00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knucomb and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast. Brought to you by Tokvi’s Boots. I’m a cowboy boot man and I’ve been wearing to Covis for years, the most comfortable boot I’ve ever put on. Good boots for good times. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render. We have a skeleton crew today, but we knew that it was going to work out because of the hard hitting guests…

We’ve announced the winners of Round 123 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest, which ended yesterday. Note to the top three prize winners: Please contact me and let me know your UPS and USPS address(es), for your prizes. Thanks. – JWR The top three prize winners will each receive some great prize packages. The winners for Round 123 are… First Prize Winner: First Prize goes to Lodge Pole, for Raising, Hunting, and Harvesting Animals. It was posted Feburary 11-16, 2026. See: (See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.)  He will receive as prizes: A…

On April 1, 1515, the Portuguese fleet under Afonso de Albuquerque recaptured the Persian fortress of Hormuz and renamed it the Fort of Our Lady of the Conception. — April 1, 1863: US Congress passed the first wartime conscription law, calling for the registration of all 20 to 45-year-old males. — And on April 1, 1873, the British White Star steamship SS Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia, Canada, killing at least 535 people.  The same shipping company later owned the ill-fated RMS Titanic and RMS Britannic. — Today’s feature article is by SurvivalBlog Editor “Avalanche Lily”, the wife of JWR.…

The waterhole ambush is a tried-and-true tactic for plenty of big game animals, like elk, pronghorn, and, of course, whitetails. But it’s rarely discussed as a method for hunting America’s favorite game bird. News flash, turkeys drink water too.Turkeys need to consume about a quart of water every day. And since they’re diurnal, like us, they have to consume it all during standard shooting hours. That’s convenient for hunters, and a huge factor in why most turkeys don’t stray far from a reliable source of the good stuff.Science has consistently backed up an anecdotal observation many hunters make: wild turkeys…

A strutting turkey is one of the most remarkable spectacles you can witness while hunting. His varied, iridescent feathers fanned out as he parades around with all the pomp and circumstance of spring. Those very feathers make each turkey slightly unique. Then there are those wild variations, like smoky, jet black, orange, or even white-winged gobblers. Some without barred feathers or other odd plumage that strays from the typical turkey norm.To better understand these genetic variations observed in odd plumage, Dr. Mike Chamberlain with the Wild Turkey Lab (in conjunction with the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, the Low…

One of Idaho’s seven Fish and Game Commissioners has pled not guilty to multiple hunting violations after an investigation prompted by a call to the Citizens Against Poaching hotline.Commissioner Brody Harshbarger is facing a rash of misdemeanor charges, including taking game unlawfully, hunting without a valid tag, shooting from a roadway, shooting with the aid of a motor vehicle, not making a reasonable effort to retrieve an animal, and trespassing to hunt or retrieve game.It’s such a long list that it almost seems as though Harshbarger was involved in some kind of role-play exercise, where an established hunter demonstrates to…

A few years back, I had the privilege of visiting the NRA Whittington Center, a 33,000-acre stretch of high desert beauty tucked into the foothills of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains, just southwest of Raton. I came away in awe of what the center offers adult shooters: an unrivaled collection of ranges, world-class competition venues and the kind of wide-open Western landscape that makes you feel like you’re back in time on the Santa Fe Trail. But since my visit, I’ve learned that one of the most compelling reasons to make the trip to Whittington has nothing to do…

Price is often considered to be a solid indicator of a firearm’s potential for good performance. If that were a hard-and-fast rule, my highly customized competition and carry model 1911s would shoot circles around my well-worn Springfield XD-S in .45 ACP, even with its aftermarket trigger. But, in reality, the XD-S offsets its lower capacity and slower split times by holding its own in accuracy and reliability at any distance. Don’t ask me how or why, it just does—and at a fraction of the cost. The last few years of my Army career were spent neck-deep in the rapid prototyping,…

Some members of the U.S. Army will begin receiving a new XM8 carbine for testing in October 2026, a shorter, lighter version of the M7 rifle introduced under the branch’s Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program. The carbine version was developed by SIG Sauer as part of its joint Product Improvement Effort with the U.S. Military. The gun received the official XM8 designation and stock number from the U.S. Army in March, according to Soldier Systems. The XM8 trims one full pound off the M7’s 8.3-pound heft. Its shorter barrel contributes to the weight savings, along with modifications to the…

Two things taught me to be a much better turkey caller. The first was when I started to semi-regularly kill bucks by snort-wheezing at them. Now I know that might seem disconnected from turkey hunting, but hear me out. Most hunters look at the snort-wheeze call as a dominant buck vocalization that is a straight-up challenge to fight.Because of this, hunters will spot a buck, snort-wheeze at it, and then usually get a negative or neutral response. They’ll reason that the buck isn’t a fighter, or isn’t in a mood to scrap, and give up on that call. I’m not…