Sam Evans - talking Bad Company Hunting & Outdoors

So let's talk about that. Was he on your hit list?

Sam: Well, I've never seen this deer before in the area. I've got this little hunting hole, and I call it my shooting shack. It's a big box blind, and it's long shots. It was with a rifle. But me and Jason Hall was sitting in there, and this buck, he…we had watched eight other bucks that morning cross back and forth chasing does. And the field in front of us was really tall with grass, and you could just see, when they'd make their hop you'd just see the antlers. Well, I had passed this decent eight, and I kind of got to kicking myself. I'm like, "Well, maybe I should have just took that deer." And then Jason goes, "There's a good one."

So it was a 298-yard shot. And I shot, and I thought I missed the first shot. And when he got in the sunlight, I thought, "Boy, that's a lot bigger deer than what I thought it was." Well then we get down there to him, and I hit him first shot and missed the second shot, but he was a really good deer, and I had never seen him. I was actually hunting for another deer that I had had an encounter with the year before that I call Hollywood. But you got to take what you can get in southern Missouri.

Bruce: Well, yeah. So I mentioned the Pope and Young. So, like I said, a 140-inch deer with a rifle, muzzleloader, crossbow, compound bow, it's a great deer. Now how did you get that on film? Because 298, that's a poke out there.

Sam: Well, we was running the video camera at that time, and we could zoom out there to him. We was kind of in the bottom field, and he was kind of up on this hillside. So you can get a...and it's a box blind, so we had all the area to move in the box blind. And Jason, he got him on video and made the shot, and it just all kind of worked out good.

is this a natural travel corridor?

Bruce: Now are you hunting over a food plot or is this a natural travel corridor?

Sam: I didn't put any mineral out at this spot. I just stayed out of it. And that was something that I've tried doing here lately, is…I've got one spot that I like to rifle hunt, so I stay out of it. I don't go in there, I don't go scouting. I just stay out of it. I scout the land around it and try to get pictures of bucks that I know that's in that area.

But this buck, I had never seen him, ever. He's one that just moved in there. And I think a lot of it, the field wasn't mowed, wasn't hayed this year or anything like that. And I think they just felt secure in that location, because, like I said, we seen eight bucks that day. And then the next weekend of rifle season, I took my brother in law, and he got that decent eight that I'd let walk.

Once September comes, just stay the heck out.

Bruce: You mentioned something that's really important, and whether you are sitting up in a tree stand with a bow or sitting in a box blind with a rifle, if you know year in and year out you've had an opportunity to shoot some bucks out of that stand, and it's really smart, just don't do anything until you're ready to hunt that stand. And listeners, take note of that because everybody gets excited, and you get your trail cameras up. And if you need to fix up the stand or the box blind, heck, do that in July, August. Once September comes, just stay the heck out. The first time you go in there is open of the rifle season or the first time you're going to sit the stand. Now you say you like the tree stand also for archery?

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Rocky Russo - How to hunt B&C bucks in Oh Canada

Oh, what happened then? So tell us the rest of that story. What happened? Rocky Russo - How to hunt B&C bucks in Oh Canada and what it mean to be 10 yards away from a bear

Rocky: Well, we were with a client one time, and I was telling him it was one of the biggest black bears he's ever seen, but the only thing I told him, it's hard. You're with a client and you're trying to talk them down, "Listen just the minute he puts his paw inside the barrel, right, that's when you use broad side, that's when you take him."

Bruce: Right, because he opens up his lungs and his heart and everything.

Rocky: Yes, okay, but for some you know, he was a guy, was a client from Texas, nervous, first time, first bear. Was also young and it's normal. I mean, you're seeing a 400-pound black bear that close it looks triple the size. So I just had my shotgun ready and then he didn't wait for the bear to...the bear was facing us. And even though I told not to shoot he released that arrow which was like we're all big on ethical kills, okay. Though you could kill a bear with a frontal shot, but it's unethical. Well, the bear, he felt cornered and he just came for us. So I had to put him down with that shotgun. Luckily enough, he went down.

Bruce: Did you have slugs or buckshot?

Rocky: I have these, they call them believe it or not on the box, it's called home-invasions slugs.

Bruce: Yeah, you were getting invaded.

