Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one . . . Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. Today we have Brian and Mariah Hardy, creators of Hardy Camo Facepaint. Brian, say hello to our listeners.

Brian: How y'all doing?

Bruce: Hey, Brian. Let's just jump right into it. What is Hardy Camo Facepaint and how does it help whitetail hunters?

Brian: Basically we just launched it, we're brand new. I've been hunting for 19, 20 years now and just couldn't find a product as far as face paint that would cover, not smear, not make a total mess and talked to my wife about it. Came home one day from a trip and she said, "Let's do this." So we did our research, did our homework, and we developed a face paint that is superior to anything that's out on the market. I can't stand . . . I'm a big bow hunter, and I can't stand wearing face masks, so face paint was the solution and now that we have this, it's an awesome product. If you guys get a chance, definitely check us out and order some.

Bruce: Brian, we're going to have an open mic at the end of the show where you can tell people how to get a hold of it, distributors, if you're in different shops and the websites, URLs, we'll have a chance to do that. But let's jump right back into the 19 years you spent hunting whitetails. Share some of the early lessons you learned and who shared those with you.

Brian: All right. My dad got me involved at a really young age. I would pretty much sit at the base of his tree stand while he was hunting trying not to make as much noise as possible, but when you're a kid it's kind of hard to do. But he pretty much taught me the ins and outs and once I started I got that itch and I couldn't stop. He got me involved with rifle hunting here in Florida, which is where I'm from. South Florida. We started here and when I got into high school I talked him into joining a hunting league with some friends in Georgia, and that's where it all took off. It was so much fun to go up there on the weekends and see all these people and just never stop learning. Other people have been hunting for years and you just try to pick up the things they're doing right, things that they're doing wrong, and you learn yourself along the way how to become successful at it. It's been a long road, but definitely had some good times and had some great moments and some bad moments. And if you hunt long enough, you'll definitely have that, that's for sure.

Bruce: Let's hear a couple of those bad moments that might have turned out okay in the end, but when they were happening it wasn't so good. Can you share a couple of those with us?

Brian: Well, bad I would say always wear a tree harness. For safety, hunters, that should be the first thing you put on before climbing up in a stand. When I was young I didn't really know much about them and was way too tired to be climbing in the stands in the afternoon, decided to do it and within the first five minutes fell right out. Found myself lying on the floor, thank god I didn't get hurt, but since that day safety harness is number one. It's your best investment. Your life is more important, worth more important than not wearing one. I can say that for a fact.

Some good moments I would say if you wait long enough, people ask how you can sit there for six, seven hours in a tree stand, and all it takes is 30 seconds. That deer comes, deer of a lifetime steps out, you make the right shot, that 30 seconds can change your life. You see him on your wall, every time you look at him you remember exactly where you were, what time of day, the exact scenario and that's what it's all about, is having those moments.

Bruce: Let's go back to that tree stand. Was it a ladder stand, climber stand, what kind of, hang on? What kind of stand?

Brian: It was just a ladder stand. Just your basic, simple, back road Gander Mountain, 15 foot ladder stand and it didn't have a rail, nothing on it.

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. And we're heading over to Wisconsin today to talk to Brian Sparks. He's the owner of Nelson Creek Outdoors, and he makes some great scents, and cover scents, and attractant scents and he always, he just told me he caught a five-pound bass this fall. So this guy's got a lot of skills and Brian Sparks, welcome to the show.

Brian: Thank you, Bruce, it's, I'm glad to be on.

Bruce: I know this is a whitetail show, but let's tell the folks about the bass success you've been having, a five-pound bass in Wisconsin that's a pretty nice bass.

Brian: Yeah, I've, using my, our product Gamefish Attractant in liquid and in a stick form. I've been out doing a lot of bass fishing and with the fall, cooler weather they've, I really put on the feedbag as of late. And so I've been taking advantage of that. And a little local lake here and another I don't know 50-acre lake I ended up pulling a 5 pound, 12 ounce, 21 inch largemouth.

