Sign up for This Happened to Me News on backcountry adventure and wilderness survival. This story, “Float a River, Tag a Buck,” appeared in the Sept. 1985 issue of Outdoor Life. Morning fog curled above the river like campfire smoke as Al Davis, in the stern of his 16-foot canoe, kept us on course with deft flicks of the paddle. From my bow-end advantage, I drank in the early-October beauty along the southern-Michigan river. Changing leaves offered a panorama of autumn colors. We were only 15 minutes downstream from our launch site, and I had already seen a great blue…

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Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite. The ultimate accomplishment for a North Woods deer hunter is snow tracking a mature buck and shooting him at close range. Executing a hunt like this takes skill, patience, and plenty of woodsmanship. Below are three great stories that will inspire the snow tracker in you. Chasing the Storm For dyed-in-the-wool deer trackers, Christmas morning was to arrive a month early. Snow was forecast for Sunday—the day prior to opening day of deer season. Eager to get on a buck track,…

This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute.  “The United States boldly broke with the ancient military custom of swearing loyalty to a leader. Article VI required that American Officers thereafter swear loyalty to our basic law, the Constitution… Our American Code of Military Obedience requires that, should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers must obey the law… This nation must have military leaders of principle and integrity so strong that their oaths to support and defend the Constitution will unfailingly govern their actions.”—“Loyalty to the Constitution” plaque located on the…

A U.S. Army doctor accused of sexual misconduct in a November lawsuit is being held in a Texas county jail, according to an Army statement released Thursday. “Fort Hood officials ordered Maj. Blaine McGraw into pretrial confinement on Dec. 2, and he is currently being held in the Bell County Jail, Texas, after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” the statement said. Though he is jailed, the statement said, McGraw has not been charged with a crime and his confinement will be reviewed within a week by “a neutral and detached military magistrate,” as is consistent with…

Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite. In an effort to reign in hunting pressure from out-of-staters, Montana wildlife commissioners voted unanimously this week to significantly reduce the number of nonresident deer tags available in 2026 and 2027. Under the amendment that was approved at a commission meeting Wednesday, the state’s fish-and-game department will implement a sales cap limiting nonresident hunters to half the number of general deer licenses sold. (These will be counted separately from the elk combination licenses.) This could lead to a reduction of around…

The Army is standing up a new Western Hemisphere Command effective Friday, consolidating three major commands under a single headquarters as part of the sweeping restructuring of the force.The new command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will combine U.S. Army North, U.S. Army South and Army Forces Command, according to a Tuesday memo from Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army. The memo further dictated that those subordinate commands will be formally inactivated Oct. 15 of next year.The Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, Air Traffic Services Command and the 1st Army will also henceforth fall under the “regionally focused” Western…

Sign up for This Happened to Me News on backcountry adventure and wilderness survival. After miles on the rough forest service road, you reach the trailhead, and head out for your hunt. After days in the backcountry, you return to your vehicle only to find you have a flat tire from a nail you picked up. That slow leak now has your rim on the ground. Sound familiar? Years ago, after a scenario just like this, I pulled down my spare, only to find it was flat too. Thankfully, a passer-by had a plug-in compressor and I was on my…

Marine Corps officials have identified a Marine who died Wednesday at Camp Pendleton, California, following a tactical training vehicle mishap. Pfc. Tanner F. Rubio, 21, died Dec. 3 in a training accident that a service release stated was unrelated to the currently ongoing Exercise Steel Knight 25, which is taking place across installations in California and Arizona. The service did not provide any additional details about the mishap.A native of Dixon, California, Rubio joined the Marine Corps in January 2025, and was subsequently assigned to 1st Battalion, 1st Marines at Pendleton’s Camp Horno area, according to his service record. “The…

Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news—plus a free month of onX Hunt Elite. A mother-to-be had a memorable visit to Bass Pro’s Wonders of Wildlife Museum in Missouri Wednesday, when she went into labor near the fish tanks. She and the father successfully delivered their baby right there at the aquarium as an EMS dispatcher walked them through the process over the phone, according to Ozarks First News. “These parties were calm and very helpful,” said Eli Snider, the Senior Emergency Medical Director for Mercy EMS, who was on the line coaching the parents…

Since its inception, the 101st Airborne Division — made even more famous by Stephen Ambrose’s “Band of Brothers” — has fought in every major war, from jumping behind the lines on D-Day to fighting in decades of battle in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Its unit patch, the screaming eagle overlaid on a black shield, is perhaps the most recognizable insignia in the U.S. Army. Its history, however, is less so.While the bald eagle is a national emblem, the 101st’s screaming eagle insignia pays homage to a genuine war bird from the Civil War. Captured as an eaglet in 1861 by…

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in a bid to block President Donald Trump from unilaterally launching any attacks against Venezuela. “I filed a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to stop Trump from starting another forever war,” Sen Tim Kaine said in a post on X. The United States has been bombing its way toward a war with Venezuela since it first struck, alleging that a narcotics trafficking boat was coming from Venezuela. No evidence to support the U.S.’s claims has ever been presented, and the boats…

President Donald Trump’s administration set forth a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere.The document released Friday by the White House is sure to roil long-standing U.S. allies in Europe for its scathing critiques of their migration and free speech policies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.It reinforces, in sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, Trump’s “America First” philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas, questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritizes U.S. interests above all.The U.S. strategy…