Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 128: Outdoor Media

Transcript

Ep. 128: Outdoor Media · The MeatEater Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: This is the me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless,
0:12
Speaker 1: severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
0:18
Speaker 1: You can't predict anything. Okay, Mitch Petriet, I want to
0:25
Speaker 1: return something we were talking about before we turn the machine.
0:29
Speaker 1: Un Um, did you say that muskie fishing in Minnesota
0:33
Speaker 1: is called the fish of a ten thousand casts? Not?
0:37
Speaker 1: But oh not, just maybe you're confusing that with the
0:41
Speaker 1: state ten thousand lakes. Yeah, it's just a number that
0:45
Speaker 1: was stuck in someone's head. Right now. They said the
0:47
Speaker 1: fish of ten thousand casts. Its just a known thing. Yeah. Um,
0:52
Speaker 1: but the way we do it, it's not the fish
0:54
Speaker 1: of ten thousand cast. The fish I would tell you
0:57
Speaker 1: it's evolved over the last five years. The lake will
1:00
Speaker 1: fish on has zebra muscles and a lot of milfoil,
1:03
Speaker 1: so the water clarity has really improved, and the muskies
1:08
Speaker 1: have moved a little deeper. Five years ago, there's hazards
1:11
Speaker 1: all over the lake, and um, the fish will there's
1:15
Speaker 1: always fish at these hazards, not always the same fish,
1:18
Speaker 1: But the structure is so perfect. We could just go
1:21
Speaker 1: and you would have a musky encounter almost guaranteed. You
1:25
Speaker 1: don't want to say the name of the lake. It's
1:27
Speaker 1: not a secret. There's no secrets in It's Lake Minnetonka
1:31
Speaker 1: and its old secrets musk fish. No, it's uh which
1:34
Speaker 1: is funny because you'll see guys out there that you'll
1:37
Speaker 1: they'll post photos and they'll delete the back the backdrop,
1:40
Speaker 1: so people don't know where they are. But it's like, well,
1:42
Speaker 1: you can figure out where they are for the most part.
1:44
Speaker 1: But no, it's it's a great musky lake and it's
1:48
Speaker 1: under a fair amount. There's a lot of pressure, but
1:50
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fish. I think the DNR estimates
1:53
Speaker 1: there's a thousand trophy muskies in Lake Minnetonka. What makes
1:57
Speaker 1: a trophy must that's what we're going for tonight. Yeah,
2:04
Speaker 1: right now are they're all kinds of northerns mixed in
2:06
Speaker 1: with these muskies. There are northerns and bass. This is
2:09
Speaker 1: the lake. It's it's amazing lake and it's twenty five
2:11
Speaker 1: minutes from downtown Minneapolis. Hence the pressure. Yeah. Yeah, um,
2:16
Speaker 1: in your life that how many muskies have you caught?
2:21
Speaker 1: I've only been doing it for counter cast on the
2:23
Speaker 1: golf clicker. I haven't click was really high, Yeah, I haven't,
2:28
Speaker 1: but uh, I had. I had a young young guy
2:31
Speaker 1: who worked for me was a musky guru, and he
2:35
Speaker 1: got me into it. My boss at the time a
2:37
Speaker 1: guy named Ron Chera, who was a local writer. He
2:39
Speaker 1: wrote the outdoor Beat for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for
2:42
Speaker 1: forty years. His advice to me when he heard that
2:45
Speaker 1: I was getting into muskie fishing was to take all
2:47
Speaker 1: my musky gear and destroy it before it ruins my marriage,
2:52
Speaker 1: because that's kind of what muskie fishing does, and it
2:54
Speaker 1: sucks because you can't catch them. You can't can't master it. Right.
