Bruce: Welcome to another episode of "Whitetail Rendezvous." This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. Today, I'm very pleased to have an author, the host of "Spring Chronicles" on Sportsman Channel and the producer of "Mossberg's Rugged American Hunter," Jason Cruise. Jason, say "Hi" to our listeners.

Jason: Hello, Bruce. Great to be with you guys, today.

Bruce: Jason, let's just jump right into the show. How did you get into the outdoor industry?

Jason: Yeah, I guess the short answer to that was I did get started as a writer. I was first published, actually, in high school. I'm 42 now. But I started writing way early and that just kind of grew and then when I got into college and graduate work, I skipped (?) writing and would write some articles usually that had somewhat of a faith-based element to it for regional magazines and that led to books and publishers and that led to other projects like the Sportsman's Bible, I did that. But eventually if you're in this industry long enough, you've got to do some level of video production.

So all of it is kind of built on itself. But ultimately, the entry was writing.

Bruce: Did you write short stories? Did you write how many articles? Were you a guest columnist?

Jason: The answer would be "Yes" to all of that. A lot of it was columns. A lot of it were strategies and how to's and things of that genre. But more than anything, I would just write . . . I guess it started off writing more of an insights and sometimes stories. But eventually, it became more . . . no novels, never gone down that path. I don't have that much drama in my head to do stuff like that, you know? I'm much more practical and so yeah. It was certainly a niche. All of my stuff is connected to a spiritual pursuit of what God has given us as a hunter and there's a lot of guys out there that really appreciated that and so he just kind of built a tribe of his own, really.

Bruce: Let's talk about the listeners that are sitting out there that really want to develop content for the outdoor industry. What three or four things--no more than five things--would you say that they should do?

Jason: I get that question a lot, actually. Probably the number one question I get on Twitter. I do a lot of social media work and a lot of people will reach out to me behind the scenes or e-mail me and ask the question "How do I get into the outdoor industry?" "How do I [inaudible 00:03:25]?"

The first thing I would say is you . . . and I really don't want to sound condescending and I'm just speaking from the heart and practical. Most people have a very skewed perception of the outdoor industry. The way I describe the outdoor industry to most people is it is a very large industry, but it is made up of incredibly small businesses. So the reason I front that and kind of front-load the question with that is because so many guys get into this world thinking "Oh, I'm going to get sponsors." "I'm going to have a big TV show . . ." and they are incredibly brokenhearted within a year or two.

So my first response would say "You need to be willing to work for free for a while." Let me tell you, Bruce and being around, you've probably seen this, too. There just aren't that many people that make a full-time living in the outdoor industry. Now, if they work for a company, they do; if they work for a Mossberg or if they're a rep. That's different, that's a sales job, of course. But if you look at the guys in television, there's just very few guys that can make enough money to be full-time. It's very cutthroat.

So to build your content, you've got to be willing to work for free. Number two, I would say you need to develop your own following first, develop a tribe, a group that you understand. Within that, I would say you need to really focus on a niche.

Bruce: Hello, everybody out in Whitetail Rendezvous community. This is another episode, and today I'm really excited to have a really sharp young man with us, Cam Pauli. He's in media, you can you find him on Twitter and Facebook. Cam, welcome to the show.

Cam: Thanks, Bruce. Glad to be here.

Bruce: Hey, why don't you just share with us a little about what you're doing today and your joy for hunting whitetails.

Cam: Sure, yeah, I guess a little back story, how I got involved in the hunting industry. Started hunting when I was about 14, and basically, have been duck hunting my whole life. Started out working for Sportsman's Channel. I was in college and got a full-time gig with them. Once I graduated, worked for Sportsman's Channel for about a year. Also did Delta Waterfowl for a little while and currently work full-time at US Sportsman's Alliance.

A few of my coworkers at US Sportsman's Alliance are big whitetail hunters. The bug was starting to itch again a little bit, to get out and try bowhunting. This past fall, picked up a bow again. I had a bow for a couple of years and just never really got around to really pursing whitetails. Last year, I gave it a go, dedicated a lot more time to whitetail hunting, and I actually managed a harvest my first year, my first year ever, with a bow. It was a great experience and looking forward to getting back out there this season.

Bruce: Now wait a minute, your first year, and you got a deer? Was it a buck or a doe, or?

Cam: It was a six-point buck.

Bruce: Six-point buck, first time. Now how many days of hunting did i take you to close the deal?

Cam: I probably had about 15 days of hunting in, 15 to 20 days. It's been a steep learning curve, learning how to hunt whitetails. They're very smart critters. This is my, actually my third year bowhunting, but the two prior seasons I really hadn't put enough effort into it. Just didn't dedicate the time or the resources to actually learning how to bowhunt, learning about whitetails. I didn't care about wind, stand placement, any of that, just kind of went out there, just tried it out. So last year I dedicated a little bit more time. Spent some time talking to different people, learning a few things, and it paid off.