Bruce: Hey, good for you. I'd love to see a picture of that on your website. And Brian at the end of the show you're going to be able to give a shout out to any sponsors, any people, friends, anything thing that you want to. So you're going to have a shameless promo at the end of this show, but let's start right off because folks I'll just share with you what happened to me last year.

I hunted a couple of different states and I got Love Potion 7 that was recommended on, I think on Bo's [SP] site and I'm a big attractant type guy. I believe you can, you know, you can sway the odds. Not 100% increase, but you can sway the odds by using scent and especially cover scent and attractant scent if you do it right you got an opportunity to have just a wonderful walker underneath your tree.

So anyway, I did that, I was able to take a buck in Iowa and a buck in Wisconsin. And part of it, the stuff was out there. And Brian's going to talk about that, so why do you think your scents work? Now you've got, if you go to his website at Nelson Creek Outdoors you're going to see, you know, he's got a number of products and let's talk about them. What's your number one selling whitetail product?

Brian: Our number one seller is the Love Potion #7, the natural deer urine estrous scent.

Bruce: And tell us about that.

Brian: Basically, we only sell it during season in fact, what is...today is Tuesday. We just actually started yesterday delivering, mailing out scents. We bring it in a couple of times a week during this time of year. The scent, by the time it gets here is no more than three days old. It needs refrigerated. We bottle it. We ship it. You get a few basically as close to seeming as we possibly can.

That's really important with deer urine products. The number one thing that drives the effectiveness of it is how soon you can get it. No matter what preservative you use that deer won't detect in it, fresh deer urine will go bad. And by the time it's four months old it's time to throw it out.

Bruce: And so how do control, you just said, you know, four months old and you sell it so sunlight can't get in it. I understand that sunlight and air really breaks down the chemical composition of the deer urine. Is that, correct?

Brian: Yes. Any light in there...if you put it in a clear bottle, which a lot of places do, and the UV light gets into that bottle, and it'll break it down even faster. That's why we prefer the solid, white, plastic bottles that sunlight doesn't penetrate. And then of course, we don't, we fill them all the way to the top. There's no air in there. We only fill them up for the season.

In fact, we started with one bottle here, doing one bottling this Monday. We'll do another one this weekend. We're not keeping anything year-to-year. We're not bottling it in February and hoping to sell it now.

We're basically, you know, we have contracted with a deer farm,

Interviewer : Okay I'm gonna count it down, five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to Whitetail Rendezvous. And we're gonna welcome Doug Gestrara... is that right Doug?

Doug : Yup Doug Kostreva

Interviewer : From Hornybuck Seed Companies, up in Wisconsin, Doug's just an amazing guy, and I'm so happy to welcome him to our community today, Doug welcome.

Doug : Thank you so much, I appreciate being on your show and thanks for having me.

Interviewer : Doug, lets talk about your company a little bit. Just give us about a couple of minutes about your seed company, why you started, and then we'll go from there.

Doug : Well it started many, many years ago back in the 80's. I'm a third generation farmer, living on the same farm my grandparents built in 1917, back in the early 80's there was no such thing as a food plot. As a farmer we grew crops and vary rarely did you leave crops for your deer, sometimes they weren't ripe so you left them and then deer got to eat them during the winter, and alfalfa you left in the winter you leave a little bit taller... so the deer would be in it eating.

As things started progressing, we started to find out that we did leave corn because it was too ripe to put in the bin, it wasn't ripe enough to put in the bin, it was a little too wet, we'd leave it in for the winter we'd find out the deer would migrate towards it and we noticed the next year that we would have better deer volume, because deer are very ritualistic, they remember where their food source is from the year before.

So the very first thing I ever planted which was crazy enough to say was carrots, and my dad said I was absolutely insane nuts for doing it because carrot seed was so expensive in the day, which it still is today, and I went and I kind of dug them up a little bit and the deer started coming in and eating them, and I started putting more and more food plots in, I started trying different things. At the time there was no... [inaudible 00:00:2:00] weren't big, this wasn't big, there was no such thing as a radish or a turnip even in those days, you just never grew that for deer.

