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Interviewer: Three, two, one. Welcome, Whitetail Rendezvous community to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Today I am really happy to have Saul Soltero and he is the Regional Director for Whitetails Unlimited out of Wisconsin. Sturgeon Bay I believe isn't it, Saul?

Saul: Yes we are headquartered in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

Interviewer: Right. Tell us what you do for Whitetail Unlimited and even more important, what type of whitetail hunter you are.

Saul: Two totally different subjects there as far as I'm concerned. I am the regional director for Whitetails Unlimited. It's one of these jobs where guys come up to you and ask how you got his job. It's kind of a dream job. Basically in the hunting industry, I am the Regional Director of the Midwest, which means I cover from Fargo, North Dakota to Stillwater, Oklahoma. We've got chapters all up and down the Midwest. Always looking to open new chapters. We are a pro second amendment hunting. We are certainly very involved in youth and youth shooting sports as well as youth hunting opportunities. One of the most important things that is near and dear to my heart is we are linked up with the Wounded War Heroes, which is a group that supports the mission of taking our wounded warriors when they come home from the war on hunting and fishing trips to kind of ease them back into life.I am very proud of my existence and my participation in that they're doing. That's a little bit about Whitetails and where my region is.

In regards to hunting, I'm an avid outdoorsman. I would rather be outdoors than anything in the world. And it seems like chasing those whitetail deer is probably the number one thing on my list. Although I will hunt just about anything. I just got back from a hog hunt. I love to pheasant hunt. I've got two very well trained labrador retrievers that I consider my two best buddies in the world. And love to be out there chasing the roosters, goose hunt. I love to go shoot my gun, side of me [SP] my and my kids enjoy doing it as well. I would like to say I am a huge outdoorsman and Whitetails Unlimited plays right into that aspect of being able to get outdoors as often as possible.

Interviewer: Thank you for that background. Let's just jump right into the interview. What's one of the best hunting tips that you received and who gave it to you?

Saul: For me it was a bit of a baptism by fire. I went on my first pheasant hunting trip over 25 years ago. I am from Southern Arizona. My wife's family is actually from the Midwest. Came into the Midwest and decided that I wasn't real sure if I wanted to stay based on the weather. And that was the day that they took me hunting for the first time. It didn't take much more than that. It was a pheasant hunt. And as some of my people may understand. . .some of your people understand out there, a pheasant is a tough bird. First and foremost you have to judge whether it's male or female based its colors. It's giving you one one-hundredth of a second to decide that as it flies away at Mach speed from right beneath your legs and then you have to figure out how to get a shot off and how to cut it off from point A to point B.

I was hooked on the meticulous nature of hunting and the interaction with the dogs, the interaction with the buddies that you are with. Just being outdoors. I say, there's been times when I lay down in the field and took it in because I'm tired, but I don't want to quit. The dogs laying right next to me because he's tired, but he doesn't want to quit. It's just an unbelievable sport, it's challenging, it's rewarding, it's satisfying. It scratches a lot of itches.

I've learnt my hunting from a lot of different people. The first person to take me hunting was a gentleman by the name Jack Lutz [SP]. Jack was gracious enough to work with me in all of my failures and my [inaudible 00:04:00] and my lack of knowledge and he just did a wonderful job with.

Bruce: 3-2-1. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is Bruce Hutcheon, your host. And today we're in Arkansas with a gentleman named Barry James. And Barry said he's a redneck from Arkansas and I asked his permission to say that, but he said, "You go right ahead, son." And he's on the Ten Point Prostaff. He's been hunting with a crossbow since 1974, so that's over 40 years. Barry, welcome to the show.

Barry: Thank you, Bruce. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

Bruce: Let's just jump right into it. You've had a love affair with the crossbow for a long, long time. So let's share the story with our listeners.

Barry: Yes, it started in 1974 in the state of Arkansas, my home state. They legalized crossbows for the archery season in 1973. My dad, which was an avid outdoorsman, bought his first crossbow that year. And then the following year, 1974, when I turned 14 years old, he bought my very first crossbow. And from that point until now, it's been my weapon of choice.

I've shot compounds. I've killed a few deer with compound bow. But I always gravitated back to the crossbow because of my love affair with them. It allowed me to spend a lot of time out in the woods with my dad, and it was just a joy using them, and I found out real quick that it was something that I could never give up.

