🔥 Our HOT FROM SHOT Staff Picks

Plus: We are going hardcore carnivore, on a duck hunt and Wise River Clubbing.

February 04, 2025

We are ALMOST sold out of our Jason Aldean issue! Get yours before it’s too late! CLICK HERE to get yours or subscribe to our annual print subscription below.

Our own Hook & Barrel Staff combed through our findings from Vegas at SHOT Show 2025. We’ve drilled down our top picks from the show floor and are sharing with you. Click to see.

The famous Philly groundhog just saw his shadow, so we are in for MORE winter. Does that put a damper on your mood this week?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS: What is your favorite venison dish to make/eat?

Jerky/sausage - 26% - Venison Chili - 27% - Venison Tacos - 10% - Tenderloins wrapped in bacon (ok anything wrapped in bacon) - 10% - Pasta & Venison Meatballs - 3% - Something else - 10%

FROM CHILI VOTER: “I have always loved chili. When I was young my grandfather took me hunting for the first time and taught me how to dress, skin and process the deer. Then he showed me his venison chili recipe and I have been hooked ever since. Best childhood memories.”

To learn more about meat cookery, Jess Pryles trailed well-known pit masters and barbecue cooks. “But the best way to learn is always through practice, so there were failed briskets and burnt chickens, but from the ashes we grow,” she says. 

The first step in that dream was starting her own line of meat seasonings under the Hardcore Carnivore name. “I loved cooking meat and building unique flavor profiles,” Pryles remembers. “I kept thinking, ‘How can I have people taste food the way I think it should taste?’”

It didn’t take long before the first flock of ducks could be seen heading our way. Pete, in stage whispers, alerted us to flocks coming in, and before we knew it, he gave the command: “SHOOT!” That first round of shots was a success, and Steel ecstatically retrieved the ducks like a pro. Throughout the morning the flocks were consistent, and there were only a couple of times we missed and ducks flew off unscathed. 

If you’ve ever spent much time in the Butte, Montana, area, you’re probably quite familiar with the legendary Wise River Club. If you haven’t heard of it, you’d do yourself a favor by putting it down on your bucket list for a future road trip. 

“The oral history says it was started in 1896,” Tim said in an exclusive interview with Hook & Barrel. “The first tax record I can find is 1900, and the first photograph I’ve been able to pinpoint is 1911. So, it’s very historic, starting out as the Wise River Hotel. Then sometime in the 1930s or ’40s a new owner took over and called it the Wise River Club. They eventually built the floor onto it and a restaurant onto it and the cabins out back.”