Rocky: So there's a slug and six buckshot in it, like six. That's what they're called, and they're pretty effective at short range.

Bruce: Yeah, if we're talking less than 10 yard, yeah. So how did the guy from Texas do with the bear sitting in his lap?

they start shaking and crying, and they're overwhelmed by emotions

Rocky: I mean, he completely broke down. They start shaking and crying, and they're overwhelmed by emotions and it says, "He will never ever, ever in his life shoot any animal unless it's an ethical..." He learned his lesson, he really did. And you know what I mean, it was a shocking moment for him. At the same time like I said it's a mixed emotions. And it's cool for a...he was a very young guy. I think he just graduated, he was 14, 15 years old, and the bear was like fully dressed he weighed 487 pounds. It's a big bear, like a 20,5-inch skull. You're talking a mature boar. Because we have to send out the like a mauler to the...

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Mike Hintz - How to hunt your backyard

Mike: We have about 80 acres that's straight behind us. Actually, there’s 30 of it that's under water. There's actually a nice sized lake behind our house. So there's probably only actually 50 of it that we get to hunt in. It's mainly, we got trees that run along the shoreline. We got some slough that actually hold the deer. And then, my brother-in-law, he plants corn and beans, he rotates the crops, which the deer like them. And, the deer just love to hang out back here. Mike Hintz - How to hunt your backyard

Bruce: Now you said there's a lake. On either side of you, are your neighbors in agriculture? Are they growing crops? Or is it CRP land?

Mike: Well, actually, totally surrounding us is public land. So, that’s why we’re trying to make it a safe haven for the deer back here until the hunting season comes. And then, when hunting season comes, of course, it's game on for the bucks. Otherwise, yeah, the deer just like to congregate back here. Hang out, because they get down there and get away from all the pressures from the hunters on public land.

Bruce: Is that like Wildlife Management areas when you say public land?

Mike: Yeah, that would be Game, Fish and Parks. So, that’s open to the public so anybody can hunt that. Actually, right next to me I got a boat landing where people put in the lake to go fishing.

Well you had an interesting story about your 11 point buck and your son's 150 buck.

Bruce: Yeah. Well you had an interesting story about your 11 point buck and your son's 150 buck. Let's tell the listeners about how that all came to be.

Mike: Well, we got up early in the morning. On opening morning of rifle season. I'm one that I don't like to walk out when it's dark because you don't know what you're going to scare away or not. So we kind of wait until the sun comes up.

Well, we were sitting there and we’re looking out, and there’s a bunch of deer out there. [inaudible 00:03:50] I got binoculars everywhere in the house. And I looked, and there was a buck out there. And I told my boy, “Well, there’s one for you to shoot.” Because, it was his first year hunting with us, to get a buck. So I wanted to make sure I got him his buck first.

So, we got all dressed up and we snuck out. And we probably got 75 to 100 yards away from him. We get snuck up to a tree. And we were sitting there, watching him. And, he was behind the trees. And then, he just never cleared the tree. But, we were just sitting there, waiting. And, all of a sudden, my boy goes, “Dad, right here.” And, right off to the right of us did some walking. And that 150 inch deer that he shot, but he did not shoot it yet. And it got too close and he didn’t have his gun up so we couldn't move. So, we just sat there.

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Paul Rowley - How to hunt like a Cajun

Well, a few years back, I purchased a Boss Buck feeder, and I started feeding Purina Mills deer chow. And where I hunt in Mississippi, it's not a really known area for really nice bucks. Well, that year, we had quite a few really nice bucks stay in our area and come into that feeder time and time and time and time. And we was able to pattern that deer. And a friend of mine ended up harvesting the deer, beautiful 10-point buck, by far the biggest deer that's ever been killed on our place. And we also plant soybeans to help bring our deer into our lease and hold them there. Paul Rowley - How to hunt like a Cajun

Bruce: So what do you do during the year? You said you had a feeder. Now do you have food plots, micro-plots? Tell us about your year-round process.

Paul: We have food plots. During the summer, we'll plant soybeans. There's another product I found called Mean Bean, by Evolved Harvest. And it has done absolute great job of pulling bucks in and holding them in our spot. During the fall, I'll plant some other stuff that's worked really well as well.