2:57
Speaker 1: My maternal grandfather was a very avid musky fisherman. Yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: he would fish northern Wisconsin. Yeah, it's that's a that's
3:08
Speaker 1: a great place for as well. That's probably he was
3:11
Speaker 1: a live bait mousky fisherman. Is I think probably most
3:14
Speaker 1: people were back then, right For we we use live
3:16
Speaker 1: baits here in the fall, so as the season goes on,
3:20
Speaker 1: the muskies start eating bigger, bigger baits and then in
3:25
Speaker 1: the fall they'll we do u we slow troll suckers,
3:28
Speaker 1: live suckers like suckers. WHOA, it's pretty cool because it's
3:33
Speaker 1: like fishing hell of it. Yeah, and you're just sitting
3:36
Speaker 1: and you're you're watching. You watch the tip of your rod.
3:38
Speaker 1: It will start bobbing and then you go. You feed it,
3:41
Speaker 1: line and the Because the muskie, once they get it
3:44
Speaker 1: into their mouth, it's not like a trout or something.
3:46
Speaker 1: If they feel it doesn't feel right, they spit it
3:48
Speaker 1: out right away. That once they taste that meat in
3:50
Speaker 1: their mouth, it's on my bucket list. I haven't done it, um,
3:54
Speaker 1: but I've I've seen it on the YouTube. Um. Muskies
3:58
Speaker 1: will take the sucker and won't have the hooks in
4:00
Speaker 1: their mouth, but guys will. You'll boat the fish and
4:04
Speaker 1: they're just holding onto the live sucker. They don't even
4:06
Speaker 1: have a hook in their mouth, but they're not. They
4:07
Speaker 1: won't let go of it. So Yeah, because they got
4:10
Speaker 1: the like a northern, they got those back angle, they
4:13
Speaker 1: got the teeth that locked. It's kind of when they
4:16
Speaker 1: grab something, man, it's like it's gonna rip when you
4:18
Speaker 1: pull it out. Yeah, it's not like that's not a
4:21
Speaker 1: two way street. No, you heard that same thing about
4:24
Speaker 1: the link cod right couples. You hear all. I haven't
4:28
Speaker 1: seen it happen, but anyone that spends a ton of
4:31
Speaker 1: time fishing them talks about catching them that aren't hooked,
4:35
Speaker 1: and then people are always catching them on catching link
4:37
Speaker 1: cod latched down to another link, cod latched onto a rock,
4:41
Speaker 1: fish latched onto a pink sam. He just comes up
4:44
Speaker 1: in the boat. We do a lot of fishing in
4:46
Speaker 1: northern Minnesota and walleye fishing, and a lot of stories
4:49
Speaker 1: of northern pike smacking of walleye as you're as you're
4:53
Speaker 1: bringing it in the same dale, they'll they'll hold onto
4:55
Speaker 1: that pretty good too. I have brought in northerns that
4:58
Speaker 1: we're on something else not hooked, And in fact, uh,
5:02
Speaker 1: not too long ago, I'm a little boy caught a
5:05
Speaker 1: large mouth on a bluegill and got it up in
5:08
Speaker 1: the boat into a pontoon boat. Yeah, and that thing
5:11
Speaker 1: wasn't hooked. It's fine, just holding on. I've had been
5:14
Speaker 1: bass fishing with little plastic worms and I've had sunfish
5:17
Speaker 1: holding onto the worm not hooked, come into the boat.
5:19
Speaker 1: That Yeah, he's ready for a big fight. Yeah. Uh,
5:23
Speaker 1: not here to talk about not here at all to
5:25
Speaker 1: talk about muskies. But lifelong Minnesota, Yes, sir, born and raised,
5:30
Speaker 1: born and raised UM Minnesota's UM just from where my
5:34
Speaker 1: family is. I've lived overseas, but I always came back here,
5:37
Speaker 1: and um, I told my boss, Minnesota is a hard
5:40
Speaker 1: place to recruit people to to come live here because
5:43
Speaker 1: probably the winters, but it's a hard place to recruit
5:47
Speaker 1: from as well. I think, you know, we have we
5:49
Speaker 1: have four seasons. Summers are relatively short, but you know,
5:52
Speaker 1: you get a good spring and a good fall, and um, yeah,
5:55
Speaker 1: there's over ten thousand lakes, which I thought was a
5:58
Speaker 1: pretty big deal until I went to Saskatchewan and there's
6:00
Speaker 1: like a hundred thousand up there. But we have a
6:03
Speaker 1: very very good you know, it's a little bit you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: I do a lot of work in Colorado and the
6:07
Speaker 1: in out west, great outdoor lifestyle. Minnesota has a little
6:11
Speaker 1: bit of that. Just no mountains, but a lot of lakes,
6:13
Speaker 1: a lot of water, a lot of water also, uh
6:17
Speaker 1: real quick. Also joined by Ryan Callahan, who's in You're
6:23
Speaker 1: you're just coming from the outdoor reelers. Retailers, reelers retailers
6:29
Speaker 1: yea yeah, outdoor retailer. Yeah. Um also in Denver, pretty
6:36
Speaker 1: good time. Fish out of water. No, no, not at all.
