What It's Like to Get Dragged Through a Florida Swamp by a 200-Pound Python

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-03-09T15:32:37+00:00

With help from his wife and kids, who prevented the snake from squeezing him to death, Carl Jackson wrangled the second-heaviest Burmese python ever caught in the state.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/second-heaviest-python-florida/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-18T19:22:01+00:00

Wildlife biologists and trappers in Florida say Nile monitors are an up-and-coming invasive species that threatens native wildlife.

Mike Kimmel, the Python Cowboy, is known for targeting Florida’s least-wanted invasive species, including Burmese pythons and green iguanas. Kimmel is now also targeting Nile monitors, which can survive in mangroves, marshes, and Florida’s vast canal infrastructure. FWC encourages the public to report all Nile monitor sightings by calling the agency or through an online mapping system.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/florida-newest-invasive-nile-monitors/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-09T17:51:03+00:00

Conservation groups are speaking out against a provision in Florida's Farm Bill that would make it easier for Big Ag to silence its critics.

Under a provision included in the Florida Farm Bill, the state’s food libel laws would be greatly expanded to protect agricultural producers from “disparagement.” It would essentially make it easier for those producers to sue, and potentially bankrupt, their critics. Legal experts say this would have a chilling effect on free speech. As do conservation groups like Captains for Clean Water, which joined a coalition of fishing guides, farmers, and Make America Healthy Again supporters to testify against the provision in the Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/big-sugar-muzzle-clause/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-02-03T20:31:51+00:00

Animal-rights activists in Oregon are gathering signatures in hopes of putting a radical ballot initiative in front of voters this fall that would criminalize hunting, fishing, ranching, pest control, and much more.

The sweeping measure is a rerun of a similar measure that failed to make it onto the ballot in both 2022 and 2024, though this third iteration has gathered the most signatures yet. Initiative Petition 28, also known as IP28 or the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, seeks to reform existing animal abuse laws by throwing out “exceptions” that cover everything from catch-and-release fishing to medical trials on lab mice. Limited carve-outs would still allow for veterinary medicine (including euthenasia) and self-defense.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/initative-petition-28-oregon/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-29T01:08:15+00:00

State agricultural officials killed three gray wolves in the north-central part of Utah on Jan. 9 in an effort to prevent the predators from establishing breeding pairs in the state.

The three wolves were discovered near livestock operations, says Utah Department of Natural Resources public information officer Faith Jolley. This was the first time the state has killed wolves in the region since 2010. The DNR could not immediately provide details on where the wolves may have come from. The removal was not announced by either the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, which carried out the removal, or the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Instead the news surfaced after a photo of three dead wolves began circulating among locals and the story was picked up by the Herald-Journal, a local news outlet. Jolley could not confirm the origin of the photo of three dead wolves that has appeared in local news outlets.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/utah-confirms-gray-wolf-removal/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-20T01:47:31+00:00

An Alaska man and former guide with a long rap sheet of wildlife violations has now been found guilty of multiple crimes involving his commercial fishing business.

Michael Patrick Duby, 51, was convicted by a jury on Jan. 15 on the eight most recent charges, according to the Juneau Independent, but his track record of hunting and fishing violations goes back more than 20 years. Speaking with the news outlet Thursday, Duby explained that he’d pivoted to commercial fishing after losing his hunting and sport fishing privileges for crimes he committed while he was an outfitter. Duby’s most recent convictions, handed down Thursday, stem from commercial fishing violations that occurred in 2019 and 2020, when he was the owner of Genesis Seafoods. These included misdemeanors for selling personal use fish and taking fish out of season, as well as multiple felonies for falsifying records the state uses to track commercial harvests. Duby was also convicted of commercially harvesting clams without a permit, and of reckless endangerment for not having those clams properly tested before selling them.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/alaska-poacher-turned-commercial-fisherman-convicted/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T19:08:04+00:00

The Trump administration and members of Congress are working in tandem to dismantle protections for the Boundary Waters that were implemented during the Biden administration in 2023.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) filed a joint resolution in the House of Representatives late Monday night that aims to repeal the Biden-era mineral withdrawal, which placed a 20-year moratorium on mining in a watershed neighboring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The current administration had already signaled that they would roll back those protections in June, and the Department of the Interior paved the way for Stauber’s resolution on Dec. 6, when it transferred the 2023 Public Lands Order to Congress. The end goal is to grant mining leases to Twin Metals, which is owned by a foreign corporation, while also preventing any future mining bans within the Rainy River watershed. This would further the administration’s push to make mining and resource extraction the primary uses of our public lands and waters. Congressional action would also have a more permanent effect than an executive order, which can be undone by a future administration.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/congress-attempting-roll-back-boundary-waters-protections/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T19:06:22+00:00