Then I started planting several different things, and the market started to go, I just only did it for myself, then I ended up having a landscaping company, a startup landscaping company and I was doing that and I started planting for some of my customers who had their weekend warrior cabins, cause I lived 50 miles north of Green Bay, so we are kind of what we call vacation land, so a lot of people have their weekend warriors, they come up and they have their cabins on lakes [inaudible 00:02:38] on their property, and they wanted to have deer in their backyard.

So as I'd put their lawn in for their cabin, they asked if I could plant something so they could watch wild life, and that's really how this all kind of came to plan so to speak, more by accident, but like you said, there's no such thing as an accident and it happened for a reason and the good Lord up above is the one who geared me in this direction, and we started up the seed company just basically by putting things together to make it work for people, to help people to grow deer.

Interviewer: Doug let's switch it up now, and talk about your love for deer hunting. So how you got started on that.

Doug : I think I was very blessed to have a very hunting family, my father took me hunting, way back as long as I can remember. And I know as a kid, I know that there's no kid that can sit still, there's no kid that is that great in a deer stand, but he would always try to figure out a way to make time to take me somehow, some way, and back when I was a young kid many years ago, there was not a lot of deer, there was actually a thing called party tags. And you were only allowed to shoot one doe among five people, and bucks were very small. Anything with three inches, if they had three inch pikes in Wisconsin that was legal game and you shot it,

Bruce: 5,4,3,2,1. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. And guys and gals across Whitetail Rendezvous land, we are in for a treat with Michael Hyle, Business Development for Kill Cliff Incorporated and a former professional baseball player with the Chicago Cubs and Marlin Organizations. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael: Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for having me.

Bruce: Michael, in the warm up, we talked about cutting up with the guys and gals after hunting all day and sitting around camps. So let's just bring up our stools and put our feet up and talk about camp fire stories and why that's so important to you.

Michael: Yeah. It all started with me back when I was playing baseball. The game of baseball, itself, is great, but the brotherhood and the camaraderie and those relationships that you build, throughout your years of playing is what makes you come back every single year. And when I decided to leave the game of baseball that was the hardest part about me leaving was leaving that camaraderie and that brotherhood. One of the biggest things that brought me back into the world of hunting was that ability to reconnect with a lot of those friends and a lot of those baseball friends in the hunting world. Because, as you know, the baseball season ends and deer season begins. So it runs perfectly as a parallel to major league baseball players and that's why so many of them do hunt is because the seasons run up. So I've been able to connect back with a lot of my old teammates and buddies even as I've been out of the game through the hunting season and being able to share that time with them again at the [inaudible 00:02:06].

Bruce: What's a couple of funny camp stories that you would wanna share or can share?

Michael: Oh, I don't know if there's any in particular. The biggest thing I think that always gets brought up around a camp fire is, you wouldn't believe it but this is what happened. Most of the time I think it's in some way shape or form there's a little bit of exaggeration going on there as we can all attest to. But just sitting in the tree and having that alone time and then coming back and hearing what everybody else saw and talking about what were the deer doing, how were they moving, what were they seeing, that's just all about it. And it's never really anything too crazy or over the top. But when you see certain things when you're sitting in a tree stand, you wanna share that with your group of friends and with that brotherhood. And it just makes it cool to be able to have that time where you have dinner, have a cold beer and sit down around the fire and just enjoy each other's company.

Bruce: Where did the hunting tradition start with you?