Bruce: There's a lot of conversation in different states and here in Colorado. I have a little disability so I get to hunt with a crossbow. I've been given that right by the state. My doctor sent a letter. And there's some people that look at me differently when I'm out there with my crossbow and they have their compounds or a stick and a string.

That's what I call traditional archers. Where do you think that all comes from? Let's talk about that because I think that's important for our listeners to hear both sides of a story. So we're going to tell the crossbow story today. Barry, what do you think?

Barry: Well, in my personal opinion, the reason why people don't understand crossbows is because they're uneducated about them. They automatically think the person who's shooting the crossbow is shooting a gun-style bow. A crossbow is not a gun. It is a form or archery. Instead of vertical, it's horizontal. And the crossbow has had a misconcept for years and years and years, of long distance shooting.

They think the person who automatically picks up a crossbow has automatically got a hundred yard weapon in their hands, which is obviously just grossly mistaken. And the reason why a lot of people do not like crossbow is simply because they haven't been educated to the crossbow. I have used my crossbows for, like you said, for over 40 years. The furthest shot I have ever taken at a live animal was 42 yards. The animal was harvested cleanly and effectively.

But I keep all of my shots, here and now from where I hunt and how I hunt, I keep them 40 yards or under. You have many accomplished compound shooters that shoot much, much further than that with the technology that has come a long way with the compound bow. But the reason why, like I said, the main reason why is people just don't like crossbow in their so-called archery season. It's because they're just uneducated about the crossbows.

Bruce: What are five things they really need to be educated about? And not just the hunters, but our Fish and Game Departments in various states.

Barry: The five things that I think would really bring up the crossbow is, here in Arkansas it gives an additive. You don't have to have a disability to hunt with a crossbow. It gives the additive for the entire family from the guns...now you do have to be six years old in order to harvest a deer here in Arkansas, but you don't have to be six years old to go out and go sit with a parent or with grandparent. But in order to actually hunt and catch you have to be age of six. And what that crossbow does, it allows the entire family,

Bruce: Okay. I'm going to count it down. Five, four, three, two, one. Hello everybody out there in the Whitetail Rendezvous community. This is Bruce Hutcheon your host. And this morning we have a very special lady joining us, Aimee Burnett. And if you go to her website of Cosmopolitan Huntress and read you'll find a lot of information about her. You go to her Facebook account, you'll find the same thing. This lady is a lady who takes on the challenge in the outdoors, and more than that she shares her passion. Aimee welcome to the show.

Aimee: Thanks for having me Bruce.

Bruce: Okay. Let's right jump into it. Cosmopolitan Huntress. Let's talk about that.

Aimee: Okay. What do you want to know?

Bruce: Okay. Tell me about that... Where was the genesis of Cosmopolitan Huntress?

Aimee: I was creating a blog that I really wanted to be for women. But I wanted it to appeal to the women out there that are growing but they like to hunt. They don't mind getting dirty but they also like to put on a cute dress and go out with their husbands now and again, because I come from a world where, or I came from a world living in Los Angeles for six years, where the women didn't get dirty, and they had this very obscure view of women in the outdoors. They were either very masculine or, I don't know how to explain this. They just viewed outdoor women as being nasty women, horrorish [SP], and almost tough talking. And I found in my years in the outdoors that that is just very much the opposite. I know a lot of women, they like to dress up and look cute, but they also when it's time to go out and hunt, provide for their families, they are ready to put on their camo and head out the door fearless and excited about the adventure. So Cosmopolitan came from that magazine Cosmopolitan Huntress. I thought they were almost an oxymoron to some people.

Bruce: Let's bring it back. Let's talk about the hunting tradition. Where did your hunting tradition come from?

Aimee: My hunting tradition originated as a young child. My father hunts. He was in the navy, so we traveled a lot and he didn't get to do a lot of hunting as I was growing up. He mostly hunted with my brothers when I was very young. But my grandfather hunted, and I spent a lot of time with him during high school hunting Mule deer in South-central Oregon. And it's some of the best moments of my life were spent with him on the hunt. And that really was part of my interest in hunting, and the realization of feeding your family and what it means. And the respect that I have for these animals that give their lives to feed my family. That all started with my grandfather. And as I got older and I went through college, the hunting, I dint have an opportunity to do it. I was very involved in other aspects of my life. And then I met my husband, and he was an avid hunter. And we started going out bird hunting mostly and then gaming. And bought me my first shot gun. And it really started there, and then it just kind of developed into the deer hunting. And about four years ago, he bought me a bow. I mean that's when it became real to me because to me there's nothing like bow hunting.

