Pelican Flyer | Hunting & Fishing
Hunting/Fishing
Preparing For Your Next Hunting Trip with Team Pelican Brand Ambassador, Chad Mendes
Chad Mendes is an American professional bare-knuckle boxer and former UFC fighter. As a decorated fighter with a famed career, Mendes is also an avid outdoorsmen, frequently showcasing his love for hunting and fishing on his social channels. Throughout his career, he has amassed a large community of followers and is one of the leading voices in the outdoor industry. As a Team Pelican Brand Ambassador, Chad brings his expertise and credibility to the team, pulling from his years of experience planning countless hunting and fishing expeditions. From practice to preparedness and execution on the hunt, we asked Chad to share some insights on how he uses Pelican products to further enhance his experience outdoors. From protective cases to hard coolers for keeping game meat fresh, read below for his tips and tricks: What are the must-have Pelican products you rely on for your hunting trips, and how do they help you in the field? Chad Mendes: I’d say the two core Pelican items I use on almost every hunting trip are my 1745 Air Bow Case along with many of their coolers. The bow case is a no worry case for protecting my bow during travel. It’s insanely durable and keeps everything locked in a safe place.
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Hunting/Fishing
Packing for a Successful Fishing Trip with Tight Loops Fly
Packing and preparing for a fishing trip doesn’t need to feel like a chore–if you are organized, of course. If you’re like us and have a checklist for every type of outdoor activity imaginable, that small piece of paper labeled “fishing trip essentials” becomes your roadmap for the weekend ahead. With Pelican, we’ve designed our products to put your mind at ease, ensuring that every piece of fishing gear you hold near and dear is stored in an organized and protected manner. We asked avid outdoor enthusiasts and Team Pelican members, Aimee and Chase Bartee for their expertise on how they prepare for a successful fishing expedition.
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Hunting/Fishing
Pelican Joins MeatEater Tailgate Tour
Fall is here, and that means it’s time for college football. Pelican ProductsTM is excited to team up with MeatEater as the official cooler provider for the 2024-2025 MeatEater Tailgate Tour. The tour celebrates the connection between football and the outdoor lifestyle, bringing fans together to enjoy game day and nature adventures.
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Hunting/Fishing
Pelican Product Spotlight: The Best Tacklebox and Waterproof Case
If you are an angler, rucker, or love the great outdoors, you need a good tacklebox or waterproof case. Anytime you are near a river, lake, ocean, or body of water, you need to keep your gear dry and protected, whether carrying bait and lures or survival and camping gear. Pelican is a name you can trust when it comes to the best tacklebox and waterproof case. Pelican offers products that protect everything you value, at home, on the job site, or out in nature. They make products that can take a beating and hold up under any conditions. They promise quality and are committed to delivering products that meet their high standards. If you need a new tacklebox or waterproof case, here are two of the best on the market. They are some of Pelican’s toughest, most durable models. These boxes can handle whatever you throw their way and keep your supplies dry and safe in even the roughest conditions. Shop Pelican’s Ultra-Tough Coolers
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Hunting/Fishing
Pelican Product Spotlight: The Best Knife Case
If you have a collection of high-quality knives, storing them in a regular bag, box, or roll won’t provide a high level of protection, especially if you need to transport them safely. Discover the benefits of upgrading to a purpose-built knife case and find out how to store and transport knife collections of different sizes.
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Hunting/Fishing
Pelican Product Spotlight: The Best Broadhead Case
Archery hunting requires intense dedication to the craft and careful preparation. As with other equipment in the bowhunter’s arsenal, an essential part of the preparation process is ensuring the broadheads are in excellent condition and ready for the hunt. A broadhead case is the ideal storage solution to keep your broadhead tips well-organized, protected, and easily accessible out in the field. Broadhead cases from Pelican are designed to withstand the rigors of backcountry hunting and extreme weather and offer a durable, long-lasting broadhead storage solution.