Bruce: So how do you take care of that land? Are you just like a farmer, or do you visit it once a week? A farmer works it every single day or every single week. so tell us how you developed those two plots so they produce good forage for the bucks.

Paul: I usually visit once a month. Once every month and a half, I'll make my drive up to Mississippi. We have a tractor. We prepare the dirt. I chop it multiple times to get a good seed bed fertilizing line. And it's done very, very well for us to hold deer on our place. For a long time, we couldn't get deer to just stay on our place that we hunt. So when we started doing this maintaining good food plots good high-protein food plots and putting up them feeders with the high-protein feed it's really helped us tremendously in holding deer in our area we hunt.

Bruce: Now, how big of acreage do you have up there in Mississippi?

Paul: We have 1,000 acres.

Bruce: That's quite a bit of land. Now is that pine, or is that hardwoods? What kind of land is it?

Paul: It's pine and hardwood mix. And it's difficult where we hunt. A lot of locals up there they don't hunt for bucks per se the big bucks. They almost shoot anything. For us, it's hard to try to get a big mature deer to stay on our place. So that's when we started putting good feed putting good food plots and it's really helped us the last few years.

Bruce: So by having the food there you've got to have some water there. You've got to have cover there. So if you have those three things what you're saying is that you're holding deer year-round?

Paul: Correct. We have a creek that runs through the property. We have good thickets for them to hide in. It was just that the lack of good nutritious food is what we were missing. And then since we've started doing that we've had very good success.

says that you have thousands of trail camera pictures and your hunting buddies love it

Bruce: Now in the warm-up and in your bio it says that you have thousands of trail camera pictures and your hunting buddies love it. They laugh at you because of how much time you take looking at the pictures. Let's talk about that for a little bit and the importance of your trail cams.

Paul: I like viewing my pictures and getting to know my deer. Getting to know almost everything about him. If there's a little nick in the ear, when I see this deer, I know what deer it is. And I can age it, determine on the size of it and whatnot. And my buddies, they're not as serious as I am about it, so they do kind of make jokes about it. But whenever it comes down to it, they know they can come to me, "Hey, you seen this deer before?" "Yeah, I've seen that deer." You know?

Bruce: So what's a buck have to be to make it to your hit list for any particular year?

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Jody Blackwelder of Gen7Outdoors offering Hunting at its best

......tell our listeners all throughout North America just about Gen7Outdoors, how they find you. And once they get to your page, or your site, what they're going to see on your show.

Jody: All right. Well, what we do is Gen7Outdoors is a streaming TV network, so what we have is a platform that people who are starting a TV show, or that have a TV show established, they can come and they can air with us. We have scheduled programming that's a live feed, plus we have an on-demand site so people can go and watch. We have a channel on Roku and we have everything on our website.

It's free for everybody who comes to the website to look at and watch. It's a really cool platform for people who are trying to come up in the industry and it's also a neat platform for people in the industry to expand their reach. We've got a pretty strong fan base and we're just real excited about all what we have going on right now.

Is it all hunting shows

Bruce: Now what type of shows do you have? ? Or does it have fishing? Or birding? What's on the show?

Jody: We have a pretty good mix right now. It's a little heavy on the hunting side right now, but we do have some new shows that are coming on in the third and fourth quarter of this year that are fishing. And then I actually already booked some shows for 2017, first and second quarter, that's fishing. But mostly it's hunting and variety outdoors, where they have hunting fishing, birding, you know, just a general outdoor show. So we have a pretty good variety.

Right now, first and second quarter, since we just rolled out in January, we have about 15 shows that will be on in the first and second quarter. But starting in the third and fourth quarter, we will have somewhere around 20 shows that will be on that. There's a lot of good content, a lot of great things to watch. These guys are doing a great job putting their shows together, so we're real excited.

Bruce: So I watch your show and I want to learn X about whitetail hunting. What are some of the things, the content that you have that will help me become a better whitetail hunter?

Jody: Well you know, a lot of these shows that we have on are just your average every day hunters. They go out and buy the camera equipment and they try hard to get the quality content and be able to show some really god footage of deer hunting. In doing this, a lot of these guys are learning themselves, as far as in the woods. No one, I don't believe, is ever an expert.