6:40
Speaker 1: It's not a super hunting crowd over there, you know,
6:43
Speaker 1: oddly enough, so I wouldn't. Uh. It was invited to
6:47
Speaker 1: kind of talk about hunting on a on a public
6:50
Speaker 1: panel at the Winter session, UM with folks from ari
6:57
Speaker 1: I Patagonia. UM, you know, this big public forum and
7:02
Speaker 1: it was kind of intimidating. But after we got done
7:06
Speaker 1: with that panel, I can't tell you how many people
7:08
Speaker 1: came up and they're like, man, that was great, and uh,
7:11
Speaker 1: you know, just so you know, I'm a hunter too.
7:13
Speaker 1: And then and I like, yeah, it was, yes, it
7:18
Speaker 1: was um. And then and I really like this trade
7:22
Speaker 1: show because because it's not hunting specific, I can just
7:27
Speaker 1: kind of lurk around and actually check things out. And
7:30
Speaker 1: and um, you know, a hunting community so small, you're
7:33
Speaker 1: always running into people, you know, constantly, you can't ever
7:35
Speaker 1: get anything done, so um, but you can just enjoy
7:40
Speaker 1: your anonymity and look at product. Yeah, but this I
7:46
Speaker 1: got stopped a ton um, a lot of meat eater fans,
7:51
Speaker 1: lots of folks that listen to the podcasts, lots of it.
7:55
Speaker 1: Seems like Old Dirt Myth was was there as well. Um,
8:00
Speaker 1: and we checked out a couple of you know, different
8:03
Speaker 1: companies for you know, the stuff that we use all
8:06
Speaker 1: the time, um, sleeping bags, and pads and boots and
8:10
Speaker 1: and every stop somebody in the booth would like break
8:15
Speaker 1: away from the conversation they were having, come over and
8:17
Speaker 1: be like, hey, you can thank you guys so much
8:21
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Like love the show. Yeah, And this
8:24
Speaker 1: is the one that pulled This is the um, this
8:28
Speaker 1: is what we're here to talk about either. But just
8:29
Speaker 1: real quick, outdoor you tailors is the one that in
8:33
Speaker 1: protest of public lands issues out of Utah. Like it's
8:41
Speaker 1: outdoor Retailers that pulled out and went to Denver. Right. Yes,
8:44
Speaker 1: it had traditionally been in Salt Lake City. Yeah, it's
8:46
Speaker 1: been in Salt Lake for a long time. Um and
8:51
Speaker 1: uh yeah. And and in an effort to swig Governor
8:55
Speaker 1: Herbert at the time on a lot of their beliefs
9:01
Speaker 1: on monuments, specifically the rescinding a bears ears in grand
9:05
Speaker 1: staircases galante um, they were leveraging with this giant check,
9:11
Speaker 1: this huge revenue stream that would come into Salt Lake City.
9:14
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to the Salt Palace in Salt
9:16
Speaker 1: Lake City? Yeah, most of those hotels and stuff down
9:20
Speaker 1: there didn't exist prior to that show. And so they said, well,
9:25
Speaker 1: we're gonna pull out if you guys support this and
9:28
Speaker 1: then they actually did it, and they actually did it, yeah,
9:32
Speaker 1: which you know, it's there's a real strong argument there
9:35
Speaker 1: that if you want to make some change, you gotta
9:39
Speaker 1: stick around, not take your ball and go home too. So, um,
9:43
Speaker 1: it's not as pre usual, it's not a cutting dry situation.
