Field & Stream: Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoor Expertise Since 1871

Louisiana has roughly 3 million wild alligators, and hunters have helped keep it that way.

The American alligator is one of wildlife conservation’s great success stories. After populations declined, Louisiana closed its hunting season in 1962 and reinstated regulated hunting in 1972.

Today, wildlife biologists use population surveys, nesting data, and habitat assessments to establish sustainable hunting quotas. Hunters help manage the population, while landowners have an economic incentive to conserve critical wetland habitat.

During Field & Stream’s Louisiana Gator Camp, we saw this relationship between hunting, conservation, and habitat firsthand.

And when the hunting was done, we returned to camp for good company and a cold @twistedtea. Made with real brewed tea, 5% alcohol, and no carbonation, it was a refreshing way to finish the day.

#FSGatorCamp Presented by @twistedtea.
Enjoy responsibly. 21+ ...

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Nearly four decades after Ontario’s Georgian Bay produced a legendary 65-pound muskie, a first-time muskie angler put this giant in his net.

In 1988, Ken O’Brien landed a 58-inch muskie with a reported 30½-inch girth and a weight of 65 pounds, a catch that remains one of the most storied in Canadian muskie fishing.

A few weeks ago, Brenden Train joined his friend Mat Brown and longtime muskie angler Joe Bidinot on the same waters. With baitfish concentrated and an evening feeding window approaching, Train’s 8-inch Restless Rider swimbait drew a strike.

Fifty-seven inches on the bump board. Less than a minute to the net. Bidinot estimated the fish at roughly 50 pounds, though no weight or girth was recorded. After a few photographs, the crew released it.

Two exceptional fish, separated by decades, from a fishery with a long history of producing trophy-class muskies. For those who’ve spent time chasing them, what’s the biggest muskie you’ve ever put on a board?

Video and Muskie trip by @muskyfeverfishing ...

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John Moses Browning gave bird hunters four more shots to work with.

In 1887, when double-barrel shotguns were the standard equipment in the field, Winchester introduced Browning’s six-shot lever-action repeater. It came in 10 and 12 gauge, fed shells from a tubular magazine, and offered something any hunter could appreciate: more chances before having to reload. Browning had recommended a pump action, but Winchester wanted a lever gun. So he built one. Nearly 65,000 Model 1887s followed.

Six years later, Winchester introduced Browning’s Model 1893 pump shotgun. The improved Model 1897 arrived four years after that, with an action designed for smokeless-powder loads. Nearly a million would be made.

The lever action proved a shotgun could repeat. The pump helped make repeating shotguns a fixture in duck blinds, upland fields, and hunting camps across America.
Browning understood something that hunters still appreciate: the best mechanism is the one that lets you concentrate on the bird instead of the gun. Which would you rather carry into the field: the lever or the pump?

Images: Rock Island Auction Company and Library of Congress. Check out @rockislandauction for more. ...

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Friday the 13th might be your lucky day.

Field & Stream contributor Adam Lewis @deerhunteriq is betting November 13 will be the best day of the 2026 whitetail rut accounting for Midwest breeding cycles.

Think he’s right, or have you got another day circled for your state? Swipe through this Midwest-based prediction powered by @moultrieproducts, and tells us yours. ...

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He was 80 years old. He’d spent nine years defending a fish he’d caught half a century earlier. His 11-pound, 15-ounce smallmouth remains the official world record today.

David Hayes caught the biggest smallmouth bass in history, then spent nine years trying to prove the fish hadn’t been stuffed with scrap metal. On July 9, 1955, Hayes landed an 11-pound, 15-ounce smallmouth while trolling Dale Hollow Lake. Field & Stream certified the catch, and his name sat in the record books for 41 years.

Then somebody dug up an affidavit from 1955. A former dockhand claimed three pounds of sinkers and outboard motor parts had been shoved into the bass to make it a world record. The record keepers believed him. Hayes lost his title.

But Tennessee wildlife investigator Ron Fox wasn’t convinced. He tracked down witnesses, including the accuser’s own brother, who said the man hadn’t even been at the dock that day.

Another employee remembered the fish and insisted nobody had tampered with it. There was more. The accuser had already been fired from the marina before the fish was caught.

And the bass itself measured 27 inches long, with a girth that made the alleged original weight difficult to believe. By 2005, the evidence was too substantial to ignore. The International Game Fish Association reversed its decision and apologized to Hayes, then 80 years old. He’d pretty well given up on getting his record back. Seventy-one years after he landed it, on this Old School Sunday, that smallmouth is still the biggest ever officially recorded. ...

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That’s a seven-figure bag of bass. Congrats, Matt!

Matt Robertson just turned a smallmouth bite into a $1.25 million payday. The Kentucky pro found his fish below Old Hickory Dam, where moving water and a well-placed swimbait helped him put together the kind of bags that win bass tournaments.