Micheal: For me, it started in my late teen years. We had a family friend that had some land. It actually started in bird hunting. So I started off doing quail hunting, and that evolved on that same piece of land into hunting whitetails. And I remember . . . Eric is the guys name. I remember talking to Eric and kept telling me, "Oh, we got to get you down here to do a deer hunt." I said, "Well, I'm all on board." And it started with a . . . I was using a 270 rifle and I shot my first doe. And there was no turning back for me. I was like, "Uh oh, this is gonna be a problem because I'm addicted." From that point on, I was hooked. And Eric, good family friend of ours, was the guy that introduced me to that. And it's just been . . . I haven't looked back. And then the second phase of that whitetail hunting life for me, my rebirth into whitetail hunting was about eight or nine years ago. One of my best friend called me and he said, "Hey, we just got a track of land and I want you to come down here and hunt it." He's actually stilled involved in baseball and so he gets back from the season in October time frame. He said, "Well one thing, you can't bring your rifle, this is bow only.

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We are privileged to have Cathy Rupard on the show today. She was introduced about 10 years ago to the hunting community by Mr. Stan Fredericks and in my talks with Doug Linebaugh of Trophy Addiction, he said that, "You've got to get Cathy on Whitetail Rendezvous podcast and hear her story." So Cathy, welcome to the show.

Cathy: Thank you Bruce, I'm very excited and privileged to be on your show today. Thank you for this opportunity.

Bruce: You're welcome. So let's just jump right into it. I understand you really love to hunt turkeys and have hunted whitetail, but really love to hunt turkeys. So why don't we just start off with your affection for wild turkeys?

Cathy: I think a lot of it has to do with age more than it does with species, because I love spring hunting. Anything that gets me outside where you can hear whippoorwills first thing in the morning and watch nature come alive from the secrecy of a blind in the middle of the woods is a phenomenal event and I've been very blessed in the last few years to not only hunt my native state of Missouri, but to be able to go to Kansas. This year we added Illinois to that journey and hopefully next year we'll make it to Florida.

Bruce: Are you going for the Turkey Slam?

Cathy: I am, and I forgot, one of my favorite hunts was in California. Sorry.

Bruce: Oh my goodness. Well, let's talk about, let's go back 10 years and talk about your introduction to hunting by Stan Fredericks. Share that story with us.

Cathy: Absolutely, it was quite an awakening as I get into my senior years and those AARP card moments. Stan was very, very involved with the outdoors and hunting deer mostly is his passion and so I decided if I was going to keep up with him that I need to learn how to do that. So he was very, very, very patient with me. I didn't know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. Calibers still amaze me, but he gave me a little gun and told me to sit in this place and be very quiet and shoot a deer. My first deer was not the trophy animal that most people had looked forward to. It was a small doe and I as my story goes it looked a heck of a lot bigger in that scope. Unfortunately, it was a fawn and not knowing about species and species control and how to grow your herd, I realized I'd made a huge mistake. So the next year we went back again and sure enough my big old buck came out and I was fortunate to take my second deer. The third year I decided it was too cold for me to be outside, so I became the camp cleanup at that point. So I decided I was going to devote my time to spring turkey hunting.

Bruce: So when Stan was helping you get indoctrinated or become a woman in the outdoors, what are some of the lessons that he taught you that you share today?

Cathy: Well, first and foremost safety. It was all about the proper handling of a firearm and how to get in and out of a stand safely. We don't bowhunt, so it was strictly firearm and I find that that's probably one of the biggest aspects that not only are important to new hunters irregardless of gender but also to the next generation. Those young people that are coming up that are 8, 9, and 10. Also how to be more selective on shot placements. Distance, how to judge whether the caliber of rifle that I was using was going to be able to go for the distance of the animal that I had in the scope and to make it an experience that was just rewarding for everyone involved.

Bruce: Cathy, we have men listeners, youth listeners, and woman listeners. What are five things that you would share with any woman that's considering getting to the outdoors and specifically hunting in the outdoors? What would you share with them?

Cathy: Well, just taking from my particular example, age is not a barrier. Physical ability is not a barrier. The lack of knowledge on firearms or bows is not a barrier,

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We're excited to welcome to the community today Jason Keffer co-host of World Went Dark Outdoors. Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason: Thanks for having me, Bruce. I'm glad to be here.