9:50
Speaker 1: I heard on the some feedback because I was in
9:52
Speaker 1: Denver yesterday as well that um, maybe last ye or
9:56
Speaker 1: two years ago there was like no camel at outdoor retailer,
9:59
Speaker 1: and this year it seems like I heard every booth
10:02
Speaker 1: a lot of products. I think otter Box has had
10:05
Speaker 1: a big presence there this year. A lot of camouflage
10:09
Speaker 1: at outdoor retailer, like cool kids snowboarding type squiggly lion
10:13
Speaker 1: camo like I like because it's like part of the
10:16
Speaker 1: snowboarding kind of came out of the snowboarding scene, or
10:19
Speaker 1: like camel like for like hiding from stuff winter or um,
10:25
Speaker 1: you know your ski brands sure enough that you know
10:28
Speaker 1: camo is is hip, you know, but it's so it's
10:32
Speaker 1: not stuff that you would see traditionally in the hunting
10:35
Speaker 1: space for the most part. Um, but summer are there's
10:39
Speaker 1: definitely like a little bit more. You know, a lot
10:42
Speaker 1: of people don't realize it, but these outdoor Research Patagon
10:47
Speaker 1: ya um, lots of these big brands also do military business.
10:53
Speaker 1: And you know that if if you're looking, you can
10:57
Speaker 1: see some of that stuff sitting on on the displays
11:00
Speaker 1: as well. So yeah, ARC, Tereks, Ore, Padagon, you all
11:04
Speaker 1: do military contractors. Yes, well yeah, and that stuff goes
11:08
Speaker 1: the real That stuff goals that the dudes were kicking
11:10
Speaker 1: down doors and places. Man. Yeah, no, I mean this
11:14
Speaker 1: isn't stuff that the general armies buying for everybody. Yeah,
11:19
Speaker 1: how about did you see any fishing camel? Because I
11:22
Speaker 1: came off of I cast a few weeks ago and
11:24
Speaker 1: now everything there's a lot of fishing camel patterns, and
11:28
Speaker 1: that has a it's a life. You don't need camel.
11:30
Speaker 1: We we won't be wearing cameo tonight when or at
11:32
Speaker 1: least not fishing camel when we fish. But I end
11:35
Speaker 1: up wearing a decent amount of camera when I'm fishing,
11:37
Speaker 1: just because I don't like having your you're accidentally cool Yeah,
11:44
Speaker 1: uh no, But that we saw a lot of fishing
11:47
Speaker 1: um cameos like blue, like lots of light blues and white.
11:52
Speaker 1: Some of it looks like water stuff and camels have
11:57
Speaker 1: some camel stuff. I have an llttle bean shirt that
11:59
Speaker 1: has a of a cool I might wear tonight. Actually,
12:04
Speaker 1: I just got an email from a dude. Uh, I
12:08
Speaker 1: need to read it more carefully, but this guy was
12:09
Speaker 1: kind of saying that he had He said, Yeah, I
12:12
Speaker 1: don't wear a camera anymore because it's uh politically too divisive.
12:16
Speaker 1: M we're thinking, like I feel like right now that's
12:21
Speaker 1: not the case. No, And there's a lot of cool
12:25
Speaker 1: kid camea a lot of skinny Jean Cama like um
12:31
Speaker 1: and also Janie Poodless. You hone got an email there
12:36
Speaker 1: to day from a guy who said his wife's name
12:38
Speaker 1: is Janice, but she smells at j A N I
12:41
Speaker 1: c E. And I need to write him back and
12:42
Speaker 1: clarify that it's in fact be honest. Please do that.
