“Woefully Unprepared” Hikers Rescued Deep in Wyoming’s Grizzly Country 🚁

ven•a•tic: fond of or living by hunting

NORTH AMERICA’S MOST-READ OUTDOOR NEWSLETTER

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:

NOT SURE WHAT THESE BOYS WERE THINKING
“WOEFULLY UNPREPARED” HIKERS RESCUED DEEP IN WYOMING’S GRIZZLY COUNTRY

Hawk’s Rest sits in the Thorofare country of Wyoming’s Teton Wilderness, a few miles south of Yellowstone and about as far from pavement as you can get in the Lower 48. It lies twenty, maybe thirty miles to the nearest road, and on Monday evening, two brothers in their thirties walked into an outfitter camp there looking like they’d been chewed on by the country itself.

The two men were twins from Bismarck, North Dakota who had been dropped at Turpin Meadows Trailhead, east of Moran Junction—the usual jumping-off point for the long walk into Yellowstone Meadows, the Parting of the Waters, and Hawk’s Rest.

How they got from that trailhead to one of the loneliest camps in the Bridger-Teton remains unclear…

🦫 Maryland Lake Reopens After Rabid Beavers Wreak Havoc. Well, if you thought bears where the only things you had to worry about while enjoying Maryland’s outdoors, think again. After a summer of rabid attacks by beavers, visitors to Hunting Creek Lake at Cunningham Falls State Park are now, once again, free to enjoy some quality time on the water.

Through the end of July and into early August, two incidents involving a 13-year-old swimmer and a 19-year-old angler, prompted state officials to close swimming, fishing and other water access while biologists combed the 45-acre lake and surrounding area for carnivorous castors. Officials ended up catching both of the saw-toothed perps, euthanized them and confirmed the presence of rabies.

After weeks of dusk boat surveys with thermal cameras, trail cameras, traps, and checks for fresh gnaw marks, DNR staff found no remaining beavers and no further signs of rabid activity. The lake and nearby day-use areas were reopened on Monday, an event that has been somewhat overshadowed by yet another beaver incident at Seneca Creek State Park, which remains under investigation.

It’s incredibly rare for beavers to contract rabies or attack people but officials are still advising visitors to keep their distance and to seek immediate medical care in the event of a bite.

🐻 Florida Set to Issue Up to 215 Bear Tags This December. The Sunshine State is gearing up for its second regulated black bear hunt in a decade, which is set to take place this December. For this year’s edition, the FWC says it will open up applications on September 11th, giving hunters a shot at up to 215 available tags.

The lottery setup mirrors last year’s and includes a $5 entry fee that allows hunters to apply as many times as they want. If selected, each hunter will receive one non-transferable tag per person at a cost of $100 for a resident and $300 for nonresidents, while the state runs a 10% cap on out-of-state tags.

Last year’s hunt, which was the first since 2015, used a much tighter cap of 172 tags across the same four zones (68 East Panhandle, 31 North, 18 Central, 55 South). Hunters ended up checking in 52 bears, resulting in about a 30% success rate, while dozens of tags went to opponents who never meant to hunt. A strategy used by anti-hunting groups that will in all likelihood, be repeated again this year.

🏪 Washington State Man Charged With Selling Salmon and Elk Off Facebook. A 27-year-old Spokane Tribe member from the Tri-Cities area is up against seven felony charges for allegedly selling salmon and game meat without the licenses or tribal rights he claimed. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife started looking at Jonathan J. Fiander after coming across a 2022 Facebook post offering fresh salmon for sale.

Going rogue, undercover officers began transacting with Fiander online and managed to purchase fish and game meat from him four times between May 2024 and June 2025. When officers caught up him in December, Fiander admitted selling to the undercover officers but said he didn’t remember the Facebook ad and denied other sales. During the investigation, officers say his story on the source kept shifting from denying that he harvesting the meat himself, to it coming from the Spokane Tribe’s salmon allocation, and claiming that he had Yakama Nation fishing rights.

He’s charged with four counts of illegal trafficking of fish and wildlife and three counts of dealing fish without a license. The story, as it stands now, will be left to a judge to sort out.

😳 This is like that scene in Jurassic Park. But instead of a velociraptor surprising its prey, this elk instead surprises the hunter.

Dang heart would have beat right out of my chest…

🫏 Jackals and a Jackass : The skinning shed was full and my wallet was empty; the hunt was officially over. Aside from drinking the PH’s liquor and packing for the long series of flights that would take me back to the reality of my 9-to-5, there really was not much more to do at this point.

“You want to shoot some jackals?” Hardus, my PH, inquired.

I’ve never been one to turn down the chance to put a coyote in the dirt, and I certainly wasn’t going to turn it down on another continent. With a nod of affirmation, we were loading up for one last hoorah. Read the full story.

🤰 Thanks, Mom :  When my mom was a little girl in the 1930s, her father was a Scoutmaster. His Boy Scout troop was always doing cool outdoor things—camping, hiking, shooting, building campfires. Grandpa used to chuckle when he told me how mad Mom got when, at age five, she was told she couldn’t be a Boy Scout. She wanted to do all those fun things, too.

Grandpa wasn’t a hunter, but he did teach Mom a lot of the same skills he taught his Scout troop, and she grew up loving the great outdoors. When she got together with my dad in the mid-1950s, she finally had an enthusiastic mentor to teach her to hunt. Years of deer hunting with a recurve bow and her trusty Marlin .30-30 followed, with many happy hours spent in the Pennsylvania woods.  Read the full story.

🎣 Angle of Decline : I’ll be a young man someday, but first I must grow old. I must work and wander, and then spend huge portions of my life on things that in the end really won’t amount to a hill of beans.

I must confront the constraints of space on my body and time on my spirit, for only then can I understand the mistakes I have made in trying to recover that which is not recoverable. And somewhere along the way I must invest the best of what is left in the Eternal.

But I must also take occasion to look aside and around and forward and, yes, even back.

And somewhere in the mix, there must always be Trout. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…