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Hunting/Fishing
The Essential Bow Hunting Checklist
Do you have everything you need for hunting this bow season? Preparedness is key, ensuring that you don’t forget the essentials. And whether you are a novice bowhunter or an experienced bowhunter, having a bow hunting checklist can help guide you through all the checks and must-have accessories. It can even help you think about what may need maintaining, replacing or upgrading before your first hunting trip. . Need a thorough list to help you organize and remember everything? From a crushproof and watertight bow case to basic hunting gear and scent control items, here is the ultimate bow hunting checklist for your reference so that you can be prepared. Your Bow, Arrows and Must-Have Accessories Every bow hunter probably has these basics, so think of this list as a reminder of things to check before heading out on your first hunting trip. First, make sure your gear is in good working order and pack it away in your case for safekeeping. In doing so, take your bow to a reliable archery shop for a pre-season tuning and checkup. Bow and arrows: A compound bow and crossbow are popular among bow hunters. Broadhead arrows are great for hunting large animals. Use field points if you plan to do any hunting practice. Quiver: Shoulder pouch or a bow-mounted style, find a quiver that can hold three to six ICS-style arrows. Release Aid: Also called a mechanical release, this device will help you fire your arrow more precisely via bowstring trigger instead of your fingers. A finger tab or glove works well, too. Bow Sight: A sight is a circular housing with fiber optic pins that help you target and hone in on your game or mark. This is an important piece of equipment so take time to choose one you feel comfortable using.
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Hunting/Fishing
The Different Types of Coolers: An Ultimate Guide
Despite the fact that the cooler market is expected to reach 1,024.5 million by 2026, many folks think that a cooler is a cooler. This could not be further from the truth as there are a wide array of different types of coolers. Moreover, the types of coolers that one might be interested in procuring will also vary based on their use, quality, features and so much more. Ultimately, this means that all coolers are not created equal. Thus, there can actually be a bit of complexity involved with understanding the uses for different types of coolers and choosing one that will serve you well.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Keep Meat Cool While Hunting
A week-long hunting trip is a lot different than a day-long excursion. Instead of a convenient walk-in cooler or ice chest back at home a few hours away, you’ll need to contend with butchered meat from the moment you take down the animal to prevent it from spoiling. In this guide, Pelican offers some tips on how to keep meat cool when hunting. In addition, we explore how soon after the shot you need to get the meat cool and how to tell if your meat is already gone and unsafe to eat. Understanding How Meat Spoils Spoiled meat is caused by bacteria, which can grow in certain ideal conditions. Temperature, for example, can cause bacteria to grow quite rapidly. The USDA states that bacteria can double once temperatures reach above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So unless you are hunting in winter, you need to recover your kill and keep your meat from spoiling as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the deer or game is left unattended, it can begin to spawn bacteria from its organs, spoiling the meat and going to waste. How long do you have after you make the shot? Don’t let the game lay there for more than half an hour before field-dressing and removing the organs and getting the quartered meat on ice. How to Keep Meat Cool When Hunting First Things First: Field Dress the Animal Learning how to properly gut and field dress animals is an important step in preserving meat. If you aim well and strike the neck, lungs, heart or liver, it will bleed the animal out, removing an extra step. However, you must still remove the organs, including the heart and lungs, which requires breaking the sternum — and quickly! Once you finish field dressing the deer or whatever you shoot, you can also throw some ice in the newly-made cavity and throw it in a hunting cooler. If you’re hunting big game like deer or elk, we suggest using a rolling cooler with wheels to carry it back to your truck or vehicle once it’s loaded up and heavy. Shop Hard Coolers for Your Next Hunting Trip Dry the Meat and Cool It Slowly (If Necessary) After taking apart the game, keep the quarters dry as possible, cooling them slowly over time in the shade. Then, place the quarters on a clear tarp or clean plastic trash bags somewhere shaded, like beneath a tree, and give them time to air dry. When hunting in the colder months, all you need is a few hours to dry them. However, it’s the warmer months you need to worry about. For the warmer seasons, you want to be sure to keep the meat cool. This is where a cooler comes in handy. Instead of leaving the meat out to dry, place it in a high-quality hard cooler that can keep it fresh for several days. Extra Tip: While you might want to keep that perfectly white cooler interior as clean as possible, never place meat in a garbage bag. The airflow is not adequate and the meat will actually sweat, making a pretty awful odor instead. It’s easier to clean a cooler of blood than to try to remove a smell. Keep Meat Above Ice