There's always room to learn and watching these shows, especially the newcomer who's coming on board and filming and producing shows, it's real interesting to see how they start out with their first episode and how they're hunting, and how they change up their game plan by the thirteenth episode. All of them mature during the year and during the filming season. They will pick some new tricks and they always are implementing new technologies in hunting deer. It's pretty neat to see it all play out.

always can learn new tricks.

Bruce: Well I know a lot of listeners as well as myself always can learn new tricks. Because I've been only hunting whitetails for 50 years and yeah, I've put a few bucks on the ground and a lot of does on the ground, but I always get schooled by that nature buck. So if somebody is looking for mature buck secrets, what do you think they would see on the show?

Jody: Well this last year is a perfect example of a rough season. Here in North Carolina and throughout the whole South, the weather was so warm that deer went just straight nocturnal. So you had all these people who were filming hunts who really had to put in extra work and time and they were really describing, you know, in their episodes that they were filming in November and December what they were having to do different to try to get a mature whitetail in front of them.

You know I’m on Twitter,

Evan Williams How to prepare to hunt fit

Welcome to another edition of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon. We're going to head over to Salt Lake City, and we're going to talk to the business development coordinator for Hoyt Archery and How to prepare to hunt fit, Mr. Evan Williams. Evan, welcome to the show.

Evan: Thanks for having me, Bruce. It's a pleasure.

“Thanks for listening to the podcast, and make sure you tweet at us with your thoughts about the show. We’re always trying to make the show better for you all, so shoot us a thought or two at @whitetailrendez

Bruce: Folks, Evan is a multifaceted young man. He and a couple of his buddies are also co-owner of iamhuntlete.com, and later in the show we're going to talk about that. But right now we're going to start right off and see what kind of results Hoyt had at the World Archery Festival held in Las Vegas recently.

Evan: Yeah, it was a really good turnout, the largest show they've ever had with just over 3,000 competitors, and it's actually a dual competition. You have final stage of the indoor World Cup season, so you have all your international competitors there for that, as well as it being the largest indoor shoot in the world. And it is an open competition, so anyone in the U.S. or internationally can come over and shoot that. And we won Men's Open in the World Cup and took 2nd on the women's side. And then we won a pair of recurve golds in that event as well for the World Cup side of things.

And then in the Open Vegas shoot, we took the number one position with Sergio Pagni from Italy. He won in a shoot-off on the first three arrows, which has never happened before, especially with the Lucky Dog competitor. And it's one competitor out of the field of 899 scoring point shooters that gets to go into the shoot-off for the final big tournament pot. And this year it's a $50,000 check from the NFAA for the winner, and Sergio won that at the Lucky Dog entrance. He won a shoot-down field of 32, and then went on to the finals and won it on the first three arrows.

And then we also took the women's championship with Inga. I don't kwon where she's from honestly nation wise, but she was in against two very strong Mathews women and she won that tournament.

So we came out on top across the board and just a phenomenal performance by all the archers around the country and did it on the world's largest scene, so it was awesome. The stage was set for a lot of good things to happen, and everything came together for us.

you and your buddies are doing at iamhuntlete.com.

Bruce: Let's jump into the show and talk about you and your buddies are doing at iamhuntlete.com. Let's talk about that for a while.

Evan: Yep. So a buddy I knew from Indiana, yeah, we've known each other for a couple of years and we're big on the fitness side. We both grew up in sports. I was a Division One athlete, and it's always been a part of our lives.

We saw where the industry was going with the Train To Hunts that are out there and the fitness competition. And what we really noticed is that with a lot of the individuals that are popping up on social media, that there wasn't a whole lot of expertise, I guess, is one way to put it. No certifications and no education on it that we could find with a lot of these social media pop-up guys. And they're charging guys hundreds of dollars for meal plans and workouts, and they don't have the education or the background behind it.

So what we wanted to do is we really wanted to bring a different aspect of fitness and training to the hunting industry. Zach's background is in exercise and sport science. I have a degree in math and statistics, which obviously doesn't play into that a whole lot. But with my background in athletics and with my background in the industry, as well as my mother whose degree in masters is dietetics and nutrition, we've got a really strong presence I feel like we bring to the table for functional ...