Bruce: What type of bow do you shoot?

Aimee: Hoyt Target Vicxen.

Bruce: Arrows? What type of arrows?

Aimee: I don't know what type of arrows. I didn't even do an [inaudible 00:04:46]. They just gave them to me at the archery shop. I trust that guy Caleb down at Advantage Archery here in Twin Falls. He knows what he's talking about. But I do shoot the DRT Dirt Nap gear, Dead Right There broadheads.

Bruce: Okay.

Aimee: And those are amazing broadheads. They shoot just like your field tips. There is no adjustment that I had to make when I put those on.

Bruce: Are they fixed blade?

Aimee: Pardon me?

Bruce: Are they fixed blade or mechanical? Do they open up when you hit a deer?

Aimee: No those are illegal here in Idaho.

Bruce: Okay.

Aimee: We can't have those. So...

Bruce: Here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Joining our community is Jeremy Eudy from Camoed Obsessions. Jeremy say hello.

Jeremy: Hey guys how are you doing?

Bruce: Jeremy tell us just a little bit about your company and the things that you do. We are going to give you full time at the end of the show to let people know how they get a hold of you and where to find you on the web. Just share a little bit about you and your company right now.

Jeremy: Camoed Obsessions Outdoors is basically a [inaudible 00:47]. We want to bring the outdoors to the viewer in a way that the viewer [inaudible 00:53]. We don't like the stereotypical hunting show. We are basically a show that portrays you and your buddies at home. We are a first person type show. We like that idea. And also we have a patent pending product that we like to push that we are very proud of and we want to offer it to your whole community. We thought at the end of the day you would like to give us a better chance.

Bruce: Lets start right off Jeremy. Talk to us, how did you get started hunting whitetails and how did you get started in your business?

Jeremy: I started hunting whitetails when I was around the age of 14. I grew up farming and never really had time to hunt. I had lots of buddies that hunted. I always wanted the thrill of trying to catch something that I didn't have any control over. I started in the hunting in North Carolina around the age of 15 like I said. I got into it.

I didn't know anything about it. I had nobody to show me, nobody to teach me. My father he had to work, he didn't have time for deer hunting. So I just took it in stride and started going and learned as I went. Before you know it, it was something that kind of took me over and said, hey I want to kill the biggest deer. I don't really care about killing every deer. I want to kill the biggest deer. How do I find the biggest deer?

I just kind of took it from there and fell into love with it. And then it became an infatuation of "Hey, I want to do it and I want to show it to other people. So let me find a video camera." I always caught myself coming back to my buddies going, "Hey man I seen this today or I watched this today." And I thought how great it would be to tape those experiences and bring them back to show other people that have never had that experience or may never get the opportunity. That is how we kind of got into the show and that is a lot of the others. A couple of buddies get together and say, "Hey, this is pretty neat, let's try this."

So then we get together and we take it another step forward from that and say, "Let's start airing it. Let's start showing it to other people." We do something a little bit different. And that is what we want people to see. We don't want people to sit there and watch a show and say, I really like that show. We want people to sit back and say, "I've gotta go hunt for this show."

Bruce: What type of gear, did you start off archery hunting with? And how did that evolved into today.

Jeremy: In North Carolina when I was 15 you could only own a shotgun. I like hunting with archery equipment as well. I started off with a Remington X70 Fault with buckshot. You couldn't use a solid bullet, it had to be buck shot. So I started out with that. After a couple of years it evolved into the archery side of it. I felt like I wanted to go into the deer habitat where he lives every day and get close enough to be able [inaudible 00:4:47]. That was pretty much how I got into it. I started off with a pair of bows. Back then I shot 250 feet a second, which I thought was the greatest thing I've ever had.

Bruce: Just taking a note. I just looked at your site and you have some neat products. Let's talk about camo. One of the products you do have is the Natural Camo paint I believe, is that correct?

Jeremy: That is one of our sponsors. Yes sir.