He opened with 20 pounds, protected his water heading into the final, and now walks away as the inaugural World Bass Enterprises The Champions winner. Three days on the Cumberland River. One seven-figure check. The biggest first-place payday in professional bass fishing history. ...

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The buck is down, the hunt is over, and five deer hunters have six different opinions on what comes next.

Some split the pelvis. Others don’t bother. Some carry a saw, while others have gotten along just fine with a sharp knife for decades. Even experienced guides disagree on the order of operations, and a few skip certain steps altogether. What matters is getting the organs out cleanly and the carcass cooling as soon as possible. Good venison depends on it.

Field & Stream’s Dave Hurteau lays out one sound approach in six illustrated steps, with artwork by Peter Sucheski. It’s a useful refresher whether you’re dressing your first deer or your fiftieth, and hardly the last word on the subject.

What do you do differently? ...

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This buck was better at disappearing than most people are at keeping a secret.

Mitchell Bolton had been chasing an eight-point piebald whitetail through the Delaware woods since 2021. The buck had a hide that looked like somebody had spilled white paint on him and a talent for showing up everywhere except where Bolton was sitting. Trail cameras caught him at 2 a.m., 7 p.m., and occasionally in broad daylight. Then he’d vanish for weeks. Naturally, they called him Casper.

On November 14, 2023, Bolton climbed into his stand after a lousy day at work. Around 4:15 p.m., he heard leaves rustling and looked over to find Casper standing 25 yards away. One step out from behind a holly tree gave Bolton a clear shot.

Happy Halloween from the deer woods. 👻 ...

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First buck off your own ground, and it’s got tines for days. Congrats, Riley!

@rileyduckman arrowed an Alabama whitetail with long beams, tall tines, and enough bone on his head to make us look twice. But there’s a story in the dirt he came off.

Green started with 141 acres of family ground near Jacksonville, Alabama, that his granddad called the “rabbit farm.” He’s since bought up neighboring parcels, cleared fields, and the place now covers roughly 1,780 contiguous acres. That’s a lot of ground to look after, a lot of work that never really ends, and one heck of a first buck to take off the place.

The comments have already turned to backstraps, as they should. Hot cast iron, plenty of butter, and don’t you dare overcook them. ...

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With $1.25 million on the line, neither tried to push the other out.

World Bass Enterprises’ inaugural The Champions tournament has brought together 30 anglers from the Bassmaster Elite Series and 30 from Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour on Tennessee’s Old Hickory Lake.

The three-day competition carries a $3.25 million purse, including $1.25 million for first place, the largest winner’s payout in professional bass fishing history. Only 15 anglers advance to Saturday’s championship round, when their weights reset to zero.

Kentucky’s Matt Robertson took the opening-day lead with 20 pounds of smallmouth caught below Old Hickory Dam. By 9 a.m. on Day 2, he’d caught three more quality fish and was in position to advance. Rather than continue fishing, he stopped to preserve the spot for the final.

Major League Fishing pro Ron Nelson had found the same stretch of the Cumberland River, and the two were fishing within a few casts of each other. Nelson stayed clear of the water where Robertson had caught his fish, while Robertson encouraged Nelson to catch another keeper and secure his own place in the final. Nelson finished with a 17-pound limit of smallmouth. The two then pulled their boats alongside each other, laid down their rods, and spent the remainder of the day guarding the water. As Field & Stream contributor Shaye Baker reported, their dealings were “nothing short of professional.”

With seven figures at stake, neither angler tried to interfere with the other’s chances. Stay tuned for more coverage by @shayebaker. ...

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Avid bowhunter Clint Casper turned heads in Ohio earlier this month when he killed a massive whitetail he’s been targeting since last season.

Casper tells Field & Stream that he shot the giant buck on the evening of October 2 on his own farm during a lunar cycle that some deer hunters refer to as a “red moon.”

Casper and his father grain farm together in Ohio and have about 600 acres on the farm where they live. He first spotted the buck on that home farm last year and judged him as a 3-and-half year old. “He was probably in the mid-160s, but I knew if he had another year, he could absolutely blow up,” he says. “I rolled the dice and decided to let him walk.”

Full story by @travishallmedia feat. @casperclint powered by @moultrieproducts ...

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There’s no easy way to get a dead moose out of a river.

Nine days into a remote fly-in hunt in the Yukon, Casey Donovan, founder of @yukonunguided, and his crew finally got their bull. Trouble was, the moose ended up in the river, and getting it out of the swamp was a job of its own. They floated the bull to workable ground, field dressed it, and began breaking down the animal for the long haul back to camp.

After a tough season the year before, this bull meant more than a successful hunt. It meant a freezer full of meat for the year ahead. That’s a lot of good eating, but surely they’re starving after packing out several hundred pounds of moose.

Hunt, video, and story by @yukonunguided & @case2jones | Photo of Casey by @jordantuck_ ...

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