Pursuit, Author at Pursuit

The Invisible Fences Are Coming Down: How Infinite Outdoors Is Reopening America’s Lost Public Lands

by Pursuit | May 8, 2025 | Inside Pursuit

For generations, hunters, anglers, and outdoor lovers have felt the same frustration: seeing the rolling hills of public land just beyond a fence line—close enough to touch, but impossible to reach. Millions of acres meant for everyone sat locked away, landlocked behind private properties, out of reach for all but a few.

Sam Seeton was one of those people. A lifelong outdoorsman and passionate advocate for public lands, he knew something had to change. That’s why today, from the heart of Wyoming, Seeton and his team at Infinite Outdoors are tearing down those invisible fences with a bold new program: Access Granted.

Officially launched on May 7, 2025, Access Granted is the first initiative of its kind, designed to give everyday people legal, walk-in access to public lands that had been locked away for decades. By partnering with private landowners and conservation-driven outdoor brands like HUSH and Primos, Infinite Outdoors is unlocking thousands of acres of BLM land, state land, and national forest — and they’re doing it at no cost to the public.

“For decades, there’s been a lot of talk about the problem — about why so much public land remains off-limits,” Seeton says. “We decided to be the ones who finally do something about it.”

The problem is staggering. While the United States boasts over 640 million acres of public land, nearly 16 million acres are stranded, surrounded by private property and legally inaccessible. That’s 16 million acres of lost opportunity for hunters seeking their first deer, families looking for a quiet place to camp, or anglers chasing trout in hidden streams.

Infinite Outdoors had already made waves when it launched in 2020, often described as the “Airbnb for outdoorsmen,” connecting sportsmen to more than a million acres of private lands across 16 states. But Access Granted goes even further: it builds legal easements across private lands, funded by Infinite Outdoors’ Access+ membership program and corporate partners, and opens those routes freely to the public.

Landowners are fairly compensated, outdoor brands help fuel the effort, and the public gets something back that always should have been theirs — a clear path to the wild.

And Seeton and his team didn’t stop at just creating access. At every step, they placed conservation front and center. In partnership with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Infinite Outdoors assigns professional biologists to work with every participating landowner, ensuring that wildlife populations stay healthy and harvest levels are sustainable. It’s a model where access and stewardship go hand-in-hand.

“Access Granted is one of the most important programs I’ve ever seen for the future of hunting and outdoor recreation,” says Casey Butler, founder of HUSH. “It’s not just about access — it’s about doing it the right way.”

The first major project under Access Granted is already underway. Near the small town of Kaycee, Wyoming, a 600-acre parcel known as Andrus Draw now serves as a gateway to more than 40,000 acres of landlocked BLM land. To celebrate, Infinite Outdoors has teamed up with the Mule Deer Foundation to launch a wildlife-friendly fencing project, and they’re inviting the public to join them for a volunteer day on June 7.

And this is just the beginning. So far, nearly a dozen properties across Wyoming and Colorado have joined the Access Granted initiative, unlocking over 45,000 acres — an area larger than 60 square miles — for hunters, campers, anglers, and families alike.

Standing on a hillside overlooking one of these newly opened lands, Seeton is clear about the stakes: “This land was always meant to be for all of us. We’re just making sure that promise is kept.”

As Access Granted grows, it’s offering something rare — not just more places to explore, but a renewed connection between people and the land. It’s a vision where public land truly means public, and where the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts can roam a little freer.

Explore the newly opened lands or find out how you can be part of the movement at infiniteoutdoorsusa.com.

Whispers In The Wind: Chasing Gobblers & Finding Ghosts

by Pursuit | May 1, 2025 | Hunting

We set out that morning with turkey calls in our pockets and high hopes in our hearts. Spring was just starting to hit full bloom, and the gobblers were supposed to be plentiful. The sun had just begun to spill gold over the rolling hills when we crested a rise and stopped short.

There, draped across a boulder like a relic from another age, lay the remains of a longhorn, its massive horns curling skyward like frozen smoke. The carcass, half-consumed by time and weather, seemed to hum with a strange energy — as if it wasn’t just bones and hide we were looking at, but a story the land itself was trying to tell.

We forgot about the turkeys.

In the quiet of the morning, we could almost hear the echoes: hooves pounding the earth, cowhands shouting across the plains, campfires crackling under the stars. This place had been alive with movement and purpose once, long before it became a backdrop for our hunt. Now, if you slowed down enough — if you listened — you could catch glimpses of that life, still drifting on the breeze.

We never did find any turkeys that day. But we found something else: a reminder that the land holds more than just game. It holds memory, mystery, and a kind of quiet reverence for those who take the time to notice.

Sometimes, you go looking for one thing and find another. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.

How to Take Your Father Turkey Hunting

by Pursuit | Apr 18, 2025 | Hunting

There’s an old split-rail fence at Mom and Dad’s place that separates the lawn from the horse pasture. I like to lean against it just before dark and owl hoot. Across the pasture, and beyond the creek, is an oak hillside, and in the spring a gobbler roosts there as many nights as not. The acoustics must be perfect because if I hoot from that fence and he’s there, he’ll answer. Tonight, he’s there.

