Game & Fish

The annual Game & Fish Tackle Test, now in its seventh year, takes place during early December, but it really starts in October, when we send a letter to every manufacturer of bass rods and reels, inviting them to submit their latest and greatest offerings for evaluation. Over the weeks that follow, box after box of reels and tube after tube of rods arrive at Deputy Editor Alex Suescun’s house in Orlando and increasingly take over his garage. He painstakingly spools each reel with line before G&F contributor and test team captain Shane Beilue and I descend on Central Florida for our weeklong, on-the-water assessment. Grady Maynard, a fishing guide on the Harris Chain of Lakes, joins us to lend his insightful opinions. Over the course of several days, we…

The first step to cooking wild turkey perfectly is understanding how it differs from its domestic counterpart that many ceremoniously roast on Thanksgiving. Wild turkeys run and fly; they’re athletes with more muscle than commercially-raised birds, and are far leaner. Their thighs and legs, for example, look nothing like those of a store-bought turkey. For this reason, it’s advisable to never cook a wild gobbler whole, but rather butcher it into the following cuts: wings, breasts, tenderloins, thighs, and legs. The wings, thighs, and legs require slow cooking at low temps to break down and turn tough collagen to gelatin, thus tenderizing the meat. The addition of liquids keeps the meat from drying out, which is why braising is a great technique for cooking these cuts of wild turkey. The…

Brothers Vick and William Tan, ages 16 and 14, split their time between Westchester, N.Y., and Eden Prairie, Minn. While neither of their parents nor any close relatives fish, the boys became interested in the sport early in life. When they noticed that not many other kids their age were wetting a line, they pondered what might be keeping youngsters from taking up fishing and endeavored to do something about it. Deciding that a lack of access to tackle and insufficient basic know-how were the biggest barriers to entry, Vick and William co-founded Fish Hut, a non-profit organization created with the goal of removing said roadblocks to help introduce more kids to fishing and foster greater participation in the sport. An estimated 80,000 kids have now had the opportunity to…

PIFFICULTY: MODERATE TO HARDTIME REQUIRED: 4 TO 6 HOURS When I built my first truck-bed drawer system, there was nothing like it on the market. My hunting and fishing passions took me near and far, and I was constantly hauling gun dogs and all kinds of hunting, fishing, and camping gear in the back of my pickup truck. Over the years, I’ve built several different designs, but the goal has always been to give my outdoor lifestyle a little more organization. Woodworking was my college minor, but thankfully, a woodworking degree isn’t necessary to build functional storage boxes for a fraction of the price of commercially-made models. You just need some readily available dimensional lumber and hardware, a modest assortment of hand and power tools, and a few hours of…

Back in 1996, 63 percent of Washington State voters approved Initiative 655, which banned the use of hounds to hunt black bears, mountain lions, and bobcats, and further prohibited the use of bait to hunt bears. Two years later, California similarly utilized the ballot box to decide complicated wildlife-management issues. Proposition 4 banned nearly all recreational and commercial trapping, as well as traditional trapping equipment. Proponents of Prop 4, who prevailed on the statewide general election ballot with about 57 percent of the vote, campaigned using photos of anguished animals in traps and drew a direct line between these “tortured” furbearers and voters’ family pets. In other words, emotion prevailed. Nearly 30 years later, Prop 4, combined with later and deeper prohibitions on trapping, has led to virtually no trapping…

We typically associate elk with the rugged expanses of the Rocky Mountain West, mainly thinking of them as a regal, mountain-dwelling big-game species requiring backcountry horseback rides and high-altitude hiking to properly hunt. But every year, several hunters fill their elk tags in the eastern part of the United States. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee currently hold elk hunts, awarding a few highly-prized hunting permits every year via a lottery. And with West Virginia’s growing herd, it could soon become the sixth eastern state to do so. If you’re interested in putting your name in for one of these unique hunts, now is the time: The application period is either open or opening soon in each state (except Tennessee, where the deadline for 2026 was February 25). Should you…