Bruce Hutcheon: Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Today we're very fortunate to have Bruce Kowalski, Vice President of Elusion Camos and owner and partner in the Descendants Outdoors. Bruce is a veteran. He served in, I believe the United States Army, is that correct, Bruce?

Bruce Kowalski: It is.

Bruce Hutcheon: And he comes to us from the East Coast. So, Bruce, welcome to the show.

Bruce Kowalski: Thank you very much, glad to be here.

Bruce Hutcheon: Well in the warm up we were sharing about the genesis of your involvement in the outdoor industry. Let's just start right there. Tell us where you were and who you were talking to and what happened after that.

Bruce Kowalski: Well, basically it's like I told you before. My military affiliation and my partner, Fred Butler, we met together in the military. We both have big, huge families that share the outdoor enthusiasm. We were both raised hunting and fishing and all of that stuff with our families. We served together in Afghanistan. It was Fred's first tour, my second, and through that we became very, very good friends. Basically brothers, you know? Fred's like my family. And we both told each other that if we made it through everything we were going through over there, that we were gonna come home and we were gonna do something in the outdoor industry and we did. We came home and started finding a way to get involved in the industry and stuff like that. Always said we wanted to be on TV or we wanted to do something in the outdoor world and it eventually evolved into us taking part in a TV show that was based on military veterans and stuff like that.

And we were the New York team together on that TV show and then from there we built our affiliation with Elusion Camo and Fred eventually bought the company out and took over. And we started Descendants Outdoors which was our way of complementing the television show and showing off everything about Elusion Camo. We're here to take over the industry, I guess you could say. We're here to break all the rules everybody has about regular camo and teach them about our camo and teach them that there is not just two big dogs on the block. There's a bunch of up and comers and we're hungry.

So I guess that's the way you can easily put it with our affiliation. We raised our families in the outdoor world. Descendants Outdoors it's all based on us being descendants of people who hunted and us raising our kids in the same affiliation. All of our kids hunt, they all fish, and it's a big family thing for us. Without our family nothing's possible. I truly believe that if it wasn't for my family backing me and Fred's family backing him, man, we would get nowhere. Our families are very, very tight together and it works out well, man. We complement each other in business, we complement each other in friendship, and we complement each other in family. It just works out great that way.

Bruce Hutcheon: Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about where you were indoctrinated to the hunting tradition.

Bruce Kowalski: My father. I remember as a kid chasing my father and my brother all around. If they weren't deer hunting they were trapping. If they weren't trapping we were fishing. My parents split up when I was very, very young and when I was with my father that's all I did. Now just because my parents split up, my mother supported everything I did when I was with her. If there was anything new in the outdoor industry or something like that that came out that I wanted to get my hands on and stuff like that I guess mom always took care of me and made sure I had what I wanted, what I needed to chase after my passions. She always beat it in my head that I needed my education and everything like that but she was never afraid to just let me go run and we always camped with our parents and everything like that.

But my dad took us out. My dad's a former military guy,

Host: Welcome everybody out there in the world of Whitetail Rendezvous. Welcoming to our community today is Chris Grassi, and found and owner of Low Country Bow Hunters. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris: Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Host: Well, let's talk about Chris. You're founder of a bow hunting group, Low Country Bow Hunters, and then a pro staffer. Chris, for the guys and gals out there that one to become a pro staffer, let's just jump right into that.

Chris: For me, it was the networking thing. Facebook and social media are such great tools for building a profile and getting people to notice you. I started Low Country one day out of my house and it started from a desire to find the best and most useful gear without spending a fortune on whitetail hunting. If you've hunted whitetails at all, you know that it becomes an addiction and it's just this thing that grabs a hold of you. You can drop a ton of money on it. And I found that a lot of things weren't working so with Low Country, we do gear reviews and stuff like that.

Host: What are the responsibilities for a pro staffer of a mainline whitetail company?

Chris: It depends on your definition of pro staffer. I generally like to use the term field staff for what I do.

There are a lot of different terms for pro staff and it kind of has a weighted thing, but it's a really good, really good platform to get yourself into the industry if that's what you're looking for. Starting as a pro staff for anybody, just promote their page and promote the product and you can work your way up from there.

Host: You just shared a couple of recommendations of how to get started. Can you share a little bit more about a guy's gal out there says hey, I really want to be part of this industry and maybe the best way to get into it is either field or pro staffer. What are the three or four or five steps that you would recommend somebody take?

