Pennsylvania Hunters Win Landmark Property Rights Victory in Supreme Court ✊

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

A CONSTITUTIONAL WIN
PENNSYLVANIA HUNTERS WIN LANDMARK PROPERTY RIGHTS VICTORY IN SUPREME COURT

For legal hunters and outdoorsmen, the right to enjoy private land without unwarranted government intrusion has long been a non-negotiable principle. A little over a year ago, a high-stakes fight levied by two Clearfield County hunting clubs against the Pennsylvania Game Commission made headline news regarding the commission’s use of the Open Fields Doctrine.

Earlier this week, that fight ended in a decisive win.…

🐻 Montana Petition Would Require Hunters and Trappers to Carry Bear Spray. A petition backed by over a dozen organizations has been submitted to Montana FWP in an attempt to require hunters and trappers to carry bear spray while operating in bear country.

The proposal recognizes that hunters and trappers obviously face greater risks of encountering ornery bears while traversing through the woods or placing bait, arguing that mandating bear spray would give them a proven non-lethal option without restricting their ability to carry firearms. Supporters compare the proposal to the long-standing requirement to wear hunter orange, framing it as a common-sense safety measure that could reduce both human injuries and the number of bears killed in defense-of-life situations.

Proponents timed the filing so the agency could consider the idea before the fall hunting seasons begin. FWP and the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission are expected to review the petition, with a response expected within 60 days.

😤 Study Finds Aggressive Elk Attack Far More People Than Grizzlies in Tourist Areas. And despite the aforementioned proposal, hunters are left to their own devices when it comes to aggressive elk, who, as it turns out, attack more people than grizzlies in crowded areas, according to a recent study. That study, which examined wildlife encounters in Canadian national parks from 2010 to 2023 found that elk were responsible for 62% of all aggressive encounters with people—far outpacing grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, and mule deer.

Researchers from the University of York analyzed Parks Canada records and concluded that elk pose a significantly higher risk of aggressive interactions in tourist-heavy areas than the predators that typically draw the most attention. Parks Canada wildlife specialist David Gummer noted that while many visitors view elk as calm herbivores, the animals are large, powerful, and capable of causing serious injury through stomps and kicks, including broken bones, lacerations, and concussions.

But as many of us know, most conflicts occur when people get too close, particularly during the spring calving season when cows protect their young and during the fall rut when bulls become territorial. Perhaps in the case of dealing with large mammals in state and national parks, it should be the animals that are mandated to carry some form of human deterrent rather than the other way around.

🤨 Colorado Caps Furbearer Harvest at Two a Day After Activist Pressure. Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners voted last week to impose a new daily bag limit of two animals on 17 furbearer species, including foxes, beavers, and bobcats set to take effect on September 1st.

The move came after the Center for Biological Diversity pushed for an outright ban on hunting furbearers for the commercial sale of their pelts. Commissioners rejected the ban but still handed the activists a partial win by creating statewide daily limits where none previously existed. CBD, who now has their foot firmly planted in the door, is already calling the change “a big step forward” and signaling they’ll keep pushing for more restrictions and mandatory reporting.

Dan Gates of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management said the quiet part out loud, calling the two-a-day limit biologically unjustified and driven by social pressure rather than population data. This is, unfortunately, another illustration of a familiar pattern that seems to be growing by the day. An activist group demands the moon, the commission splits the difference, and hunters walk away with new limits that have more to do with optics than biology.

🏍️ The moment you find out the dude next to you wants to race. Only the dude is a moose and, as it would turn out, he’s pretty damn quick.

At least he passed on the left…

🥶 Seeking Shelter: The last words my Dad whispered to me just before he disappeared into the darkness were “If you freeze out, go sit in the truck.” I watched the beam of his flashlight fade and thought to myself that Hell itself would freeze over before I froze out. I wasn’t about to cut my first deer hunt short just because I got a little chilly.

I had been preparing for this moment for the whole of my young life. The hunting seasons of my childhood were spent standing in our driveway, waiting to see what my dad brought in from the deer woods. Either that or stretched out on the living room floor with one of his hunting magazines and a sharpie, marking the spot where I’d shoot bucks quartering to or away, hoping that he’d catch me at it so that I could prove to my dad when he did come in that I was ready to be a deer hunter. The year I turned twelve, he finally agreed to find out. Read the full story.

💨 In Weather Like This: You can’t fish in weather like this. The bigmouth bass have panicked to the bottoms of the swamp-water ponds. Out on the beach the surf will wear you out, surging around your legs, scouring the sand from beneath your heels, roughing you, throwing you, rolling your cut mullet and six-ounce sinker back upon the sand as fast as you can sling it to the waves. You can’t hunt either. It’s too early for ducks or turkeys and the deer are all down in the canebrakes, huddled against the wind. If you could stand the ticks and chiggers, you could scare one up easy, but you could not see to shoot in this horizontal rain.

After half a lifetime of roaming, I’m back home, lying low in this season of winds. The house is all boarded and the porch furniture lashed down. There’s a generator and gas to run it, a propane hotplate, a couple of jugs of good whiskey. Read the full story.

🚤 Fishing at 100MPH : It all started innocently enough. Shortly after Christmas about 15 years ago, I returned from visiting family to find a paper printout on my bed with “Skeeter Eliminator Series” emblazoned across the top. A note from my cousin—a close friend and roommate—accompanied the printout and indicated that, overcome by the spirit of Sporting Man’s Christmas, he had entered us in a bass fishing tournament on Georgia’s Lake Sinclair. As we both aspire to be more like Jesus and my Uncle Buster, and we have proof that at least one of them fishes in bass tournaments, this seemed like an obvious next step in our sporting development.

We were both poor in the boat department and also poor in every department, but tournament rules would allow us to attend as “co-anglers,” seated on the back of another man’s boat—where the poor people sit. This represents one tier up in the bass fishing hierarchy from riding a bucket and working a cane pole under an overpass. We were each happy to accompany a stranger who owned a boat but did not own a friend to go in the back—all arranged as a courtesy to poor non-boaters like us by the good people in tournament management. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…