Bruce: Hey, tell us about how you came up with the name of your business and what you're doing out there in the whitetail world.

Jason: Well the name World Went Dark Outdoors was a phrase coined by my by brother, Jeff, after a hunt. In 2007 we were filming and he was filming me in the tree and I got lucky enough to kill a [inaudible 00:00:44] young buck with a bow here in Pennsylvania. About 140 inch, eight pointer which is a dandy anyway you go. And to make a long story short, after all the celebrating was done I went to get the truck to pick the deer up and head home. While I did, a friend of ours that was with us asked my brother, "Hey, you had a front row seat to this and you had no pressure to make the shot happen so you saw that probably clearer than anyone. Why don't you tell me what happened?" And he relayed his story about how I called this deer in and he walked in 20 yards and stood behind a tree for what seemed like forever and then I shot him.

As he was celebrating in the tree with me I told him to be quiet because I wanted to hear the deer fall and we heard it. As he's relaying this story he says, "After I heard that deer fall I knew that's when his world went dark."

So that was in '07. Fast forward to 2009 when him and I decided to do this. He said, "Hey, let's come up with a name." The first thing that I thought of was that phrase, "world went dark" so we decided to call the show "World Went Dark Outdoors" and we're on the Pursuit channel now and excited to be there.

Bruce: What a great story and a beginning of a great journey for you and your brother. Tell me why you like whitetails.

Jason: Why I like whitetails? Well, I mean, you know, we grew up in a hunting family. My uncles and grandparents and parents and everyone in the family hunted. I can remember that from a very young age. I was walking along on small game hunts probably when I was four years old. And it's just something that I knew I wanted to do and wanted to get into.

And of course, here in PA, back then you couldn't until you were 12. So when I was 12 I took the hunter's safety course and my grandfather started taking me whitetail hunting. I don't know if you want to call it a tradition but it's something that's just ingrained. I love trying to outsmart mature whitetail deer. It's always a challenge. You never know everything. I'm learning pretty much on every hunt and it's just something I love to do and I have a passion for it. Especially bow hunting them because it's up close and in your face which is the premise of the show, really.

Bruce: Thanks for sharing that. Over the years you've had different situations where you just couldn't figure out what was going wrong or wasn't coming together. Then all the sudden you're in your truck, you're in a stand, you're walking to a stand, you're out in whitetail land and the answer comes to you. I call them "ah-ha" moments or other people say, "The light bulb went on." Can you share a couple of those with us?

Jason: Yeah, absolutely. You know as a teenager and a young adult, I think here in PA, what my brother and I used to do, and this used to be our, I don't know if you want to call it a trademark, is we'd gain a new property and we'd do some scouting then we'd go in and hang stands and basically we would hang stands willy-nilly so to speak and then we'd just move on them as we had to.

And over the years I figured out that the biggest thing about placing a stand, to me, and for me is terrain features. Whitetails, no matter how subtle the terrain feature is, will use terrain features to move around their home range and really any property that they're on. I don't remember when but one specific property,

Interviewer: Okay. Five, four, three, two, one. Good morning everybody out there in the world of Whitetail Rendezvous. We are very pleased to have R. Zavian Hauser on the line with us this morning. He's a professional writer, power fiction and nonfiction author from New England. He's a professional freelance Whitetail researcher and bow hunter. R. Zavian - say hello to our listeners.

R. Zavian: Hey good morning!

Interviewer: So R. Zavian, why don't you share with us the genesis of the book, The Deer Truth?

R. Zavian: Well, okay. I guess it goes back in my lineage to the times of my grandfather, and my father. I was raised in a whitetail deer hunting circle. They're very prominent whitetail deer hunters up here in New England, along the Green Mountain range. And it's always been a fascination of mine to do it bigger and better, take the training that I was given throughout my childhood and refine it into a more practical and more successful set of skills.