Chris: For me, like I said, it was networking. If you're on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, friend guys like me. There are a lot of guys out there who are like me and want to get other people in the industry, want to share what we love and what we do so much. For me, I got a guy Ken Fisher, who I believe you spoke to or are going to speak to, my good buddy. I went and hunted with him through Pro Staff and at the end of that trip,

Like I said, friend guys like me. You never know. I just posted a message on Facebook saying Pro Staff is looking for pro staff. So guys like me who are not necessarily, we're not famous, we're just doing it because we love it, you know, friend us on Facebook. Talk to us. Network. Talk to as many hunters as you possibly can on social media. If you ask enough, you never know.

Host: Thanks for that. Let's talk about your love for whitetails.

Chris: There's nothing like it.

Host: You got all the time you need.

Chris: There's nothing like it. I started hunting for maybe different reasons than everybody else did. For me, it was about the journey of being outdoors. I've been an outdoorsy kid my whole life. I worked in the outdoor industry, so to speak. I just caught my first gator today solo for my job and had to relocate him and that was an amazing experience. So I've always loved being outdoors.

But nine years ago, I picked up a bow and started shooting just for recreation and three years ago, I decided to just go out with a buddy and try hunting. It's something I wanted to do my whole life but I don't have anyone in my family who hunts, so there was no one to teach me. And I just kind of picked it up. And from the first time I saw a deer walk out, there was just something about it.

It was magical being out there sitting in a tree stand 20 feet in the year. Nature opens up to you in a way that you don't get anywhere else, doing anything else. When you're motionless in full camo, nothing pays attention to you, the world becomes a completely different place. And it's an amazing,

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Bruce: Four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous and today we have Hank Forester from QDMA and he runs the Rack Pack. Hank, welcome to the show.

Hank: Thanks for having me, Bruce.

Bruce: Let's just jump right into it, help the listeners understand what the Rack Pack represents at QDMA.

Hank: Sure, sure. So, the Rack Pack is our youth program at QDMA. I'm a QDMA employee, I oversee all youth education outreach and the Rack Pack is just our fun name for our youth organization.

Bruce: How large is that organization?

Hank: The Rack Pack has been around for a few years and we're growing. We're about 1500 youths as annual members right now and growing pretty quickly.

Bruce: And how many branches do you have throughout the country, Hank?

Hank: We have a little over 150 branches, that's how we term them, just like a chapter. But we have about 153 throughout the country, mainly consisting in the 34 states where you find whitetail deer.

Bruce: Now are those branches set up like other conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited, they have a chairman and they put on events to raise funds and then they have programs to bring kids into the outdoors? Is that similar?

Hank: Absolutely. I think the model runs through all the conservation organizations but yes we try to get them to do fundraising, events, educational events and youth events each year.

Bruce: I know I will give you the open mic at the end but I think this is really important so I'm just going to ask you. If somebody's interested in contacting either QDMA, home office or a local director, how best would they do that?

Hank: You can always go to QDMA.com, we have a branch directory on there and then it'll list out all our regional directors throughout the country. You can always go to ratpack.qdma.com if you have youth questions or email directly at [email protected].

Bruce: I'm making a note of it, thank you so much for that. Let's talk about whitetail hunting for a little bit, Hank. I know that you hunt whitetails, tell us about how you starting hunting whitetails.

Hank: All right, well, I guess I'm part of an ever expanding group, but my parents weren't big deer hunters. They weren't hunters in general, but I was fortunate enough to have some very kind neighbors that lived up the street, who had a son about my age, and they pretty much told my parents that any time I wanted to go deer hunting I was welcome to join them. It started with deer and it's evolved into an addiction to all things hunting. That's probably why I do what I do, but I was fortunate enough to have a mentor growing up that was outside of my family, which is probably the minority in the hunting. It seems to be a passed on family member to family member background. So mine was a little different and that's what I do for a living, I guess. I try to entice other hunters to take somebody new afield each year.

Bruce: Do you want to give a shout out to those neighbors?

Hank: Oh, well, sadly the adult John Yao, he passed away a few years ago but his son Seth is still one of my best hunting partners and best friends.

Bruce: Thank you for that. Can you share a couple of tips that they shared with you so could grow up a smart or knowledgeable whitetail hunter?