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Hunting/Fishing
The Best Time to Fish for Bass
Ready to catch some bass? You have the right lures and know a good fishing hole, but when precisely should you carve out some time? Bass, like many fish, have their own habits, feeding and spawning during certain hours of the day and seasons within the year. So, just when should you plan to hitch the boat up and head to the lake? Spring, summer, fall or winter? Here’s the best time to fish for bass! The Best Time to Fish for Bass Generally speaking, the best time to fish for bass is at dawn and dusk. Catching bass requires you to wake up early in the morning and to stay out later in the evening. Why is this? Because bass like to hunt and feed in low-light environments. Before the sun rises high in the sky, bass can hunt better. Alternatively, you can also catch bass midday if it’s overcast and rainy, too. When it comes to the best season to fish for bass, spring and summer are good times. Ideally, it’s when the water temperatures range from 60 to 80 degrees. However, many anglers will also tell you that it’s in spring whenever bass begin to spawn. When bass begin to spawn, they feed heavily to fatten up so they have energy for reproduction. During their feeding times, the bass get more active, jumpy and aggressive, which means they will take the bait more readily.
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Hunting/Fishing
6 Hunting Gifts for Kids
Teaching your kid how to start hunting? Get them some new gear as their next gift. Whether it’s for Christmas, their birthday or to celebrate a milestone or accomplishment, hunting gear and accessories that can help them learn new hunting skills make a great gift. And if you’re stumped on ideas, look no further! Here are six hunting gifts for kids that are sure to excite them for their next hunt.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Surf Fish for Beginners
Want to pick up fishing but lack a boat for the high seas? You don’t need one! Try surf fishing instead. It’s an easy way to break into saltwater fishing, plus it takes minimal effort to head to the nearest shore and requires much less fuel than a vessel.
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Hunting/Fishing
6 Deep Sea Fishing Tips for Beginners
Tired of fishing on the lake for bass or fly fishing for trout? Love the delicate, meatier taste of fresh saltwater fish? Then it might be time to try some blue water, deep sea fishing. Whether you have your heart set on catching Mahi Mahi, Tarpon, Shark or Wahoo, it takes more than artificial bait and patience. You have to know where to look in the vast ocean and what you’re doing!
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Become a Fishing Guide
Love to fish and know your local waters like the back of your hand? Love meeting new people, too? Then you might be an excellent fishing guide! If you feel like you are the master and commander of your vessel and know precisely where to find every type of fish, rise to the challenge and become a fishing guide.
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Hunting/Fishing
8 Tips for Successful Night Fishing
Night fishing has many advantages. It’s the perfect alternative to a blisteringly hot summer day. Plus, you can catch a wide variety of fish, stirring them from their sleep and catching them off their guard. However, while night fishing can be lots of fun, it can be challenging, too. Luckily, with these eight tips and tricks, you are bound to catch a few fish. So pack your personal cooler with some midnight munchies and grab the rods. It’s time to go night fishing!
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Fly Fish: A Guide to Getting Started
Many of us who have fished with a spinner rod for years inevitably become interested in learning how to fly fish. There’s just something poetic about watching an experienced fly fisher cast a fly into the water at sunset, their silhouette illuminated by a red sky and their smooth casting motion on full display.
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Hunting/Fishing
When Does Bow Hunting Season Start in Each State?
