Game & Fish August 2025

I’ll just come right out and say it: August makes me anxious. Some of the blame goes to the godforsaken heat that comes with it. I grew up in the Northeast, where the end of summer was typically far more temperate than it is in my adopted home state of Kansas. If you know anything about late summer in the southern Great Plains, you know that the heat and humidity will conspire to make any time spent outside in the daylight hours fairly miserable.That doesn’t mean folks here don’t get out on the water or scout for deer. It just means we need to bring a lot of extra water and a change of clothes for when we sweat through the first. The other reason August makes me anxious is…

FOR THE RECORD BOOKS What’s the heaviest crappie or bass caught in your state? See the latest updates on records for freshwater and saltwater fish under the “Fishing” section. RANGE REPORT: MARLIN MODEL 1895 Get the full report on Marlin’s reintroduced Model 1895 lever-action rifle. Find the rundown on the rifle under the “Gear” section. GO HOG WILD WITH BURRIS THERMAL OPTICS As boars become more nocturnal during the hotter months, Burris’ economically priced thermal units provide hunters the ability to control pig populations. WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NEWS Check out the latest in conservation efforts and issues, including voter initiatives, fair-chase ethics and best practices for using public-land resources under the “Hunting” section. AROUND THE OUTDOORS If you’re looking for the latest in hunting, shooting and fishing content, you can find…

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge has been training new shooters and satisfying everyone else for well over a century. But as prolific and perfect as the .22 Long Rifle cartridge might seem, it has a design flaw—one that, in the world of modern cartridges, limits its performance. Winchester designed the .21 Sharp to correct that flaw, and you could argue it’s also partly the product of government regulations. But is the .21 Sharp a cartridge you need, and should you ditch your favorite .22 Long Rifle for one? Let’s take a closer look. AN UNFORTUNATE FLAW Have you ever looked at a .22 Long Rifle cartridge beside a .22 Magnum or .17 HMR cartridge? There’s a distinct difference. The bullets on the .22 Magnum and .17 HMR cartridges are smaller…

There was a time not all that long ago when I had a plan. Once August rolled in, I’d start running trail cameras, scouting travel corridors and checking for fresh sign. I’d block off a couple weeks in November and dive into my favorite tracts of public ground like they were my own personal playgrounds. Public land was my go-to for many years. It was accessible and productive. It wasn’t always easy, but it was rewarding. It was mine—not in a legal sense, of course, but in the way every hunter who puts in the miles and hangs stands in the dark eventually claims a little piece of wild ground as his own. Now, those days are over. WHAT CHANGED? Somewhere along the way, the game shifted. Drawing tags has…

Randy Ferguson describes deer hunting as a social service. He’s not talking about hunters’ mutually beneficial relationship with farmers in his native Pennsylvania, or the social and economic fabric that’s knit by hunters and their traditions in rural communities around the country. Instead, he’s talking about the million pounds of venison that Pennsylvania hunters have donated to public food banks in the Keystone State over the last 5 years. “We’ve been breaking records every year with the donated portion of the deer harvest,” says Ferguson, executive director of Pennsylvania’s chapter of Hunters Sharing the Harvest (HSH) program, now in its 34th year. “Last season, hunters donated 262,000 pounds from about 6,900 deer. That’s an all-time record for us, topping the 235,000 pounds from the year before. When you compound the…

With my hand behind my back, motioning for my pal Joe to stop, I whispered hoarsely at a barely audible volume. “Don’t move.” Joe likely thought I had momentarily gone insane since we were walking slowly in total darkness, and seeing anything ahead to stop abruptly for was questionable indeed. If that was his thought, he was wrong. By nature’s design, my eyes were dilated and the photoreceptor cells in my retinas were already working overtime to pierce the darkness. What they detected were the two tan forms standing out in the otherwise complete black of the Wyoming backcountry. I lifted my binocular to my eyes in slow motion and whispered my next insight to Joe. “Bulls.” I had spied the bulls while summiting a small rise ahead of Joe.…