One thing that drove me was everyone always wishes other hunters good luck when they head to the woods. And I guess that for the average Joe out there, the guy that works five, six days a week. A day off here. He takes a day off here or takes a week off for deer season; I suppose "good luck" is a good term to pass them on into the woods with, especially in the Vermont, New Hampshire that type of area, where the deer herds are pretty sparse, contrary to what the states will have you believe about their numbers. But, putting your feet on the ground and being able to walk for miles and miles through the woods and see nothing but deciduous and coniferous trees - you know, with very little sign of any type of game animal being present, could be discouraging.

So, the "good luck" thing never played well with me, it didn't go along with the training that I received, as far as whitetail hunting went. I was taught that luck is for the hunter who just grabs his gear, drives, "Hey, this looks like a good spot," pulls over, walks in the woods in the dark aimlessly and just sits on a rock or stump that he finds that looks comfy. That this guy, if a buck walks along he harvests it. Never been there, never scouted it, didn't even know if there were any deer in there. Now granted, that's not going to happen again next year. There's hunters that do that - they might get lucky once every five years or so. What I rather attribute my success to is the skill set that was passed along to me and the mindset that hunting is based on skill. Your success is based on your skills, and your ability to be disciplined enough to adhere to your skills, and rely on them to see deer yearly, and know what deer are in your area by doing the scouting and all these other necessary elements that combine together to create your hunting set. I guess I would refer to it as a set. Whether you're hunting a hill, or you're hunting a field, that type of setting. And relying on your skills to provide you with your success rather than going to the woods relying on luck. I was trained at an early age to use my skills and be successful based on my skill level.

Interviewer: Who was the main person that helped you get started?

R. Zavian: Well, the main person would definitely have been my grandfather Ekzad [SP], we called him Ekky. He was by far the strongest influence in my deer hunting. My father worked . . . my dad was one of those guys that worked 50, 60 hours a week. And when he got his two weeks off for deer season, as a kid I didn't see him much, because they stayed at camp.

His time in the woods was more along the traditional deer camp thing. He got deer. Getting deer was easy for him because he possessed the skill. But he was never really a trophy hunter, he never went for the trophy bucks - I mean if one happened along, obviously he harvested it but pretty much back then his little clique circle were more interested in hanging around camp, and drinking home brews and that kind of stuff that th...

Bruce: Hello, everybody out there in Whitetail Rendezvous community. I'm really excited today to introduce AJ Gall. He's the Community Content Coordinator at Legendary Whitetails. Welcome to the show, AJ.

AJ: Hey, thanks for having me Bruce. Yeah, well, go ahead.

Bruce: Go ahead.

AJ: Like you said, I work here at Legendary Whitetails. Basically I'm the in-house whitetail addict, so to speak, and I spend pretty much my time learning, teaching, and sharing my experiences with other hunters through our community page of the website. For those of you that have never heard of Legendary Whitetails, we are a family-owned, direct-to-consumer catalog and Internet retailer, selling casual lifestyle apparel and gifts for the whitetail hunters.

Pretty much, as a hunter would sum it up, "We offer awesome clothes for those who want to celebrate the hunt every day of the year." Our whole company is centered on deer hunters and their lifestyle.

Bruce: And specifically, what is your role there as Community Content Coordinator?

AJ: I have a unique job within the company. While everybody else is diving into data reports, or working on products, and shipping out orders, and stuff like that, I'm able to sit at my desk and write an article on how to kill your next buck or something like that. So basically, our company is focused around the hunter, so it's my job to relate to them, to share with them, and to teach them a little bit about the sport and just some of my experiences, so we can keep that context going between the brand.

Bruce: Thanks for that background.

AJ: Sure.

Bruce: Let's just jump right into our content here, our interview. Share with us, AJ, your best hunting tip, that's in story form. So some place along the line, something happened, you get a story about it, and it ended up being one of your best ideas for whitetail hunting. So share that with our audience please.