12:47
Speaker 1: I will missed miss peech. You tell uh tell him
12:54
Speaker 1: what you do for a living. I'm a vice president
12:56
Speaker 1: programming for the Outdoor Sportsman Group networks, which are Outdoor Channel,
13:01
Speaker 1: Sportsman's Channel, and the World Fishing Network. So if you've
13:04
Speaker 1: got a question about what what in the world is
13:09
Speaker 1: the world aboutdoor TV? This is the man it's fair
13:13
Speaker 1: to say you know more about it than maybe anyone
13:17
Speaker 1: at this particular moment. Let's say I wouldn't say I
13:21
Speaker 1: know more than anyone, but I have a pretty unique
13:23
Speaker 1: perspective on what I know based on all the interactions
13:27
Speaker 1: that I have. I was a producer for ten years
13:29
Speaker 1: before I joined the network, like produced the TV show,
13:32
Speaker 1: produced TV shows. I did Wardens in Montana. That was
13:36
Speaker 1: one of the my first breakout hits that got me
13:39
Speaker 1: on the radar of the network at least. UM Wardens
13:42
Speaker 1: gets talked about every time I go home because we're
13:45
Speaker 1: always right around the Sun River game range. And there's
13:47
Speaker 1: that episode with the shed antler and like the radio
13:52
Speaker 1: that radio they put little radio controllers and the antlers
13:55
Speaker 1: so they can track down. We got some pretty cool
13:58
Speaker 1: stories and we told a lot of them on Warden,
14:00
Speaker 1: and so we did that for six years in Montana.
14:03
Speaker 1: What channel was that on? That wasn't on channel it was? Yeah,
14:06
Speaker 1: it still is. In fact, we've actually moved it from
14:08
Speaker 1: Montana to Michigan. UM, so it's still going strong. I
14:12
Speaker 1: think we've had probably a hundred and fifty episodes. Are
14:15
Speaker 1: you involved with it? Yeah, I'm still still I think
14:18
Speaker 1: officially as still the executive producer UM. I started it
14:23
Speaker 1: with UH with a former partner guy named Steve Puppy
14:25
Speaker 1: who got me into television back in the day. He
14:29
Speaker 1: was former Hunter Specialties UM Road Warriors, so he had
14:33
Speaker 1: an HS truck and would go and do UM work
14:37
Speaker 1: trade shows and work different retails with different retailers and
14:41
Speaker 1: especially the game calls. Yeah, and then he did a
14:44
Speaker 1: DVD which was probably a VHS at the time. So
14:47
Speaker 1: you want to be a bow hunter or so you
14:49
Speaker 1: want to be a turkey hunter? And he was I
14:51
Speaker 1: think it was national. He was Minnesota state champion turkey call.
14:54
Speaker 1: You know. He he started his own TV show, and
14:56
Speaker 1: my wife and I got involved with that, and that's
14:58
Speaker 1: how I got dabbling in too, into TV. Coming out
15:02
Speaker 1: of software sales, coming out of software sales France, yea.
15:05
Speaker 1: And I lived, you know, in France and in Australia,
15:08
Speaker 1: worked for a manufact My my wife will tell you
15:12
Speaker 1: she married a computer geek and who evolved into a
15:15
Speaker 1: redneck because I mean I have I've fished my entire life.
15:19
Speaker 1: I did some pheasant hunting and small game hunting as
15:22
Speaker 1: a kid, you know, from like thirteen on. But I've
15:24
Speaker 1: just always been a fisherman. Um. But I just kind
15:27
Speaker 1: of went away. We went overseas and we didn't just
15:29
Speaker 1: didn't do that very much. We came back and and
15:32
Speaker 1: now she's lost me to fishing and hunting. Um. So
15:40
Speaker 1: you so you went when you were producing the show
15:42
Speaker 1: though you weren't you weren't working with the nut, you
15:45
Speaker 1: weren't working with Outdoor Channel Sportsmen Channel. Uh, we had
15:48
Speaker 1: a production company called Mudy Boot Productions, and we just
15:51
Speaker 1: we did sold the show. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, you
15:55
Speaker 1: know that's that's one of the first is when I
15:56
Speaker 1: asked to explain when people wonder about uh, people want
16:00
Speaker 1: to like outdoor TV or people called hunting TV. Can
16:05
Speaker 1: you explain? Because there's different ways in which the like
16:08
Speaker 1: there's different business models by which the networks will engage
16:12
Speaker 1: with shows where you have shows that networks own, so
16:15
Speaker 1: you have shows that but it's like Outdoor Channel sports
16:18
Speaker 1: and Channel will own there shows that they license. And
16:21
Speaker 1: then there's then there's a thing called time buys. Can
16:24
Speaker 1: you walk people through what a time by it? Sure?