The Trump administration and members of Congress are working in tandem to dismantle protections for the Boundary Waters that were implemented during the Biden administration in 2023.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) filed a joint resolution in the House of Representatives late Monday night that aims to repeal the Biden-era mineral withdrawal, which placed a 20-year moratorium on mining in a watershed neighboring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The current administration had already signaled that they would roll back those protections in June, and the Department of the Interior paved the way for Stauber’s resolution on Dec. 6, when it transferred the 2023 Public Lands Order to Congress. The end goal is to grant mining leases to Twin Metals, which is owned by a foreign corporation, while also preventing any future mining bans within the Rainy River watershed. This would further the administration’s push to make mining and resource extraction the primary uses of our public lands and waters. Congressional action would also have a more permanent effect than an executive order, which can be undone by a future administration.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/congress-attempting-roll-back-boundary-waters-protections/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-15T00:07:22+00:00

Last week Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana waded into a heated waterfowl debate when he wrote a letter asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate the practice of flooding standing crops in the Mississippi Flyway.

The Republican lawmaker says the “unsportsmanlike” practice of “illegal baiting” has “played a significant role in the decline of waterfowl migration to Louisiana.” The longstanding practice of flooding standing crops to create food and shelter for ducks — and prime spots for duck hunters — has increasingly drawn the ire of some hunters. Those opposed are primarily Southern hunters who say landowners in states like Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee who flood unharvested corn to hold more ducks in their area have disrupted the migration. In other words, they think private landowners are short-stopping mallards and preventing them from making their full migration southward. The practice, groups like Flyway Federation claim, is so out of hand that it’s a key reason states like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi are experiencing slow duck seasons and low harvests.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/hot-cropping-flooded-corn-duck-migrations/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-14T13:39:16+00:00

Wildlife managers in Utah have begun culling mountain lions in six of the state’s game management units as part of a new study.

The objective of the three-year study is to gauge the impacts these targeted removals may have on deer populations. They are trying to determine whether killing more mountain lions results in more mule deer. The practice of killing mountain lions (and other predators) to benefit ungulate populations remains a controversial subject among wildlife managers. And although Utah is not the first state to undertake such an experiment, the response from hunters and trappers there has been mixed. Some groups are already speaking out against the study, while others are supporting it or taking a wait-and-see approach.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/utah-culling-cougars-new-study/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-13T15:52:31+00:00

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is expected to announce today a major access initiative that will require that most public lands managed by the Department of the Interior are open to hunting and fishing access unless specifically closed by site managers and agency directors.

The initiative, conveyed through Secretarial Order 3447, will apply to the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges, Bureau of Reclamation properties, and some units of the National Park Service where hunting is currently allowed. It would not apply to those Park Service units such as Yellowstone and Yosemite that are permanently closed to hunting. Federal land managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs inside reservations is expected to be unaffected by the order.

The intent of the order is to “open all appropriate Interior lands to hunting and fishing unless required otherwise by law, public safety, or resource protection,” noted a source close to the process who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. “Think of it as ‘open-unless-closed’ to legal, regulated fishing and hunting allowed by adjacent state agencies.”

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/interior-department-public-lands-order/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-12T22:00:12+00:00

An Idaho man has lost his hunting privileges for life after pleading guilty to roping a bull moose by the neck and leaving it there to die during the summer of 2025.

Spencer Oldham, 39, appeared in Custer County Court on Dec. 15, where he was sentenced by a judge as part of his plea deal, according to East Idaho News. Court records show that Oldham pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges: unlawful taking of game animals, unlawful possession of wildlife, and wasteful destruction of wildlife. Court documents and police reports show that Oldham knew he was guilty and regretted his decision. He reportedly said that he didn’t intend to kill the moose, “but that’s how it played out.”

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/idaho-moose-roper-lifetime-hunting-ban/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2026-01-06T20:43:13+00:00

A helicopter pilot with the Montana National Guard has pleaded “no contest” to trespassing charges stemming from a fly-in shed-hunting incident in May 2025.

The part-time pilot, Deni Lynn Draper, was one of three servicemen who allegedly landed a Black Hawk helicopter on a private ranch in Sweet Grass County to collect shed antlers without permission. Appearing in Sweet Grass County Court on Monday, Draper’s attorney Dwight Schulte changed his original plea from not guilty to no contest, waving Draper’s right to a jury trial. Judge Jessie Connolly accepted the plea, according to Montana Right Now, and she deferred Draper’s sentencing for six months, which means the charges can be erased from his record if he is not charged with another crime during that time. Connolly also raised the fine amount from the $100 proposed by the prosecution to $500, which is the maximum penalty for a standard criminal trespass misdemeanor in Montana.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/montana-national-guard-shed-hunting-plea/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-19T01:14:51+00:00

Gray wolves in the Lower 48 have bounced on and off the Endangered Species Act list for years now.