AJ: Okay. I would say my top hunting tip -- of course there's a long list of them -- if I had to rank the top one, I would say the first one or two times hunting a particular stand is probably your best chance at killing a mature buck. I learned this within the recent years. I would say in the last three to five years is when it really became evident and clear.

It was when I was spending, after college I was able to land an internship down at Midwest Whitetail in Iowa, and pretty much spent the entire season hunting, so, being around a bunch of guys that were able to hunt every day, and setting up stands and all that. Then came November, the rut, and that's when we all hit it hard. But we had stands all over and we were primarily hunting public land. Out of the four people that were successful, including myself, every one of those bucks that were shot was within the first two stints of sitting on that particular stand.

Since then, it's been a pretty evident story, moving forward. The following year I was filming Dr. Woods down in Missouri and we were hunting a seven-year-old buck. It was the first seven-year-old buck and they had never seen it in daylight in years past. They knew where it was through trail cameras and stuff, never were able to lay eyes on it, until I think it was October 24th or something. We snuck into the one stand that we had hung the previous August and it was the first time ever sitting in that stand. Two hours into the hunt, all of a sudden he showed himself, walked five yards under the stand, and that was that story.

And then, it worked for me one time last year, second time in that stand. I had a nice shot at one of my top three bucks. Unfortunately I blew that one, but we'll probably talk about that a little later.

Bruce: Lessons learned, right?

AJ: Yeah!

Bruce: Lessons learned.

AJ: Yeah.

Bruce: Let's dig in a little bit more about that seven-year-old buck, because everybody knows there's a big buck on their property, or they wouldn't be hunting the property. But they never see them.

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. With us today, is Jess Entel. She's out of Wyoming. She's also known, or aka, as Huntress Jess. Jess, say hello to the folks.

Jess: Hello!

Interviewer: Jess, why don't you just start right off and give us your background in hunting.

Jess: Well, I've been hunting for the last 12 years. And it ranges from anywhere to antelope, neo deer, white tail deer, pheasant hunting, and dove hunting. If I can get a tag for it, I'm hunting it.

Interviewer: Where did this all come from? I mean, where did this tradition develop in you?

Jess: Well, my family had a hunting store, and so hunting was always something that...it was my norm. And when I was about three years old, I wanted to learn archery. And so my uncle took the time to show me the basics of archery and then he would take me out fishing. Archery and fishing, it was a huge family thing. Everyone's thing was to go to archery clubs. And my mom was there, my grandparents, my aunt, uncle, cousins. We'd all shoot together. And fishing was the same thing. It was big family get-together s going fishing. And then, my family moved and we all dispersed. And when I was about 12, I went on my first hunting trip. And then I took a break because as a kid growing up, I really didn't have someone to take me hunting at that point. But I still wanted to go hunting, so at that point, when I was 16, I started reading books, researching online, and taught myself at that point.

Interviewer: Just name a couple of either sites you go on on the web, or some of the books you read, or magazines.

Jess: One of the books that I read over time, that has been really influential, is Back country Bowhunting by Cameron Hanes. It really puts a really good perspective on hunting in the back country. Because that's where I live, is in Wyoming, and it's unpredictable terrain all the time. And it was definitely one of the books that was really influential in sculpting my hunting ability. And the web site, social media was a huge part of it, too. Just listening to other people, talking to other people from all over the world really helps in my hunting ability, as well.

Interviewer: Two things. Cameron Hanes is sort of from your country up there, isn't he?

Jess: He's actually from Oregon.

Interviewer: Okay.

Jess: But he's a backcountry bowhunter, and I know he has hunted in Wyoming.

Interviewer: When you said social networking, as I say, let's unpack that a little bit. Let's talk about how you used that, one, to brand yourself, two, gain information, and three, build your own community. Let's talk about those three things, and take a few minutes and let's expand upon that.