16:30
Speaker 1: And I've looked for other examples of television networks similar
16:34
Speaker 1: to ours, and that time by model exists on a
16:38
Speaker 1: smaller scale in some places, but for the most part,
16:41
Speaker 1: hunting television has is just unique where well it but
16:45
Speaker 1: a time by model would be like an infomercial show
16:47
Speaker 1: or channel right exactly do that, but um, like the
16:51
Speaker 1: Golf channel. You could buy time on the Golf channel,
16:54
Speaker 1: but most of their programming is owned by the Golf channel. UM.
16:59
Speaker 1: The the the way television evolved is, UM. You know,
17:03
Speaker 1: the networks create this platform. You know, they negotiate with
17:06
Speaker 1: the carriers to to be in you know, millions of homes.
17:10
Speaker 1: And before my time, they just went out to producers
17:13
Speaker 1: who wanted we're starting to film their hunts and just
17:15
Speaker 1: wanted to um put them somewhere. So the network would
17:20
Speaker 1: essentially sell them commercial time, UM and sell them a
17:24
Speaker 1: thirty minute block and they would get five minutes of
17:26
Speaker 1: commercials and UM. That's kind of how that model was born.
17:29
Speaker 1: So it's still probably eight of our business, our independent
17:35
Speaker 1: producers looking for a place to air their content. So
17:38
Speaker 1: we have it's yeah, and at a time it was right, right.
17:44
Speaker 1: So what happened as things evolved in the networks start
17:47
Speaker 1: to grow and the affiliates you know, want different things. UM,
17:51
Speaker 1: the network started investing in its own content so that
17:54
Speaker 1: we could Like Wardens was an original program, original production
17:57
Speaker 1: that we produced four outdoor Channel UM. It didn't fit
18:01
Speaker 1: that time by model where we couldn't go out and
18:03
Speaker 1: get endorsement deals. We didn't have a host. We had
18:05
Speaker 1: game Wardens that we were following, so we couldn't fund
18:08
Speaker 1: the production. But that's these The essence of the time
18:11
Speaker 1: by model is you create a show, we air it
18:14
Speaker 1: on our network, You get commercial inventory, You sell commercials
18:18
Speaker 1: or other things to your sponsors to fund the production
18:22
Speaker 1: and to pay for your airtime. But a lot of companies,
18:27
Speaker 1: there's a lot of companies who look at doing a
18:29
Speaker 1: time by as basically as a marketing spend for the company.
18:33
Speaker 1: Right right. One of the shows I produced UM as
18:36
Speaker 1: an independent UM was Fox Pro Fur Takers. It's a
18:39
Speaker 1: predator hunting show, and so you know that's their brand,
18:42
Speaker 1: Fox pro Um. They're hunting anyways, So they started filming
18:46
Speaker 1: and you know, we did real high quality production and
18:49
Speaker 1: for them it's a marketing expense. They also brought in
18:51
Speaker 1: some sponsors to help underwrite it. But at the end
18:55
Speaker 1: of the day, you know, they weren't making a profit
18:57
Speaker 1: on their TV show. But it was a per platform
19:00
Speaker 1: to get their message out, um, you know, to a
19:03
Speaker 1: to a mass audience. And that's what that's our networks deliver.
19:06
Speaker 1: Are we built in audience who is you know, knows
19:10
Speaker 1: what to expect when they turn on the TV and
19:12
Speaker 1: watch Sportsman Channel. So when a company, let's say you
19:15
Speaker 1: play and I don't, let's just say like take a
19:17
Speaker 1: place like Cabellas or bass Pro or or any manufacturers, retailers, manufacturers,
19:23
Speaker 1: they'll do the time. They'll do the time by and
19:25
Speaker 1: then of course they their block of time. They have
19:28
Speaker 1: their half hour segment has the show in it, so
19:30
Speaker 1: they're making a national show. But it also has AD units.