Hank: You know, I think it really comes down to the inclusion aspect that they showed in my direction. Deer hunters, I think we could be more guilty than most hunters of often being a little antisocial. We don't like to share information, we don't want to share all our best spots, we're always worried about that neighbor across the property line. And that's something they obviously didn't show towards other hunters, they included me in their fold and I think it's very important that all hunters begin to recognize more and more that if we want to continue our sport, we have to reach across those barriers and invite new hunters and that's exactly what they did.

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another edition of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and I can just tell you folks I'm sitting on the Green Bay and the wind's coming out of the north and we've got waves breaking on the breakwater, but that's not going to stop me from heading out west to Oregon. I'm just pleased, so pleased and happy to have Scott Haugen on the show today. Scott, say hello to the folks.

Scott: Hello, everyone. Thank you for inviting me, and I can just feel that I'm right there with you in Colorado Springs.

Bruce: Now Scott's been an outdoor writer and still is. He's written over 20 books. He was a teacher up in Alaska at one time in the past, global hunter, and TV host. Scott, let's just talk about your time. Just take a couple of minutes with Inuits up in Alaska. Just share with us some of those rich stories that you brought back from there.

Scott: Oh, wow, it was just an amazing place. I grew up in Oregon. My wife grew up in Oregon. We knew each other from first grade on. I went to the University of Oregon and got my degree. She went to Oregon State. We didn't see each other for about four or five years. We both graduated with teaching degrees. I saw her after we graduated, she said, "What are you going to do with your teaching degree?" I said, "I want to head north to Alaska and hang with the Inupiat Eskimos and just see how they hunt and fish." I grew up in a hunting and fishing family. I did a lot of trapping and she said, "Well, gosh you'd be crazy not to do it right now while you're young right out of college because you'll never find a woman to go up there with you." Four months later we were engaged and nine months later we were married and living up in Alaska. So it was a good start. That was 25 years ago this July here, July 21.

So it's been fun and it really hasn't slowed down since. It was just an amazing place to be a part of. I ran a trap line down here growing up. I started that in the fourth grade, trapping fox and bobcat and coyote and beaver and raccoons and to go up there and trap wolf and wolverine and lynx in 40, 50, 60 below 0 temperatures and just even keep traps operational and learn where to trap when you're up there in the tundra. It's like the moon basically. You're 200 miles from any trees, 24 hours of total darkness, and checking traps in those situations during the winter months. Then the hunting, I learned so much from the Inupiat people from the hunting, the bird hunting and caribou and moose and we lived in two different villages. One was Point Lay on the Northwest Arctic Coast, a village of less than 100 people and I was the high school teacher, taught ninth through 12th grade, every subject there. And then we moved to a place called Anaktuvuk Pass, which is the heart of the Brooks Range on the North Slope of Alaska and that was wildlife haven there. We would watch Dall sheep, and Grizzly bear and moose literally from our living room window and they were the last people, the last indigenous people to settle down in all of North America - the U.S. and Canada.

They didn't become established until 60s there and that was when a lot of the people saw their first white man, and they were just an amazing culture. It's what a lot of us dreamed of being born into a culture like that where your life revolves around hunting and fishing and the outdoors. It was a little more extreme though than what a lot of people might think. Up there if the animals don't show up you could die. The 60 below temperature weather and bad storms kick up. You don't have a heated house to go in, so there was a lot of hardship, a lot of trails, a lot of tribulations through the stories that I heard from those people, but the neat thing about it end is it all revolves around family. They lived and died together. They worked hard together. They experienced loss together and that's what the outdoors is all about and that's what we try to advocate and what we...

Bruce: 4,3,2,1. Welcome to another episode of White Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. And today, we're gonna head east and we're gonna talk to Robert Murrow [SP], Relentless Addiction Outdoors. Robert, welcome to the show.

Robert: Thank you, Bruce. Thanks for having me.

Bruce: For our listeners, let's tell them about Relentless Addiction Outdoors.

Robert: Well, Relentless Addiction Outdoors is a wonderful show put on by Rob Augustyn. Got a various group of hunters from different parts of the country. We all have our different aspects and the way we like to hunt whether it be rifle, bow, muzzleloader, hand gun, or so be it. Just a group of people that love the outdoors, love their family and their faith.