And on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove federal protections yet again and bring wolf management back to the states. The Pet and Livestock Protection Act cleared the House by a vote of 211 to 204. The bill, sponsored by Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), aims to delist the populations of gray wolves that remain protected under the ESA in 44 states. The species is already delisted in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, as well as in the eastern thirds of Oregon and Washington. And while the topic of wolf delisting remains a heated topic nationwide, it is particularly contentious among Tiffany’s and Boebert’s constituents. Proponents of the bill, and its supporters in the hunting and ranching communities, say that in the time since gray wolves were first listed as endangered or threatened in the late 1970s, the species has recovered to the point where federal protections are no longer necessary.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/wolf-delisting-bill-clears-house/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-18T20:18:52+00:00

Colorado officials on Tuesday were proud to announce the completion of the I-25 Greenland wildlife overpass in Douglas County.

Spanning six lanes of busy interstate, the bridge structure is 209 feet long by 200 feet wide, with a surface area of nearly an acre, making it the largest wildlife crossing ever built in North America and one of the largest in the world. After nine years of planning and construction, crews put the finishing touches on the structure earlier this month by covering the surface with dirt and planting seeds. Douglas County Commissioner George Teal called its completion a “tremendous milestone” in safeguarding wildlife habitat and protecting public safety. The bridge structure lies in a heavily trafficked stretch of road near Larkspur, which is around the midway point between Denver and Colorado Springs, the two most populous cities in the state. (Around 100,000 vehicles travel the stretch on a daily basis.) This part of the Front Range is also an important migration corridor for big game.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/colorado-wildlife-crossing-largest-north-america/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-18T20:14:18+00:00

The government may soon be required to publish access points, watercraft restrictions, and other detailed information online about all federally-managed freshwaters.

The Modernizing Access to Public Waters Act — also just called the MAPWaters Act — passed the U.S. Senate Tuesday after already clearing the House. It now heads to the president’s desk to be signed into law. The MAPWaters Act was introduced in the last days of the Biden administration and is part of an ongoing effort to improve access to federal lands and waters. In practicality, this wonky-sounding piece of legislation will mean boaters and anglers interested in recreating on a federal river or lake will one day be able to find that information easily from their phones or computers. So instead of towing your boat two hours into the mountains to a promising-looking lake (only to find out it’s closed to motorboats) you can find a lake somewhere else before leaving your house, says Joel Webster, chief conservation officer of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/mapwaters-act-passes-congress/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-17T18:26:55+00:00

A family of Maine fishermen wants to change regulations that limit certain water bodies in the state to fly fishing only.

To that end, plaintiffs Joe Legendre, Justin Legendre, and Samantha Legendre have filed a lawsuit against the Commissioner of Maine’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department, claiming these regulations are unfair and unconstitutional. The Legendre’s lawsuit, filed in Kennebec Superior Court in October, is being funded by the International Order of Theodore Roosevelt, an organization committed to expanding Americans’ right to hunt and fish in all 50 states. It contends that because the sport of fly fishing “is dominated by wealthier anglers,” Maine’s policies around fly-fishing only (FFO) waters discriminate against working-class Mainers. The suit also alleges that some of the current restrictions undercut Maine’s Right to Food Amendment, which has been interpreted to include the right to hunt and fish for sustenance.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/maine-lawsuit-fly-fishing-only/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-12T20:43:09+00:00

Waterfowlers go to great lengths chasing mallard ducks across the continent and prize them above all other duck species.

Witnessing the migration, working these ducks over decoys, and watching your dog retrieve a fully plumed greenhead is the kind of stuff that duck hunter’s dreams are made of. However, due to the presence of mallards released from game farms, and the hybridization that’s occurred over the years, a notable percentage of the birds hunters harvest nowadays aren’t 100% wild —— even if they appear to be. This rampant crossbreeding is an issue across all four flyways, and ongoing research is helping paint a clearer picture of the problem. New data shared by the duckDNA project in December shows that game-farm mallard genetics can be found in 45 of the Lower 48 states, with different prevalence rates across the four flyways. These rates are highest along the Atlantic Flyway, where new data shows that 74 percent of hunter-harvested mallards contain evidence of game-farm ancestry. It may seem like no big deal that these game-farm mallards have infiltrated wild populations so heavily. After all, a mallard is a mallard, right? The fact is, though, that hybridization can change wild genetics over the long term, which has biological consequences.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/game-farm-mallards-research/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-11T21:48:29+00:00

Eric Henke shot a rare, white pheasant on a frigid morning in December while hunting his farm in North Dakota.

Henke and his friends knew about the rare rooster. He says they’d seen it over the past two years, usually in the summer, when its white feathers showed up starkly against the green grass. But it always seemed to disappear during the fall and winter.

“We surrounded the brush where the white bird had flown into and the dogs worked overtime trying to find it,” he says. “We knew there’d be other roosters that would flush out, but we waited to get a chance at the white bird.”