Jess: Okay. Well, when I first started social media, of course, I never expected it to end up being the way it is, when I first got on Facebook. Because growing up as a girl and hunting and enjoying hunting, there wasn't a whole lot of my friends that did that. It was just the guys that did that. Then I get on social media, and it was like, "Holy cow, there's lots women out there that actually do enjoy hunting and have a lot of advise." And so just following their pages, and then there were things that I wanted to add. And I would add on their pages and it was like, "Why don't I just start my own page?" and looked into it. Because I do have a lot of experience and I do have some advise. And so that's pretty much where it developed with me wanting to be more involved and starting my own social media page.

Interviewer: And what sites are you on social media?

Jess: I am on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, along with Pinterest, as well.

Interviewer: Let's start with Facebook. How many friends? What kind of audience do you have?

Jess: Well, one, my Facebook page, the audience range is so diverse. I have equal parts male and female, and I have some people on there that don't hunt but find the whole culture of hunting and the pursuit of hunting fascinat...

Bruce: Welcome, everybody to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. I'm very excited to have Lindsay Thomas, Jr., Communication Director for QDMA on the line with us today. Lindsay, say hello to our listeners.

Lindsay: Hello and thank you for having me on the podcast, Bruce.

Bruce: You're welcome. Why don't we start off, Lindsay, by just sharing how you got to QDMA and then we'll continue on asking some questions and delve into just what QDMA is doing in the whitetail world.

Lindsay: Okay. I've been at QDMA for 11 years now. Originally before that, I worked at a different magazine, Georgia Outdoor News. I'm a native Georgian so I worked there. It's was just a hunting and fishing magazine here in our state. And then I came to QDMA 11 years ago. I was a journalism major, I'm an outdoor communicator, love hunting and fishing and love being a communicator, but of all my passions, deer hunting and deer management is really my personal passion. So coming here to QDMA and heading up their communications, managing their magazine and website has just really been a great fit for me personally.

Bruce: Thank you for that. Hey, Lindsay, we probably get a lot of listeners say, “How can I get into the communication end of the whitetail business?” What suggestions would you given them?

Lindsay: There's a lot of opportunities out there today for folks who want to get involved in outdoor communications that were not there a few years back and certainly not when I was getting involved in it 20 years ago. And of course, I'm referring to the internet and social media and podcasts like you're doing. There’s so many tools and techniques now for someone to basically simply become an outdoor communicator any minute they're ready, and doing it on their own time, even if you have a full-time job doing something else, until you can break into communications.

But I would say in general, you need to be always working on the craft of what you do, whether it's writing, whether it's video, whether it is interviews in a podcast format like you do, be practicing what you do, photography. Whatever it is, keep working on it and keep putting yourself out there. Reach out to established folks who are in the communications business, editors of magazines and websites, contact them and float ideas to them for articles, videos, photography, and try to get your foot in the door and just be persistent, and practice what you're working on, and try to improve all the time. Because writing, just like anything else, the more you do of it, the better you get at it.

Bruce: My takeaway from what you just shared is be a student of your craft, build a portfolio of content, and then network throughout the industry.

Lindsay: Yeah, that's a good summary. It sure is.

Bruce: Great. Lindsay, let's talk about your first whitetail experience.

Lindsay: Very first would be hunting with my Dad as a kid. He took me in the woods at a very young age. Before, of course, I wasn’t actually hunting. I was just tagging along with him. And eventually spun that off into being able to hunt on my own. But still, we hunt together as a family. So whitetail hunting has always been a part of, not only me personally, but my family and things we do together as a family. And I share that with my children. So I came up hunting with my dad. He taught me much of what I know, and my brother as well, about deer hunting, and land management as well. I really can't remember my very first experience, but it was tagging along with my Dad, climbing into tree stands with him, going along on deer hunts with groups of hunters. So it's part of my blood, for sure.

Bruce: Thank you for that. Let's talk about the hunting tradition. You had a great mentor in your father. In your estimation, where is the hunting tradition today?

Lindsay: It's going strong, there's no doubt about that. You look across America, and you look at the factors of any tradition like ours,