Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite. Best For Beginners Ugly Stik GX2 Spinning Combo Best Budget Shimano Nexave Spinning Combo Best for Salmon and Steelhead Shimano Symetre Salmon/Steelhead Spinning Combo It is a common misconception that rod and reel combos are lower quality than what you would get from rods and reels sold separately. The truth is there are plenty of quality combos from top-notch brands that will help you land fish. Purchasing ready-made combos takes the guesswork out of trying to match the right reel with…

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The U.S. Navy’s top civilian said Tuesday that the service would look into the concept of utilizing foreign partners to manufacture the nation’s warships as it seeks to address its growing shipbuilding needs.Navy Secretary John Phelan told reporters at a media roundtable at Sea-Air-Space 2026 in Washington that the Navy was facing a labor capacity problem at home and needed help remediating it.“Everything’s on the table,” Phelan said. “We just need to look at it, understand it, understand the implications behind it and decide if we think that makes sense or not.”The secretary cited previous successful maintenance, repair and operations…

When the American Expeditionary Forces joined the Allied armies on the Western Front in World War I, there was one condition upon which their commander, Gen. John Pershing, insisted. He wanted the AEF to fight as an army, not a collection of separated units scattered among the Allied armies. For the most part, he got his way by the time the United States’ First Army was launched against the Germans at Saint-Mihiel in September 1918. There were, nevertheless, a handful of American divisions that were “loaned” among the French, the British and the Australians, leaving their partners a general impression…

U.S. Southern Command is standing up a new element aimed at connecting tactical missions to long-term outcomes with unmanned systems, the command announced Tuesday. The development of the Autonomous Warfare Command was mandated by SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan in an effort to further support the Trump administration’s national security objectives and SOUTHCOM’s operational dominance, per the statement.Once fully operational, the new command will be tasked with engaging autonomous, semi-autonomous and unmanned platforms to “counter threats across domains.” The announcement did not specify when SAWC will reach operational status. “From the seafloor to space and across the cyber domain,…

Sign up for the Quick Strike Newsletter The hottest fishing news, tips, and tactics A high-school fishing tournament in California took a terrifying turn just after blast-off on Saturday, when two boats collided near the San Joaquin Delta. Six people were injured during the crash, and four of them had to be hospitalized. Three have since been released. The one person still in the hospital was one of the adult boat operators involved in the crash, according to one of the tournament organizers. “Just a really tragic incident. We’re still just trying to make sure everybody is okay,” says Barry…

This article was originally published by Willow Tohi at Natural News.  Israel’s UN ambassador publicly accused France, China, and Pakistan of making secret payments to Iran for safe passage through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. The accusations stem from reports that commercial vessels from these nations transited the strait despite Iran’s broader shipping restrictions. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical global chokepoint, handling approximately 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. Iran has selectively allowed passage for some nations’ ships while maintaining a blockade against others, deepening geopolitical fractures. The confrontation at the UN highlights the escalating…

Saildrone, a maritime defense company, announced on Monday a new class of unmanned surface vessels designed for anti-submarine warfare operations.The company released the Saildrone Spectre design, a vessel 54 meters long and 250 metric tons that’s capable of a speed up to 30 knots, making it the company’s “most capable” platform, Salidrone said.Spectre is meant for ASW missions, which demand “extreme endurance and an ultra-quiet acoustic signature,” according to an advanced company release shared with Military Times. The release states that the vessel utilizes the wing system’s endurance and silent propulsion to fulfill ASW operations.Richard Jenkins, Saildrone’s founder and CEO,…

The U.S. medium-sized unmanned service vessels fleet could jump from roughly four to 30 vessels by 2030 in the Indo-Pacific, according to officials. As of now, the U.S. has at least four medium-sized unmanned service vessels that previously completed deployments in the region.In just four years, that amount could be approximately seven times larger, according to U.S. Navy Capt. Garrett Miller. Speaking on a panel about uncrewed maritime systems on Monday’s Sea-Air-Space Conference, Miller, the commodore of Surface Development Group 1, said that based on the service’s 2045 force vision, people can expect to see over 30 medium USVs in…

Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite. On Tuesday the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission announced the death of what’s believed to be the world’s largest common snapping turtle, a prehistoric-looking specimen known as Big Snap Daddy. The turtle was something of a living legend among visitors to the Schramm Education Center’s, which housed the turtle in its aquarium in Gretna, Nebraska, for some 30 years. The wildlife agency announced the news on Facebook, to the dismay of adults and kids alike. Experts estimate “Big Snap” was between…

The Department of Defense on Tuesday unveiled a $1.5 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2027 — a 42% year-over-year increase and the most expensive military outlay in modern history. “We’re facing one of the most complex and dangerous threat environments in our nation’s 250-year history,” Jules J. Hurst III, the under secretary of war and chief financial officer, told reporters at a briefing at the Pentagon. “Our adversaries are rapidly advancing capabilities across every warfighting domain: in the air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, while years of underinvestment has strained our industrial base.”“This is a generational investment in the United…

Iran has vowed to retaliate against the United States after it fired upon and seized a cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. “Trump, by imposing a blockade and violating the ceasefire, seeks, in his view, to turn the negotiating table into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering,” said Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Ghalibaf led the Iranian delegation in the failed talks with Vice President J.D. Vance in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 11th. Vance Fails In Iran: No Peace Deal According to state media, as reported by NBC News, the ministry called the Sunday night cargo…

As demand surges for one of the military’s most in-demand missile interceptors, the Navy is preparing to bring it to sea. The service plans to integrate the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor into its Aegis Combat System for the first time, Lockheed Martin announced in a Tuesday statement, as demand for the missile grows and the Pentagon expands production. The Army uses the interceptor missile, known as the PAC-3 MSE, in its Patriot air defense system, and the move will bring the interceptor aboard the Navy’s ships for use within the Aegis system to detect and intercept incoming aerial threats.The…

Sign up for This Happened to Me News on backcountry adventure and wilderness survival. This story, “The Wolves Were the Worst,” appeared in the June 1967 issue of Outdoor Life. In her previous story in the May 1967 issue, Olive Fredrickson told of being left a widow at 26 on a homestead on the Stuart River in British Columbia with three young children to support when Walter Reamer, her trapper-husband, drowned; she told of hunting moose when success or failure meant food or hunger for her family; and she told of walking 58 miles in 36 hours, in the snow…

The head of the U.S. command for the Indo-Pacific region on Tuesday stressed the importance of Taiwan passing its stalled defense budget, saying the United States “can’t want Taiwan’s defense more than they want it itself.”“It’s not a chicken and the egg, because you’re not going to get chicken or eggs if you starve the chicken,” Adm. Samuel Paparo told a hearing of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.“So it’s very important for them to fund their own defense,” he said, when asked about the stalled talks.Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te last year proposed $40 billion in extra defense spending to…