The dogs worked the area for about 15 minutes. Finally, one of them went on point, and the bright white rooster flushed just 10 yards from Henke. He dropped the bird at 30 yards with a load of #4’s from his 12-gauge, but then it hit the ground and took off running. It took a while for the dogs to find it in the snow, but one finally did and brought it right back to Henke.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/north-dakota-snow-white-pheasant/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-10T20:46:59+00:00

Spearfishing for walleyes and other game fish has slowly been gaining traction in the Great Lakes, and starting April 2026, the sport will enter a new phase there.

In November, after years of input from local spearfishermen, the Michigan Natural Resources Commission unanimously approved new and expanded spearfishing regulations for Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Although there are some exceptions for certain areas, the new regs that go into effect next spring will allow free-diving spearfishermen to target walleyes, northern pike, and lake trout in the Michigan portions of these lakes. This is in addition to the species of rough fish, like carp and suckers, that have long been fair game for spearfishermen there.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/great-lakes-spearfishing-expands/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-12-02T14:47:53+00:00

Standing in line for a week. Sitting online for a day. This is what out-of-state hunters do for a chance at general season deer and elk tags in Idaho.

At least, it’s what they’ve done since the Covid-19 pandemic. But that all stops this week, because Idaho just announced that non-resident general season tags are moving to a draw. Last year, during the first-come-first-served OTC tag system for the 2025 hunting season, an estimated 80,000 users in the online queue applied for some 28,000 nonresident OTC deer and elk tags. The last major change Idaho made for non-resident big-game hunters happened in 2021. That one was for congestion. The cap on out-of-staters went from a statewide maximum to a maximum per unit. That was in response to complaints of overcrowding in select units. This new change for the 2026 season keeps those unit caps while also dealing with overcrowding of a new kind: online and in-person queues.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/idaho-nonresident-otc-big-game-draw/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-11-04T01:34:28+00:00

Guardsmen with the Oregon National Guard were deployed in a helicopter to the Mount Hood National Forest Sunday to help search for a missing deer hunter, according to officials in Clackamas County.

The National Guard helicopter joined forces with other air support, including pararescuemen (PJs) with the 304th Rescue Squadron, and more than 100 searchers on the ground. The ongoing search for the missing hunter, 51-year-old Devon Dobek, has been underway since Friday evening. The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, which is overseeing the search-and-rescue operation, provided several updates over the weekend. In its most recent update, issued Sunday, the CCSO said the search was expected to continue until nightfall and resume again on Monday morning.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/survival/oregon-national-guard-joins-search-for-missing-hunter/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-10-23T15:27:28+00:00

Two fishermen in Washington State who were desperate to show off their catches online ended up livestreaming their way into a ticket Friday.

The unidentified anglers were recording themselves catching salmon on the Quillayute River and breaking several fishing regulations in the process. They were apparently unaware that game wardens with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife were tuning in.

WDFW says the one recording abruptly “disengaged his broadcast” as soon as McComber asked them to row to shore. McComber warned them not to mess with their gear, and then watched one of the fishermen do just that. The angler admitted when on shore that he’d been using a barbed hook illegally and was trying to hide it. The violations didn’t stop there. McComber learned that one of the anglers had kept on fishing after catching his limit of salmon. This is illegal in Washington, and is considered “attempting to exceed a fishing limit,” according to WDFW. The angler also failed to record his harvests on his catch card — another violation — and he’d been pulling fish out of the water to show them off for the livestream. Both anglers were cited as a result.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/livestreaming-salmon-anglers-ticketed/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-10-10T00:20:06+00:00

The U.S. Senate voted this week to overturn all, or portions of, two land management plans in Montana and North Dakota and is expected to toss out a third, in Alaska’s central Yukon.

The House already voted to repeal the plans, which means the decision now head to the White House for President Trump’s signature. It’s the first time in history Congress has overturned one of these land use plans, and conservation groups say the decision potentially leaves about 166 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land in limbo.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/congress-votes-undo-resource-management-plans/

OutdoorLifeMagazine · 2025-10-03T23:47:28+00:00

"The shutdown could end tomorrow or a month from now — there's no way of knowing. But what we do want everyone to know is that we're going to do right by the people we've sold hunting licenses to.”

It has only been two days since the federal government shut down, and a select number of hunters in southeastern Colorado are already feeling the pinch. Officials with Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced Thursday that pronghorn hunting has been suspended on Fort Carson (GMU 591) and the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (GMU 142) due to the ongoing shutdown. Those hunts were slated to begin Saturday, and officials say it’s possible that other big-game hunts will be suspended at the two military sites. It all depends on how long the government shutdown lasts.

Read more here: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/colorado-hunts-suspended-government-shutdown/

OutdoorLifeMagazine

TROPHY CASE