Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Game & Fish

Wy wife Elaine and I try to use as much of any deer I kill as is practical. Like many hunters, we save the heart and tongue and occasionally the liver, but we also make broth from a deer’s hind legs. Here’s how you can do the same, as well as some recipes using the broth. BREAKING DOWN THE BONES Because of their larger size, we prefer the thigh bones for making broth. After removing most of the meat from them, I use loppers to cut them into three roughly equal sections. The bones will shatter and connective tissue and bone marrow will be exposed, but that’s a good thing as it adds nutrition to the mixture (any bone fragments will be removed during the straining process). And don’t worry…

There simply aren’t enough days in October to enjoy all the high-quality hunting and fishing opportunities available across the Midwest this month. Hunting seasons are in full swing, with archery deer open throughout the region. Small game hunters are chasing rabbits and squirrels, and wing shooters are pursuing a plethora of upland birds and waterfowl. This often means less crowded waters for anglers. Largemouth bass feed aggressively ahead of winter, and panfish are back shallow doing the same. There really isn’t a better all-around outdoors month in the Midwest than October, so if you have vacation days left, consider adding a couple adventures to your calendar. 1 SODAK PHEASANTS Pheasant season brings hunters to South Dakota from all over the country. While residents appreciate the economic impact, they may be…

The Midwest is loaded with phenomenal wood duck habitat. Thus, there are a host of great destinations throughout the region for targeting woodies specifically. Below are a handful of outstanding options. MUSKEGON MAGIC Michigan’s countless river bottom swamps offer excellent nesting, rearing and staging habitat for woodies, and the lower Muskegon River near Muskegon Lake is a premier wood duck destination. It has an ideal mix of public state game area land, flooded hardwood timber, dense underbrush, open water marshes and adjacent agricultural lands. Traversing this dense marshland requires a small boat with a mud motor or paddling with a canoe or kayak. GREEN BAY GO-TOS Several state-managed wetlands with ideal wood duck habitat are found in eastern Wisconsin along the shores of Green Bay. Various units of the Green…

As a lover of horror movies and books, it’s hard not to enjoy Halloween. Streaming services begin running more of my favorite vintage movies, libraries put the classics on display, and my kids get creative with their costumes. For me, though, the best part of this spooky time of year is what happens in the deer woods. Namely, that whitetail bucks get on their feet and start looking for does. This late-October window is one of my absolute favorite times to hunt, and if it’s not yours, let me explain why it should be. EARLY SLOWDOWN October is a month of transition for whitetail deer, especially in areas with agriculture. Gone are the early days of autumn, when bucks could slip through dense forests and feast on crops. The leaves…

Anticipation and elation rapidly gave way to worry as the blood trail petered out. My daybreak shot had created a frantic scene, with does leaping and fleeing and the targeted buck seemingly vanishing. We originally wondered if the 10-pointer dropped where it had stood. Nope. But ample, frothy blood at the point of impact seemed to indicate a quality hit, leading to expectations of a dead deer close by. Wrong. Mostly, anyway. From our elevated blind, my young guide, Eli Arends, and I watched the buck sneak in just before legal light, approaching a couple of does and fawns. “Is that Tres?” I whispered? Arends raised his binoculars, then looked at me and nodded. The hunting crew at Lowrance Ranch, a 43,000-acre working cattle operation in North Texas, closely monitors…

Shane often daydreamed of hunting elk out West, and finally, after holding the winning raffle ticket for an elk hunt at the local Ducks Unlimited banquet, he was in the thick of it, somewhere deep in the dark timber of a Montana mountain. It was the peak of the rut, and bulls were bugling all around as Shane clutched his bow and tried his best to tell whether they were real bulls or other hunters. A moment later his question was answered. Six cow elk ran right past him, cutting across the logging road where Shane stood before galloping up the mountain as if they were being chased. In another instant Shane’s heart leapt as he saw the ivory tips of a big bull’s antlers seemingly float through the timber…

GET RUT READY! G&F’s annual Regional Rut Update gives hunters the most up-to-date information from each region to provide them with the needed intel on what to expect when they hit the field. See each weekly update under the “Hunting” tab. FALL FISHING FRENZY Just because it’s fall doesn’t mean it’s time to put the fishing rods away. See the latest on the hottest bites, from bass to trout to inshore species, under the “Fishing” tab. GEAR UP FOR BIG GAME Big game seasons are in full swing in many states. Check out the latest in hunting accessories and gear that will help you be successful during your fall hunts under our “Gear” tab. GETTIN’ BIRDY Fall is full of upland opportunities. From ruffed grouse in New England and Great…