Bruce: Let's talk about some of the things you learned, or that people shared with you.

Cam: I'd say the biggest thing that I learned is I have a guy that actually taught me how to track. His biggest piece of advice was just be out there. Tree stand time is key. Just be in the stand. On top of that, just learn more about whitetails. He's been hunting whitetails for like 40 years, probably. He says he learned something new every year. That's the biggest takeaway for me, was just to keep learning, keep asking questions, keep trying to learn more about whitetails, stand placement, everything. There's lots that goes into whitetail hunting. There's a lot of different aspects of whitetail hunting, especially if you are a bowhunter. Wind is key. Just practicing with my bow, at least for a few minutes every day. There's a lot that goes into preparing for a whitetail hunt year-round. My biggest lesson out of the whole two-year fiasco prior to the season where I actually put enough time was just, I wasn't dedicating enough time to honing my skills. Like I said, there's a variety of skills that go in a quality whitetail hunt. I just didn't dedicate enough time to learning enough.

Bruce: Let's talk about, just take five skills that you really had to get to know. I'm not going to say master, because I don't think any of us master anything about whitetails, we just keep on learning. So let's talk about five skills that you honed that enabled you to close the deal this year, or last year.

Cam: I think patience was the first one. Not only in the tree stand, but just patience with my own development as a whitetail hunter. I would get discouraged too easily. I actually had missed two deer the year before,

Well, first, I got to tell you, I'm worried. I'm really worried. I'm worried about the future of our great tradition of hunting. And it goes beyond our ability to have things like guns and all of that because I really believe that while that is a very important fight, and we're fighting it well, I believe that long before we lose the ability to keep and bear arms we may lose, if not the ability to hunt, the societal desire to continue hunting.

Bruce: One. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. And I am so excited to head down to South Texas and have Nena Murphy Hale, on the show with us today. Nena is involved, in South Texas, with conservation groups such as DU and the Coastal Conservation Group. She sponsors local fishing tournaments through her company, Pink Marlin, and most importantly, grew up hunting and fishing in South Texas. Nena, welcome to the show.

Nena: Hey y'all, I'm happy to be here.

Bruce: Hey. As we were just talking in the warm-up, share with the listeners, basically, your personal philosophy of conservation, regarding hunting and fishing and bringing youth and other women into the outdoors.

Nena: I think conversation plays a great part in hunting, because it helps educate people who weren't aware. We have, us hunters, people

know about hunting. It's like this big, bad hunters. They don't realize that conservation plays a great part in what we do, in that hunting

and that goes towards conservation. It's just education, it lets people know misconceptions and directs them in the right view of what we really do as people that hunt. So I think anyone who does hunt, I think they should get involved with local conservation groups, because without the conservation, we wouldn't have hunting. They help educate where laws will be changed and to where people understand that it's not just people running out there shooting animals. It's a lifestyle. It feeds people, and it's a way of life for lots of people.

Bruce: Thank you for that. Let's jump right into the hunting tradition. You've lived in South Texas your whole life. Tell the listeners who was most instrumental in getting you hunting and fishing?

Nena: Well I grew up in South Texas on a little island. So it was a fishing community. So you're born into it, whether you like it or not, you're going to end up fishing or be around it. So that's where the fishing plays a part. I was just born on the island.

And as far as hunting, this is something that I grew up doing with my dad. We hog hunt a lot, and we would deer hunt for food. And I was always around it, and my mom would help. My dad would harvest animals and then he got to the point where I felt comfortable enough where I wanted to do it. And then we take the deer and hogs home, and my mom would help us go through it, and then we cook it. And it was this long process of just something we did with the family, and the food was better than going and buying food from the supermarket too, because you were eating organic. You were eating food that's not been genetically altered or what have you. So it was something I just grew up doing with my dad.

And then I met a man that was okay with a woman who liked to hunt and fish. And my husband introduced me to bow hunting and waterfowl hunting. And it just gone from there.

Bruce: So, share with the listeners why you personally hunt?

Nena: I enjoy the challenge. I enjoy being in nature. I enjoy being able to ... every aspect of it, from the prepping, setting up trail cams to feeders or food plots, buying the gear, trying to figure out where the animals are coming from. It's just the whole process of hunting is absolutely exciting and rewarding to me. Harvesting my animal, bringing it home, the whole process is something that is challenging and probably one of the most rewarding things you can do.

Bruce: What would you say to our lady listeners, the gals out there that are hunting now or would like to get into hunting? What are some of the things that you would say," Hey, make sure you do this, this and this."