Lindsey Hayden How to hunt like a southern girl

Bruce: Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. We're heading down to Georgia today, and we're going to talk to a really great gal, Lindsey Hayden. She's a hunter. Lindsey Hayden How to hunt like a southern girl. She's a fisherwoman or fisherman, outdoors woman, and she loves to hunt ducks. She calls herself a shadow blade camo princess. Lindsey, welcome to the show.

Lindsey: Hey.

Bruce: Just share what happened. Lindsey's sitting outside and she looked up in the air. How many geese just flew over your head?

Lindsey: Probably about 20 snow geese.

Bruce: Amazing. She's down there in Georgia. So it's going to be a great show, folks. So tell me about how you got into the out of doors.

Lindsey: My dad actually. My dad, he has been outdoors, because he's from Alabama actually. And my dad started me out when I was probably five or six just like squirrel and deer hunting and things. And I remember my first hunt. There was a [inaudible 00:01:08] in my house, because we have about 11 acres. But he never pressured me to be a hunter or anything. It was just something that I always loved. My first whitetail that I tried to shoot at was just a spot because I was still five or six and I missed him. I remember him just telling me, "It's okay if you miss sometimes. Everybody misses." So that was my first real hunt.

Bruce: Who else in your family hunts?

Lindsey: Only my dad. My mom hates hunting. She's not really big on it. My brother isn't. So it's really just me and my dad. That's time for me and my dad to be together.

Bruce: Wow. What's one thing that he taught you that you've never forgotten?

Lindsey: Always leave the land better than when you came. And if you don't need it, don't take it.

Bruce: Good wisdom. He also instilled a deep respect for the animals that you hunt. What does that mean to you?

When you shoot them, you try to do it one shot, one kill, of course.

Lindsey: To me, you don't disrespect the animals in any way. When you shoot them, you try to do it one shot, one kill, of course. You don't let it suffer. There's no reason for any animal to suffer, and you try to use every part that you can. I try to no matter when I hunt. And I respect in that we try to give them food. Respect is making sure these animals are healthy. You want them to have a good life before you harvest them. That's what I think that respect is. If you see a mess somewhere out where you're hunting, pick it up. It's not that hard.

Bruce: Do you put out food plots? You and your dad put out food plots?

Lindsey: We have a hunting club in South Georgia close to Fort Benning. We plant food plots, and we have a few up there some pretty big ones. We plant turnips and all kinds of grasses and stuff. I think we're going to plant rice this year for ducks so they'll have something to eat.

Bruce: I also understand that you're a conservationist. What groups do you belong to?

Lindsey: I don't really belong to any. I'm just a self-made conservationist. I preserve animals. I'm not really a group. I just see myself as more than that. When you see an animal that needs help, you help them.

Bruce: Explain that a little bit more because some people they think you belong to a group and that makes you a conservationist, but really it's what you do by yourself and how you take care of your animals.

Lindsey: It's almost like there's some people who shoot everything they see. I don't do that. That's just something you don't do. You're conserving more animals by only taking exactly what you need. You help out the animals by providing them food, and you take out nuisance animals such as coyotes and other things to make sure that the more native animals are at a healthy population. Conversation is maintaining that you have healthy animals and a healthy population in the area.

Bruce: What attracts you to the outdoors?

Braxton Byers How to create a YouTube Hunting Channel

Welcome to another edition of Whitetail Rendezvous. We're heading back down to Texas today and we're going to talk to Braxton Byers. Braxton, also known as FollowHisArrow, is the husband of Jessica Taylor Byers who calls herself FollowHerArrow. Braxton Byers How to create a YouTube Hunting Channel. They're quite a couple down there. They're dynamic people in the great state of Texas. Braxton and his wife, Jessica, with a couple of other folks, are starting a YouTube series called Breaking Wild. Their mission as a team is to provide a resource for others to learn how to be successful hunters. Braxton, welcome to the show.

Braxton: Thank you, Bruce.

Bruce: So let's just talk about Breaking Wild for a few minutes here and tell the listeners that...probably the age group starts in the late teens and goes up to the oldest segment over 65 people all over North America. I don't know how many people listen every day but I know we're represented throughout North America so let's share with them what's happening with Breaking Wild.