Bow hunting is like no other sport out there. Perhaps more than any other method of hunting, bow hunting feels timeless—probably because it’s been practiced for thousands upon thousands of years in some form or another. And while many of our ancestors could (and had to) go bow hunting at any time of year, modern humans have to wait until the start of bow season.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Train a Hunting Dog
There is nothing better than having a well-bred hunting dog that loves to hunt just as much as you do. But the training process can be a little daunting, especially for first-time hunting dog owners. You need to start early — as in, the moment you gather that little furball into your arms — and continue his or her training well into adulthood. You also need to have a lot of patience and introduce new concepts to your dog at what may seem like a snail’s pace.
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Hunting/Fishing
5 Handgun Shooting Tips for a More Accurate Shot
Why is shooting a handgun so hard? If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, don’t worry — you’re in good company. Many people find that, despite being a decent shot with a rifle, their pistol game leaves much to be desired. If you’re looking to improve your accuracy and could use a few pointers, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for our top handgun shooting tips for an accurate shot.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Shoot a Compound Bow
Investing in a new compound bow is a thrill. But after you come away with your new hunting equipment, there’s still lots of work to be done. Compound bows take lots of fine-tuning and customization to personalize them to your skill level and strength.
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Hunting/Fishing
Where to Shoot a Deer
Many deer hunting misconceptions and bad advice are given to beginner hunters, especially when it comes to tracking and shooting. But with deer being the most common and popular game in the United States with 10.9 million hunters out there, it’s crucial to get the facts straight. And when it comes to being an ethical hunter and doing your part for a swift and successful kill, knowing where to aim is crucial. With your eye on the target, here’s where to shoot a deer to minimize suffering and make recovery of the animal easier.
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Hunting/Fishing
Shed Hunting 101
As deer and other proudly crowned animals drop their antlers after a rut, it offers a new activity for hunters called “shed hunting.” And besides looking nice hung decoratively on a wall or as a nutritional chew toy for your pup, shed hunting has many advantages. It allows hunters to take inventory of nearby bucks and become familiar with the deer’s habitats, tracking their whereabouts. Deer hunter or not, this wonderful activity also gives an excuse to get outdoors after a long winter.
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Hunting/Fishing
Saddle Hunting 101
Saddle hunting has many benefits and can bring a successful hunt. Being above passing deer, you can blend in among the cover of treetops. Plus, unlike tree stands that require you to stay in one position, saddles allow you to swing about for a completely unobstructed 360-degree vantage point. If this sounds like the perfect way to catch that elusive buck, we have you covered! From choosing the best tree saddle to taking the perfect high-angle shot, here are some saddle hunting basics to get you started.
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Hunting/Fishing
Hunting Dog Breeds
Hunting dogs are not bred to hunt everything. Certain breeds excel at flushing and retrieving duck and other fowl, while other pups are raised to be fearless, walking alongside you as you hunt bigger game. So, you’ll want to choose the best dog for the type of hunting you prefer. With that in mind, let’s break down the top dogs for each hunting style and game.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Hunt Raccoons
Raccoons can be a nuisance. And unlike other pests, these scavenger ringtail critters have deft little hands that can cause a whole lot of chaos, from scattering trash to even harming our beloved pets. In fact, they can be quite vicious to anyone or anything that tries to tangle with them. So, sometimes, a raccoon or two just has to go. And whether it’s to get rid of annoying trash pandas in the neighborhood or to hunt them for game, here is how to hunt raccoon successfully.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Fish for Wallleye
With a delicious fillet, walleye is one of the most sought after freshwater fish. But even for an experienced angler, walleye are challenging to catch. However, we have a feeling you’re up for the challenge, which is why we put together this beginner guide on how to fish for walleye, from choosing the best rod and filament to using live bait and more.
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Hunting/Fishing
Bow Hunting for Beginners
Interested in bow hunting? Whether taught to hunt with a rifle at an early age or only now getting into the sport, bow hunting requires particular skills all of their own. For instance, archery is about more than pulling a trigger, taking lots of practice to pull off a successful hunt.