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We're traveling to Iowa today, and we're chatting with Matt Erlandson. He's an educator, he hosts Educators Outdoors. And when he's not teaching kids in school, he's out hunting with his wife and his kids. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt: Thank you, Bruce. Thanks for having me on here, it's great to be here.

Bruce: Hey, let's talk about kids. Let's just start right out there because in the warm-up you were sharing some really neat stories about what you're doing with your science class, so let's just jump right back into that conversation.

Matt: Yeah. I'm a big nerd. I love science, and I love the outdoors, especially in...so I love to see kids get involved in the outdoors. And even though we live in farmland here in Iowa, you'd think a lot of kids are outdoors, there's a lot of things kids don't experience on their own outside. And there's things that they don't see. So one of the things we're doing in class right now with my students is the past two years, and this is the third year we've done it is we've created some nature trails on our school property because we have a nice little stream that runs through there with some woods. And we've had deer, turkey, gophers, lots of different birds. We've had even beavers there, lots of different animals that these kids just, they don't see very often even though it's all around them.

So we started to create these nature trails where kids were planning how these trails were going to go through the woods and which direction they were going to take. And I had kids creating informational signs, and doing some research on signs, and some of the animals, and the wildlife in that habitat, and creating these signs. They went above and beyond my expectations. They created QR codes that went along with the signs that people could scan them with their smartphones and get more information about it. And I still don't know how to do that after having kids do it for three years now. I still don't even know how to do it myself. But I had kids taking on manager roles where they would call businesses, get donations, they would go in present to the elementary schools, take elementary schools on tours of our nature trails.

So it was really neat to see kids get excited about being outside, excited about sharing with other kids and sharing it with our community. And just taking on...these are eighth-graders, and they're doing things like calling and talking to adults, they're making materials lists, and asking for donations. And these are things that I think stretch kids nowadays. They can't just text them, they have to talk to them face-to-face or on the phone with someone. And kids nowadays they don't get that interaction. And so I like seeing them grow and what kind of ideas they come up with. Some of my most struggling students in class really thrive and excel when we do this project and we work outside. And that's neat to see.

Because not every kid is a paper, pencil, sit in a classroom type kid. I think as educators we've lost that. We've lost that not all these kids are going to go to college, not all of them are just going to want to read a book or write something in that aspect of learning. And there's other ways to learn. So that's where I go with this project at the end of each year. We spent about a month or a month and a half on it. So it's really quite rewarding, I think, for myself to see how the kids grow. [inaudible 00:03:50] they feel a sense of accomplishment of, "I did that. I made that. I hauled 15 wheel barrow loads of wood chips today." And they get excited about that.

Bruce: What you think the biggest barrier is to getting kids outdoors?

Same way with the cameras, it's something that's not normally there, it's out of their element. They're not used to it and I've seen deers slowly shy away from them. The season comes and their testosterone levels change and things like that. You know, it's just like in late September it's like those bucks just flip a switch and they go from daytime deer to nocturnal. You know, they do the same thing on cameras.

Bruce: In four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. I'm truly excited to have some breaking news, some new technology coming on the scene, that I believe whitetail hunters across the country, well, across North America will be excited hear about. On the podcast today, we have Chad Koch, Odashare, which he is the co-founder and Chad, say hello.

Chad: Hello everybody. Thanks for having us, Bruce.

Bruce: Chad, let’s pick up where we just left off. And tell us about the technology that you are bringing to the hunting community. Or how did you say it, the outdoor adventure sports?

Chad: Yeah, yeah.

Bruce: Tell us what's going on.

Chad: Sure, so essentially what we’re doing is we’re creating a social network that's centered more to the outdoor enthusiasts of the world. Some of us think that we've noticed with the other social sites is a lot of it is all politics now. There's even been rumors that Facebook is going to stop allowing people to post pictures of their hunt, the animals that they’ve harvested. So what we are looking to do is we’ve actually created a social network that is centered towards the pictures and videos that people have of anything from bicycling to water sports to hunting, fishing, motorsports, snow sports, you name it, if it's the outdoors and you’re taking pictures and videos, we have a specific place for you to place those and store all of your images and videos, and really share it within different collective group of people that share the same interest as you.

Bruce: Thank you. Now I believe Scott is your partner? How did you guys get together and decide to do this?

Chad: Well, it's kind of a funny story. I'm actually dating Scott's daughter.

Bruce: That’s really [inaudible 00:02:19], I think.