Braxton: Okay, yes, Breaking Wild is a YouTube series that the HomeCookinHunter got started or had a dream of in his mind. He wanted to set something up with different people around the United States, not only to be a hunting show but to teach people if someone didn't know how to field dress a deer, they could go to our channel and not just see the hunt or the kill but see steps on field dressing your deer, what to do with the meat after you field dress it and also cook the meat.

So we have...there's five of us spread out across the United Staes that are putting this YouTube series on. We have FromFieldToPlate in California who is an awesome chef with wild game, Fatal_Impact_Films out of Kentucky who is an excellent producer and predator caller. Again, the HomeCookinHunter out of Tennessee does cooking episodes, processing episodes and things like that. Then they picked up me and my wife Jessica out of Texas who mainly just do a lot of hunting. We don't even know the processing side of the animals. We take ours to the meat lockers and get ours processed and pick it up.

So it's a series that we're all learning on also and we're going to show everybody our mistakes and how we teach each other in the field.

Bruce: You mentioned you had five states. I had California, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. Was there another state that I missed there?

Braxton: No, that's it. It's me and my wife are both in Texas.

Bruce: Okay, okay, five people and four states. Got it. Got it. So on the hunting side, what makes you feel that you can bring that to the table at a pretty good level?

Braxton: The people that I've grown up around from the time I could walk, people that...my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I wanted Realtree Monster Bucks tapes. All I wanted to do was to sit there and watch hunting shows if I couldn't be outside. I was extremely lucky growing up to be able to go hunting. My dad took me where he went hunting or fishing, I was right there alongside him. We had access to ranches that were well-known ranches that had hunting guides and professional hunters that came into them so I had always been around people in the hunting industry and I just soaked up every little thing I could to learn everything about it. I've always, always been a hunting fanatic so I've always just soaked it up like a sponge as much as I could and listened to everybody and the different ways of hunting and producing big whitetails.

Bruce: Now you said in your bio you started bow hunting at the age 13. Was that with a recurve or a Jennings compound? Take us back to 13 years old and how you get started bow hunting.

My dad...actually, when I was around eight years old my dad bought his first bow

Braxton: That was with a compound. My dad...actually, when I was around eight years old my dad bought his first bow.

Jessica Taylor Byers How to Hunt like a Woman

Welcome to another exciting episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. And why is it exciting? Jessica Taylor Byers How to Hunt like a Woman. Well, we're going to visit with Jessica Taylor Byers, also known as Follow Her Arrow, central Texas-born baby, raised an avid bow hunter, that's paving her way into the outdoor industry. She has recently started a blog at FollowHerArrow.com to share her outdoor experiences, including her mistakes, and hopes and encouraging other women to pick up a bow. So, Jessica, welcome to the show.

Jessica: Hi, Bruce. Thank you.

Bruce: Hey. And to warm up, I asked you to give me three subjects and I'm just going to frame that right now and let our listeners hear what we're going to talk about. And number one thing, encouraging other women, what drove Jessica to start a blog, Follow Her Arrow, and she wanted to inspire women not to be intimidated in a male-dominated industry.

So, let's just start off with number one and let's talk about your experiences, not only in social media, but in the field where you really want to step up and make sure that other women can be welcomed into the outdoor industry.

Yes. So, I've been hunting for most of my life. My dad always had me in a field,

Jessica: Yes. So, I've been hunting for most of my life. My dad always had me in a field, and I always had this discomfort with him because I had him basically holding my hand and teaching me the ins and outs in safety. And he was there when I harvested my first few animals. And eventually I got comfortable enough to start hunting alone, and I did that for many, many years. And then I met my husband who introduced me to bow hunting.

And I just felt this sense of empowerment when I started bow hunting. I guess taking it back to how we originally hunted for our food as far back as we can remember. So, it just made me feel empowering. And I thought back to all the years that I've really wanted to pick up a bow and I was just nervous, I was intimidated. I felt like I can't look into that archery shop, they're going to think I don't know what I'm doing. You have these assumptions.

And I was lucky enough to have someone walk me through, from my dad walking me through all the gun hunting, and my husband with bow hunting. And I thought about all the women out there who may not have that, and it just inspired me to start this blog and talk about my successes as well as my failures because I am human.