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Hunting/Fishing
9 Gifts for Bowhunters
Bowhunters cherish their bows, so give them a high-quality bow case that will protect it for a lifetime. Pelican offers all types of hard cases with tons of convenient, durable features. For starters, they’re made of Pelican’s trademark Air construction HPX® resin that rebounds without breaking and is completely crushproof. This lightweight resin also makes them great for travel, minimizing baggage check expenses. Plus, the interior offers a modular storage system that allows a custom configuration to keep bows, arrows and accessory kits.
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Hunting/Fishing
The 9 Best Gift Ideas for Hunters
Stumped on gift ideas for family members who enjoy hunting? Don’t don the camo and go spying on them just yet. Let Pelican help guide your aim and hit your mark with a truly awesome gift. Here are nine gift ideas for hunters that they are sure to appreciate and get tons of use out of.
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Hunting/Fishing
Let's Talk Turkey: How to Turkey Hunt
Turkey is an excellent game to hunt. However, it requires proper gear and a basic understanding of scouting and calling–plus, the methods of using decoys to get the gobbler all riled up over his territory. It’s lots of patience and work, but in the end, the challenge of a turkey hunt can also be a ton of fun.
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Hunting/Fishing
Hooked: 5 Tips for Winter Bass Fishing
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a few more angling days before storing rods away for winter? Well, the good news is that it’s not only possible, but it’s a great time for catching bass! In fact, winter bass fishing might present the perfect opportunity to reel in your biggest trophy fish yet.
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Start Hunting
There are many reasons to learn to hunt. Hunting supports wildlife conservation efforts, and helps farmers preserve their precious crops. It can increase your self-reliance by putting food on your family’s table. And, of course, there is the simplest reason of them all: hunting is enjoyable!
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Hunting/Fishing
How to Hunt Coyotes
Flexible, adaptive and highly intelligent, coyotes have a well-deserved reputation for being true American survivors. Once confined to the Western Plains, this cunning creature has managed to expand across much of North America. The increase in the coyote population is largely attributed to their extreme adaptability, along with a lack of apex predators that would normally keep their numbers in check.
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Hunting/Fishing
Bullseye: 7 Tips for Improving Your Archery Practice
As far as practical life skills go, few are as fun and challenging as archery. Target practice will improve your skills and help you hit that clean bullseye consistently. Practice can also build strength, coordination, self-confidence and overall feelings of badassery (archers know what we’re talking about).
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Hunting/Fishing
Bowhunting Tips For a More Accurate Target
Bowhunting is arguably one of the most exhilarating outdoor activities around. Giving your target the benefit of the fair chase means a much bigger challenge that requires thousands of hours honing your archery skills. In fact, it takes some hunters years in the field before they nab their first kill. It’s a genuine thrill for all who partake!
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Hunting/Fishing
How to: Bowhunting for Hogs
Bowhunting wild hogs is a great way to feed your family, get some fresh air and, surprisingly, help your community. Indeed, the opportunistic wild swine is a destructive, invasive species. Wild hogs cause as much as $400 million in damages annually. Ecologists, farmers and parks services don’t want them on their land because they edge out other wildlife, erode the soil and disrupt native vegetation. So what do we do? We go hunting!
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Hunting/Fishing
Preparation is Key: Getting Ready for Hunting Season
For forward-thinking hunters, mid- to late-summer is the time to start gearing up for hunting season. No matter your weapon of choice or your preferred bounty, hunting season kicks up in most places toward the end of summer and the beginning of fall. It usually lasts through the winter in many regions. Spend the next few weeks or months prepping for a fruitful hunting season so you can enjoy a full freezer and fewer hiccups once you get into the field.
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Hunting/Fishing
Carp Bowfishing for Beginners
Love fishing? Love hunting? Combine the two with bowfishing! This sport is beloved by tried-and-true outdoorsy types because it’s a unique fusion of two of the most popular sporting niches. With bowfishing, you truly get the best of both worlds: the thrill of stalking and shooting your prey mixed with a relaxing, aquatic environment. All in all, bowfishing is a great way to get outside and put your skills to the test.
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