My kids called it my “SS” talk, and they don’t recall it particularly fondly. The acronym stands for “self-sufficiency,” and I reliably trotted out a lecture on the topic just about any time my kids failed to demonstrate it. When they forgot their pocket knife and asked to borrow mine, I scolded them for their lack of SS. When they ran out of gas and called me for help, I reminded them of the value of SS. When they asked me to bait a hook or tie a knot, they got a brief lecture in self-sufficiency. I’m not proud of my too-frequent return to the topic, especially since my kids are mostly grown and now way too self-sufficient for my liking. But the idea of self-reliance has been back in…

Deer hunting from the ground is one of the more difficult challenges a hunter can take on. But it isn’t impossible. Nor is the learning curve as steep as some might believe. I’ve tagged deer from the ground with compound bow, crossbow, muzzleloader and rifle in hand. And I’m here to say you can do the same. Here are some key points to keep in mind. ASSEMBLE YOUR GEAR Ground hunting doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your arsenal, but certain items can help. For example, soft clothing lets you move more stealthily. If your clothing produces noise with movement, it’ll make hunting from the ground harder than it already is. Bowhunters might consider attaching a bow stand to their compound. This keeps it vertical and much easier to raise…

Catching a bass on every cast is mostly an angler’s dream. However, for a brief time each fall, it can become a reality on Midwest lakes where largemouths school on young-of-the-year gizzard and threadfin shad. The giant swarms of bait—thousands of fish 1 to 4 inches long—are perfectly sized for a bass banquet. During winter, feeding slows to a crawl, so as bass feel the approach of cold weather, they eat heavily knowing they have to survive on accumulated energy from fall. Gizzard shad are by far the most abundant of the two shad species in the Midwest, endemic throughout the Mississippi River basin and on many other waters. The gizzards hatched last spring are just the right size for most adult bass to eat as fall arrives, and their…

The weather—that all-important ingredient with waterfowl hunting—had been squirrelly in the week or two leading up to my highly anticipated, late-October hunt at Devils Lake, North Dakota. Without cold, nasty conditions to spur ducks and geese to migrate, huge numbers of birds still loafed on Canadian prairies. Fortunately, unlike southern states utterly dependent on migrating birds, North Dakota enjoys vast numbers of ducks born and bred locally in the storied Prairie Pothole Region’s nesting habitat. In fact, hunters staying at Woodland Resort (woodlandresort.com) in Devils Lake are greeted with a prominent sign reading, “Welcome to America’s Duck Factory.” Day one of our hunt with Northern Flight Guide Service (take-em.com) saw us tucked into cattails along a field just a few hundred yards from a couple substantial water-filled potholes. Guide Eric…

The Trijicon Huron line debuted in 2020. The original configurations included a 1–4x24, 2.5–10x40, 3–12x40 and 3–9x40. In January 2025, Trijicon launched two additional models, the 4–16x50 ($985) that I used on the hunt and a 1–6x24 version ($735). Between the six models, Trijicon covers a wide swath of hunting options. The affordable scopes feature Trijicon’s “BDC Hunter Hold” reticle, with simple, easy-to-see crosshairs and windage and elevation cross markings. The 4-16x50 model I used is an increasingly “go-to” option for hunters pursuing whitetails and other North American game. “That 4-to-16 magnification just gives you a little bit more capability to reach out there,” Trijicon Marketing Director Josh Lyall says. “You get a good field of view at the 4x setting, while the 16x is plenty [of magnification] for any…

We were high on a ridgeline overlooking a lot of flat and wide-open Wyoming countryside. The FoxPro electronic call had been playing for about 10 minutes, and we’d seen nothing. Just as we were about to call it quits, a lone coyote appeared started heading our way. Finally, he stopped and began looking around in an attempt to pinpoint the dying jackrabbit. We were probably 200 feet above the coyote, and he was a bit more than 300 yards away. I held dead on and dumped him. Many hunters get all worked up when they must shoot uphill or downhill. Angled shooting does affect bullet flight. When you shoot up- or downhill, you need less trajectory correction. Gravity is the force that all bullets must reckon with, and it starts…