Bruce: What are you doing as a pro staffer for Relentless Outdoors? And that's a first part question. Second part, we get a lot of listeners that would like to become a pro-staffer or align themselves with outdoor immediate company. So let's talk about that.

Robert: Well, what I'm doing with Relentless Addiction Outdoors as being a pro-staffer is I'll be filming all my hunts or any outdoor activities, whether it be archery tournaments for the National Archery of Schools program or just out target shooting. Anything that's gonna show or spot light how our passion is for the outdoors. And for the second part, how do you become a pro-staffer, a lot of it it just I think hard work and determination and staying in touch with, for one thing, social media. That's how I got involved with mine. Rob put a post on Facebook asking for people to volunteer for the pro-staff position. So I threw my name in there. And he asked for a bio so I gave him my history on how long I been hunting and how many animals I've harvested and went from there. I'd say, if it your goal to become a pro-staffer, just like every single hunting show out there and become friends with those people, talk to those people, share pictures, share experiences and stories and never give up. Just keep trying. Some day soon somebody'll pick you up and you'll be part of the program.

Bruce: Now what social network did you meet Rob on?

Robert: I met Rob on Facebook. That's really the only one that I use. I'm not a super techy person with a bunch of electronic gadgets and stuff like that. So I keep it simple. But Facebook is my main media there.

Bruce: If somebody wanted to reach out to Relentless Addiction Outdoors, how would they do that?

Robert: Well, we have a Facebook page that they can definitely like and send comments in. We have a couple of different members that are actually parts of the team that can answer the messages and what not. I guess be called the editors or whatever. But, yeah, they can send us a message, and somebody'll get back with them if they have a question or they wanna donate something to the team or something like that.

Bruce: Hey, thanks for the overview. Let's just jump right into your whitetail story.

Robert: Okay.

Bruce: What's the best hunting tip you ever got?

Robert: Wow. I always stay down wind. That's, of course, definitely crucial with the nose that a whitetail deer has. Play the wind is always gonna be one of your biggest factors. I'm very, very big into scent control. Some people say I get a little extreme about it but I use the body soap, I use the deodorant, the laundry detergent, the dryer sheets. I have usually three different scent control layers that I wear during most of my [inaudible 00:03:53] and I think it is crucial to help better your success is not being able to be smelled. That'll definitely help your success in a lot of ways.

Bruce: Thanks for that. What's so impelling about the whitetail deer?

Becky Dipasquale How I became an (IBO) International Bow Hunting Champion

It actually started about a year and a half ago when I met my husband, he shot 3D and he got me into compound bow competitions and we started shooting almost, I'd say every weekend for the past year and a half and then I shot a couple of small competitions and then he took me to last year was Maryland State and I ended up finishing second my first year. And then we competed through June and July and August and then in September, West Virginia states come up and actually shot my best that I had shot in a very long time and ended up winning the West Virginia State Championship for the hunter class, female hunter class. Then we practiced it all winter long and then two weeks ago, I went down to Maryland State and competed down there. And I found out the other day that I had actually won my class for that and became the 2015 Maryland SHC State Champion.

Bruce: Okay, you've been hunting how many years?

Becky: I've actually been hunting since I was little. My dad raised beagles and I helped him train them as rabbit dogs and we lived on a farm so he would take me and my brother out and we'd go hunting out there. Then we started with just squirrels and then a few times I've gone out for whitetail but we didn't see anything. And then I ended up getting married and my husband wasn't into hunting so I ended up going away from that for, oh, I'd say about 15 years and then we ended up splitting up and I decided I wanted to get back into hunting again. So I went up to my dad and he took me back out and I think it was the second time I went back out, I got my first doe and ever since then, I hunt as much as I can. Usually try to get out every weekend and of course, I save my vacation days for, I actually like archery so I do archery shooting more than I do rifle so I usually take my vacation for opening week in archery.

Bruce: And how long have you been shooting a compound bow?

For a year and a half. I hunted with a crossbow, I never took up the compound side of it until I met my husband, Michael

Becky: For a year and a half. I hunted with a crossbow, I never took up the compound side of it until I met my husband, Michael, and he shot compound and I was like, "Boy, that's interesting." So went out and got a compound bow for me and we started shooting every night and ever since then, that is the one thing that I love. I don't think I'd ever go back to a crossbow. If I can't shoot a compound, I don't think I'd be happy.

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