I expected as much because Dad had seen him strutting in the pasture just the day before. He’d even set up on him, but although the bird gobbled, he never did come in. I was glad to hear that Dad had given it a try, though, because the fire he once had for turkey hunting has faded. There’s nothing I’d like more than to help Dad shoot this bird in the morning.

When I walk back into the cabin with the good news, Dad is watching CNN at two clicks shy of full volume, the television set buzzing like a cheap sound system. He turns it down and asks, “Hear him?”

“Yep,” I say. “He’s roosted right over the creek. But we’re going to have to set up early.” As I emphasize that last word, Dad’s eyes narrow the way they always do when I hint at taking the lead on, well, anything.

“How early?”

Getting a Start

Twenty-four years ago, I watched my first gobbler walk into gun range. I was sitting between Dad’s knees, cradling a 20-gauge as the turkey gobbled over and again, first on the limb, then on the ground. Dad whispered to me, “I’ll tap your neck when he’s close enough.”

He often used friction calls, but Dad was talented enough with his natural voice to win a few local calling contests. He yelped softly, and the longbeard popped into view 30 yards away. The tap on my neck, and the roar of the shotgun, and the gobbler winging out of sight seemed to happen all in same moment. I fought back tears but couldn’t hold them all. Dad just smiled and said, “Do you want to quit?”

“No,” I said.

“Good.”

That one morning shaped my whole life, to this very moment. How do you repay something like that?

Too Late

I know we need to get up at 3:45, but I also know that if I suggest that, I’ll have to argue with Dad, and I’m not up for it. As he’s gotten older, he likes to sleep in. “Four-thirty,” I tell him. “But we’ve got to go as soon as we get up.”

At 4:50, I’m pacing the cabin while Dad fusses with contact lenses and nurses a cup of black coffee. I step onto the porch and strain my eyes at the sky, as if staring at the stars will keep them out a little longer. When I go back in, Dad’s wearing camo pants but fishing around in the hunting closet. “Have you got some extra shells?” he asks.

“I’ve got you covered there,” I say. “TSS No. 9s.”

“Nines?” he says. “I like 4s.”

“Dad, these are…” I stop myself. “I have some lead 4s too.”

He walks back over to his coffee, and I step back out onto the porch, where I hear the first notes of the dawn chorus. “Dad, we need to get going!” I say, slinging a bag of decoys over my shoulder.

“OK!” he says, and splashes his coffee into the sink.

We cross the fence, and I can already see the maples on the edge of the creek, where we’d talked about setting up. It’s shooting light by the time we sit down. Two distant birds sound off, but all around us, it’s silence.

“Think we scared him?” Dad whispers.

“Yes,” I answer. “He watched us walk across that pasture and set those decoys, plain as day.”

“I don’t think so,” he says.

I shrug. The gobbles from the distant birds are faint but steady. Suddenly I see Dad twist to his right and shoulder his 870. My heart jumps. I’m thinking that the roosted tom has walked in silently. Instead, I see the wake of a beaver swimming down the creek. We’ve lost a few acres of timber due to flooding out here, and I know what’s coming. Dad hits the beaver in the head with the entire payload of a $10 TSS shell, which I’d handed to him in the dark. Geese flush off the creek, and the horses stampede from the pasture as the blast reverberates through the timber. Dad racks the slide, and regards the smoking hull with a smile.

“Killed that son of a bitch dead,” he says. “You think we ought to move?”

New Spot

We sneak to the other end of the farm, where the distant birds have since gone silent. Setting up on the side of a ridge, with our backs to a copse of hickory saplings, I stake the decoys 20 yards ahead on the right, to Dad’s side. I sit on his left and cutt hard on a mouth call, and any expectations of relaxing in the sun vanish when a gobbler with marbles in his throat fires off 100 yards away. Dad yanks his shotgun to his knee.

I call again, and the bird cuts me off with another deep gobble. He’s coming fast. For five minutes, it’s back and forth—call and gobble—and I know we’re about to see him. I’m watching the rise just beyond the decoys, expecting the tom to materialize at any second. But then, nothing. I yelp, but there’s no response. No drumming, no walking in the leaves. Fifteen minutes pass, and I think this turkey too has busted us.

Then Dad yelps with his voice. Damn, we sound desperate, I think to myself—but the turkey roars back, right on top of us, and I hear drumming. I look all around the decoys, but he’s not there. Cocking my eyes to the left—on my side—I can see the gobbler standing in full strut and plain view, about 30 yards away. Dad has no shot with me between him and the bird.

“Kill him,” he says. I don’t move. “He’s going to get away if you don’t!”

The bird spins his fan to me and drums, and I snap my gun to my shoulder. Dad yelps again, and the turkey deflates, craning his neck. At the shot, the bird flops down the hill, coming to rest just feet from our decoys. When I stand up, I’m shaking my head in disgust.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dad asks.

“I really wanted you to shoot that bird,” I say.

“Hell, I’ve been calling them in for you to shoot for 25 years,” he says. “I don’t know why that should change now. Let’s go eat breakfast.”