I slipped, skidded and stumbled before crashing to a stop at the mountain’s base. It wasn’t a wicked fall, but it hurt. I worried more about my rifle-and-scope combination than my bruised 19-year-old ego. Thankfully, neither the scope nor the rings appeared to be loose, and aside from a heavy scratch running the full length of the rifle’s maple stock and a handful of nicks and dings on the barrel and receiver, the 7mm Rem. Mag. seemed fine. I wouldn’t have known what to do if it wasn’t. I was as green to elk hunting as one could be. A Colorado native, I grew up in a non-hunting family. If it weren’t for the man who brought me on the trip, a big game hunt would’ve remained a pipe dream…

The wood duck (aka “woodie”) is a bit odd compared to other puddle ducks. For starters, they’re cavity nesters. While a few diving duck species are cavity nesters—hooded mergansers, goldeneyes and buffleheads—the only other puddle duck that is, is the black-bellied whistling duck. Overall, though, it’s rare among most ducks. The woodie’s propensity for cavity nesting is partly why its numbers are solid across most of its range. Nesting off the ground helps wood ducks elude predators, like foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums and crows, that plague other species. The flooded brush environments woodies favor also provide lots of overhead cover, which protects them—especially younger birds—from avian predators, like hawks, owls and eagles. Conservation efforts have helped, too. Nesting boxes, built and placed by hunting/conservation organizations, civic groups, youth camps and…

The Midwest is blessed with many waters offering solid schooling action in the fall, especially in more southern stretches of the region. Some of these are powerplant lakes, and most are manmade reservoirs, but all have good populations of gizzard or threadfin shad—or both. Below are several top Midwest options. HAWKEYE HOT SPOT Iowa doesn’t have a lot of lakes where shad are the primary bass food, but 5,400-acre Saylorville Lake qualifies. Shadimitating crankbaits worked around rocky points and breakwaters produce good catches in fall. HEARTLAND HEAVYWEIGHT Gizzard shad are the main forage base at Kansas’ 2,600-acre La Cygne Reservoir, too. Here, the shad and the bass school around the powerplant outflow on chilly late-fall mornings, per Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. You should head there as well. MISSOURI…

Given suitable habitat, when you hunt pheasants can be almost as important as where you hunt them. Pheasants spend relatively short periods in feeding areas, usually early and late in the day, then move to places where they can loaf and hide. It doesn’t take them long to fill their crops, so these moments are a bit fleeting. While you can still bag birds throughout the day, these key movement windows can be very productive, and upland hunters should take advantage when possible. To do so, one must know how to identify the roosting and loafing cover where birds spend much of their time, the food sources they visit and how the weather can affect these patterns. PLAN OPPORTUNE AMBUSHES My hunting companions and I once hunted a walk-in property…

Because of its numbers—and diversity—of birds, Devils Lake is a fantastic waterfowl hunting destination. The area also has a decent amount of public land, including many Private Land Open to Sportsmen (PLOTS) parcels. Beyond that, any private land not posted (physically or electronically) is open to hunting. To view electronically posted private lands and other public lands, click on the “Where to Hunt” tab on the North Dakota Game and Fish website (gf.nd.gov). You can use the interactive North Dakota Hunting Atlas, download two free mobile apps (Avenza-Geospatial PDF app and ArcGIS Field Maps) and one commercial one (onX Hunt) or print map sheets. All clearly identify public grounds and electronically posted private properties, and most will display landowner contact info, too. You can also always contact an owner directly…

We all wondered what was in store for Marlin after Ruger purchased the company in 2020. Many feared that the near 150-year legacy of one of the most iconic firearms manufacturers was in jeopardy. What we soon discovered is that Ruger might be the best thing to happen to Marlin. The lever-action rifles Marlin is producing today are some of the best lever guns the gunmaker has ever produced—maybe that any manufacturer has ever made. One of Marlin’s newest lever guns is another version of their Trapper, but it’s outfitted with a stock and forend from Magpul—and it’s one of my favorites. With its 16-inch barrel, the Trapper lever gun is a short, fast-handling carbine. Currently, Marlin is offering Trappers in the Model 1895 (chambered in .45-70 Government), Model 336…