Chad: Yeah, Scott is a very avid outdoorsman, and him and I share a lot of the same interests in that aspect. I've always been a nut for technology, and when we started toying with the idea of creating this social website, I guess, before any of the ideas started generating, right away, I just said I’m in. Where do we start? What can we do? What are some of the areas that we think other people are missing out on? And I think the biggest thing was really that nobody had a good, solid, social network for the outdoor enthusiasts. So that was kind of starting point and that was about a year and a half ago now. And it’s been quite a process, but I really think we have something started here, that can really take off. It can really change the way that people share their pictures and videos, not only with friends but others that share the same interest.

Bruce: Now, help me understand how this is different than like having a GoPro camera and downloading it to the social site yourself?

Chad: Sure.

Bruce: Or Instagram having an HD handheld and you just go, "Wow, that's great," and then you post it yourself. Explain the differences to me as well as our listeners.

Chad: Sure. I don't want to give away too many secrets here, but...

Well, I started out many, many years ago with some of the first. They weren't even cameras. They were trail timers, and you had to put a piece of string across the trail and it tripped. And I started even before that time, with photography. I had trip cameras, my Nikons. I would put those on bear baits or elk trails, or waterholes, and rig them up to where the trip string [inaudible 00:15:29]. And I had a mouse trap with electrical coil. Pull the string, it would set the mouse trap off, which would close the circuit and take a picture. That was many, many, years ago. That was back before there was such a thing as trail camera. And then the first thing that came out was with trail timer. And I started using those. There was a couple of them that you just got one picture, break the string, tell you what time the deer had come.

Interviewer: I’m going to count it down. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Hello everybody out there in Whitetail Rendezvous community. Today we’re going north of the border. Yes, we’re going to eh company or eh land. How do you say that, Ashley? Eh?

Ashley: Which? Sorry.

Interviewer: Ashley Robertson of Blue Sky, Alberta. She’s a Communications Coordinator at the Dunvegan Fish and Game and volunteers in the out of doors with the fish and game. Ashley, welcome to the show.

Ashley: Thank you for having me.

Interviewer: You’re welcome. Now, Ashley, you told me that you had a funny story about how you started hunting. Let’s start up the show with that.

Ashley: All righty. Well, I wasn’t raised in a hunting family. We didn’t hunt. We didn’t eat wild meat. We didn’t have trophies on our walls and so I was very against it. I didn’t want deer heads in my house. I didn’t want to eat the deer meat. I didn’t want nothing to do with it at all. I met Trevor and we’d been together for three or four years and I was adamant. I wasn’t having guns in my house. There were no deer animals going on my walls. He’d grown up hunting but he put up with me. So we didn’t have any of that stuff. Then one time I was at a girlfriend’s. We were at their cabin and they have a beaver problem. So she talked me into going beaver hunting and I shot my first beaver with a .22-magnum and I haven’t looked back.

Interviewer: Wow.

Ashley: And the first, actually the only, right now the only deer head on our wall is mine.

Interviewer: Wow, good for you. You’ve been hunting, like you said, three or four years. What, you know, I know up in Alberta country it gets cold, windy. Let’s talk about your hunting season, when you start hunting and let’s just talk about that.

Ashley: Our whitetail season opens on September 17th and it closes November 30th so we have a really long season. The whitetails don’t really start moving until the end of October, beginning November. But we have lots of time to scout them out and learn their pattern because they do have a pattern as far as I can tell.

Interviewer: Sure. Now are you archery hunting, rifle hunting?

Ashley: I’m rifle hunting. I’m not ready to shoot anything with my recurve yet. I’m not confident enough in my abilities. Interviewer: Now are you practicing with a bow then?

Ashley: Yes, I have a recurve. Don’t ask me what kind because Trevor just gave it to me. I don’t know.

Interviewer: So it’s a traditional stick and string then.

Ashley: Yeah.

Interviewer: Not a compound, not a wheel bow or -

Ashley: No, old school.

Interviewer: Well that’s good. In our warm-up, you were talking about your terrain and the various game and fish laws that are quite different than for us down in the United States. Let’s talk about that for a little bit.

Ashley: Okay, so in Alberta we aren’t allowed to bait deer. We can’t have food plots. We can’t use like the minerals and stuff that they have. We are allowed to use them for pictures but they have to be gone by the time hunting season starts. We only get one buck tag and there are two supplemental doe tags but I don’t like hunting does so I don’t. I don’t know. I guess it’s really, up here in the Peace region, there’s a lot of, a lot of bush cover for the whitetail.

Interviewer: Explain what the bush is to the people down in the United States, down here who haven’t been up in Canada. Because you grow huge deer. I mean, there’s no question about it.

I would try, if I didn't have somebody that I knew of associated with WomensOutdoorNews.com, I would try and get online and find some good local organizations to match her up with. The columnists and the ladies involved with women's outdoor news are from all over the U.S., so there's a good chance we might have somebody in that area and if we don't, well there's lots of avenues we can search for somebody that would be willing to help her.