Mom takes our picture with the turkey, next to the split-rail fence. It might not be the exact hunt I was envisioning, but I think in Dad’s mind, it played out perfectly.

Written by Will Brantley for Field & Stream and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.

Featured image provided by Field & Stream

Why Pocket Water is the Coolest Spot to Catch Summer Trout

by Pursuit | Apr 2, 2025 | Fishing

Here’s how to pick off trout in high-water streams with a simple nymphing rig. Also, be prepared to get soaked

From the bank, I pulled the knot tight on my dropper fly and looked out over the river, which sent a quick shiver of fear knifing through my excitement, like the feeling you have before you get on a carnival ride. The river was up, hurtling foam over the boulders after one of those long summer rainstorms that leaves wisps of steam spiraling above the fields—exactly how it looked when my grade-school buddy Jo and I first fished the spot, years ago.

Jo had a reputation as a tough kid. (Nobody pointed out to Jo, for example, that only girls spell that name without the e.) The river didn’t scare him. He hiked the worm box—filled with night crawlers we’d pinched in the rain the night before—from his waist to his armpits and cinched the belt across his chest. Then he dropped in and battled the current to a rock below a roaring plunge pool.

It was when he turned and motioned for me to wade in that his sneakers began to slide, and he started flailing in vain to catch his balance. The worm box popped open. Night crawlers sailed. And in the boiling slick below, where the fat morsels plopped and raced downstream, a yellow slab rose and parted the surface.

It was the biggest trout I’d ever seen.

After that, I wasn’t scared either. I jumped in and lobbed a crawler into the slot—and the brown crashed and bolted downstream. As I leaned into the fish, my sneakers shot in opposite directions, and I rode the current downstream, rod held high above the froth. But when I finally got my footing, the fish had broken off.

Upstream, Jo was laughing. Since we were both soaked, we spent that day wading or swimming to the river’s hardest-to-reach holes—and had one of the best days of summer fishing I can remember.

Make It Easy

In midsummer, I want to be waist-deep in heavy pocket water, when the river is up and the fishing turns on. I don’t lob crawlers much anymore—not because I think I’m above it. I just think flyfishing is more fun. And summer should be fun.

Summer should also be easy. It’s a nice coincidence that if there is good rainfall, pocket water can fish well through the hotter months. By then, I need a break from all the fussing that goes with slow-water dry-fly fishing, and pocket water is the perfect antidote. It’s one of the rare things in life where you can take the easy road and not give up any success.

The easy road, from a technical fishing standpoint, is to put a strike indicator above a subsurface fly or two on a 9-foot 5X leader and walk up the middle of the river, picking pockets left and right. You can make it more complicated. You can study the water as if reading it were a form of code-breaking. But why would you? The fish are in the slower spots next to the faster spots. And eager. Make a decent drift, and they’ll usually grab your fly.

Just about any pattern that looks like trout food (and plenty that don’t) will catch fish in pocket water now, but as a general rule, I think it’s tough to beat a weighted stonefly nymph with a Muddler Minnow dropper. If there are more rainbows than browns, I’ll swap the Muddler for a Woolly Bugger. It just seems to work better. Choose a pocket or seam, wade close, and cast above it with a little flick of your wrist to drive the flies under. High-stick them through the sweet spot, then let the Muddler swing down and across before you pick it up. If the trout don’t seem active enough to chase a streamer, switch to a small nymph or wet fly. That’s it. Work fast, and cover a lot of water.

And don’t be afraid to get soaked. Put on some wet-wading shorts and jump in. This might sound crazy, but after nearly 40 years of fishing pocket water, I’m convinced that when flows run high and fast, nothing increases the number and size of the fish you catch more than simply wading aggressively. I don’t say recklessly—you need to stay safe. And I don’t wear sneakers anymore. Studded wading boots help, and a collapsible wading staff is handy in the roughest patches. Just remember that in heavy water, it’s the hard-to-reach spots that hold the neglected, and often bigger, fish. And you can’t rely on long casts to reach them. With so many intervening currents, pocket water forces you to wade close, often real close, to get a decent drift.

Redemption Time

Back on the bank, I took one step into the drink and went in to my waist, then I fought my way to the slick below the roaring plunge pool where I’d lost that huge yellow slab years ago. Halfway into the drift, my indicator stopped. But this time the fish ran upstream instead of down, and I landed it in a shallow side eddy. My tape read 23 inches—the biggest brown trout I’d ever caught in a freestone stream, along with a nice dose of redemption. And I didn’t even have to go swimming. Summer fishing doesn’t get much easier—or more fun—than that.

Gear Tip: Take it to the Top

Midsummer can have sporadic but good surface stonefly activity. So bring a handful of big, buoyant stone imitations, like Stimulators or Sofa Pillows. Grease them up and skitter them over the soft spots about an hour before dusk, or if you see big bugs popping. You won’t catch any more fish this way, but you’ll watch some big trout roll and slash. And as long as you remember to beef up your leader to at least 3X, you’ll land a few of them too.

Written by David Hurteau for Field & Stream and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.