And I've found that as I started hunting, bow hunting about three years ago, a lot of people will assume that I'm just this awesome hunter and like I never mess up. And it's such a misconception, and people will relate to you better when you can talk about what you did wrong and what you could've done better.

So, I started it thinking this will be a resource for them to see what to do, what not to do, in case they don't have that male inspiration in their life, the way that I've been so grateful to have. So, yeah, that's kind of how things got started.

And I came up with Follow Her Arrow and it caught on on social media, and it's kind of blown up to be more than what I imagined it would be. Again, I started it for fun. And I'm just trying to see where it goes from here. I've had a lot of great feedback and a lot of women that message me daily just saying thank you, "Thank you for being an inspiration," or "Thank you for being real. Thank you for talking about the things that other people don't want to talk about as far as messing up and the embarrassment," and things like that. So, it's been really cool. It's been really cool, and down the road already. I'm excited to see where it goes.

Bruce: Now, social media, what platforms are you on?

Instagram is my main platform, and that's @followherarrow

Jessica: Currently, Instagram is my main platform, and that's @followherarrow. And I'm also on Facebook. I have a business page,

Ron Spomer shares how to know "Everything" Whitetail

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host. And ladies and gentlemen, I sure hope you got your ears on and going to listen, because Ron Spomer is joining us today. Ron Spomer shares how to know "Everything" Whitetail.  Ron has been in the outdoor industry for many, many years. He has hosted Winchester Legends, Whitetail Revolution, Outdoor's Ten Best, Hunting 201, Winchester World of Whitetail and now video production, Ron Spomer Outdoors on YouTube. Ron has traveled the globe and brought myself along the trips with him through his writing. So Ron, welcome to the show.

Ron: Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate being here. It's going to be good talking with you.

Bruce: It sure is and nobody in Colorado is going any place, because we've got one heck of a storm still blowing. That's for sure.

Ron: Yeah, I hear you. You've got hammered, but we need that moisture.

Bruce: That's for sure. So before we get into the show, listeners, Ron has agreed to be with us three or four times a year. So this is going to be a little intro on Ron, about five or so minutes on Ron giving us a background. Then we're going to get into something that's near and dear to his heart, and that's the younger generation. He has a smartphone app called Everything Whitetail that he's going to talk about. So Ron, let's kick off the show and let's share how you got in the business way back where you started out in South Dakota, a farm kid and how you got to where you are today.

Ron: That's going way back all right. Yeah, I was fortunate to grow up in a small town in America, out in a farm. All my family farmed and that was the world back then. And there really wasn't much in it for wildlife other than lots and lots of pheasants and waterfowl. East and South Dakota of course, pheasant capital of the world, and we have that glacial potholes country. So even though we farmed it pretty hard — and that was the whole idea back then is to stay alive and make a living on the farm — we still had a lot of potholes, wetlands that were just low sinks that collected all the rainwater and the snow melt. You couldn't farm it, so that's where the ducks nested, and then the cattails that grew around there held the pheasants.

You can imagine what that did to a dreaming country boy like me

But it wasn't until about the mid '60s that whitetail started to show up. You can imagine what that did to a dreaming country boy like me. I had uncles and cousins who hunted, and I idolized them and I wanted to be a hunter. But I also always had this...I don't know. It's almost an instinctive desire to go to the wilderness or the unknown. I would walk the railroad track that ran past the farm and look down it and watch those trains disappear into where I just assumed was some kind of a grand, wild hunting land out there that I just wanted to see. And I don't know where I got that idea, but I just always had it and it always drove me.

So as I grew up, I kept expanding farther and farther afield, hunting pheasants of course and then waterfowl. We would just walk from the farm or out of town, and maybe make a loop of three miles out and back, and hunt rabbits and pheasants and whatever we could find. But when I bumped into whitetails, my heart just about leaped out of my chest. Holy mackerel! He was this large animal and it had antlers for God's sake. We'd read about this in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield, and here it was in our own backyard. It was like that grand wilderness I had always imagined had actually come right into the back cornfield. So that really got me going.

Once I got wheels under me at about 15, we could be driving. I was able now to go 10-12 miles out of town and discover more of these big wetlands and wilder areas. That just turned me lose. I became a trapper and an archer, bow-hunting for deer. You name it. If it was out there, it was wild, we were after it.