it was like.
I called my brother-in-law again, and he said he’d come right over. In the meantime I was able to get down and get to where I could confirm that the buck was down for good. I got over to him, tagged him, and tele-checked him. Then I just sat by him. I looked at him.
I’m a person of faith, and I thanked the Lord for the opportunity, one that I don’t think I necessarily deserved or earned. I was just humbled by the opportunity and just sat there until my brother-in-law showed up. He tackled me. We high-fived. We fist-bumped. And then we got to whooping and hollering—after he confirmed there was nobody hunting that stand up the ridge. We just stood there in awe of him. I had stuff scattered everywhere. I lost my knife on the ground. He was trying to keep me together. Somehow we got the buck field-dressed and loaded on to his deer cart, which I was thankful for since that deer was about 1,000 yards from the pickup.
The buck had long tines and a particularly cool sticker on his left G-2. Courtesy J.D. Vandenburg
Then it became a spectacle. We had all my close hunting buddies wanting to see him. It was just one of those nights that we don’t experience in hunting very often, everyone wanting to be a part of it—pumped up for me, and for the chance to see an animal like that, that’s not mounted on the wall or on TV. I got to stop at a few family Thanksgiving gatherings, everybody came out and checked him out. Eventually I brought him back to my house. My brother-in-law had said from the time I called him that he wanted to put a tape on him.
“I don’t even care what he scores,” I told him.
“I know,” he said. “But I want to know.”
So my brother-in-law did the measuring while I entered the dimensions in my phone. I just started laughing because I realized he was going to be over 200 inches. I was just thinking, Oh. My. Lord. My brother-in-law got a very rough gross score of 211-7/8. A buddy came over and taped him at 210-4/8, without knowing the prior score.
My wildest dreams had been of shooting a 160-inch deer. My best-ever buck, which I shot when I was 18, is a 167-inch 10-point, and I’ve shot a couple deer in the 150-inch range. But most of the time I’m shooting 130-class deer or I’m filing doe tags. I’ve missed some big deer, and when I released my arrow, I thought this might be one I’d never see again.
When we field dressed him, I found I had hit only one lung and no other organs, but his entire chest cavity was full of blood. I got lucky—or more accurately, blessed—on multiple occasions: first that I got a shot at that deer, second that I recovered him, and third that he was as big as he is.
I used to do some part-time taxidermy, and I’ll still mount a deer or two a year for a buddy or a relative. I’m going to mount this deer myself. I’m a little torn about whether to use the cape. He’s missing the hair from both his shoulders. I’m not sure if he lived in a swamp somewhere or if he was rubbed from fighting. I do know I’ve never seen a tick load on any deer like this buck, so maybe he was rubbing his shoulders trying to get the ticks off.
The buck rough scored 210 4/8 inches. Courtesy J.D. Vandenburg
I’m still in awe of his dimensions. That right side that I saw as he was walking in has so many typical points coming off that long main beam that’s just unbelievable. I never thought I’d see that, period, let along on a deer coming through the woods toward me. And his tine length is crazy, too: His 2s, 3s, and 4s are all super long and he has a sticker, a sort of hook, coming off his left G-2.
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If I had to pick out one thing about him that blows my mind is the fact that he’s a main-frame seven. And none of his tines are short. I’ve shot 8-pointers with shorter tines than his last point. It’s just hard for me to believe that a deer like that exists—let alone that I’d get a chance to encounter him.