19:35
Speaker 1: So there are companies that will they'll they'll come in
19:37
Speaker 1: and uh use some of the AD units to draw
19:40
Speaker 1: the connection to their own brand. But then they might
19:44
Speaker 1: also go and have AD units they're used by other
19:46
Speaker 1: outside partners of their exactly bass Pro shops has um productions.
19:52
Speaker 1: They have their own production operations, so they buy time
19:54
Speaker 1: from us, for example for the bass pros on Outdoor Channel.
19:58
Speaker 1: So yes, know that they run bass Pro and now
20:02
Speaker 1: Cabella's spots in that show, but they'll also run well
20:05
Speaker 1: they and they'll do they've got other brands too, so
20:07
Speaker 1: their nitro boats, but they might do a mercury um
20:12
Speaker 1: commercial in it, or they may even have um, you
20:14
Speaker 1: know specific you know, Strike King or something as a
20:17
Speaker 1: sponsor of the show. So even though the retailer owns
20:20
Speaker 1: the show, uh, they have a team that will go
20:22
Speaker 1: out and sell it in the NA does the same thing,
20:25
Speaker 1: Like we have an n RA show American Riflemen Um
20:28
Speaker 1: that the n r A owns and produces. They have
20:31
Speaker 1: their own production operation, but they go out and sell
20:33
Speaker 1: a lot of advertising around that and then they have
20:36
Speaker 1: a magazine that supports the production as well. Another thing
20:40
Speaker 1: that happens, and this is I think where this is
20:42
Speaker 1: what's a little bit more interesting is the onything that
20:45
Speaker 1: happens is an individual can go and build a show,
20:52
Speaker 1: right because I think there's a lot of people who
20:54
Speaker 1: like are like how do how does one have? Like
20:56
Speaker 1: how does a person get a hunting show? And I
21:00
Speaker 1: think that it's probably like the path And I don't
21:02
Speaker 1: want to say it's the path of least resistance financially
21:05
Speaker 1: because there's a ton of resistance finance. There's a lot
21:07
Speaker 1: of work to put it together, but like layout, how
21:10
Speaker 1: a person like an individual not a big company. How
21:13
Speaker 1: an individual goals and creates a show and finances a show.
21:18
Speaker 1: It's um. It's evolved a little bit because the barrier
21:22
Speaker 1: to entry has gotten a little bit higher. But you know,
21:24
Speaker 1: ten years ago, it was you know, a guy who
21:27
Speaker 1: loves to hunt, UM has a buddy who knows who
21:31
Speaker 1: knows how in air brackets, how to film, or how
21:34
Speaker 1: to edit, and they just you know, they and everybody
21:36
Speaker 1: thinks they're interesting and entertaining, so they're gonna they're gonna
21:39
Speaker 1: do their hunting show. UM. And there are a lot
21:42
Speaker 1: of shows that got that started that way. But the
21:44
Speaker 1: networks started raising this standard quality and you have to
21:48
Speaker 1: start buying better equipment and hiring more talented people and involved.
21:53
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of people that just started with
21:55
Speaker 1: that dream of wanting to wanting to to hunt. They
21:58
Speaker 1: watched you know, Bill Jordan on TV and uh T
22:01
Speaker 1: n T thirty years ago and and wanted to be that.
22:04
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot of people that you know, want
22:06
Speaker 1: to be the next Michael Wadel. And so there's still
22:08
Speaker 1: that that dream of just buying a camera and buying
22:13
Speaker 1: a mac and cutting a show, going to getting a
22:16
Speaker 1: bunch of sponsors, selling advertisement space. But that's I think
22:20
Speaker 1: that's when I advised people early on, because you know,
22:24
Speaker 1: we get a lot of inquiries and I usually tell them,
22:27
Speaker 1: you know, you have you have to probably plan to
22:29
Speaker 1: spend upwards of five thousand dollars to get a show
22:32
Speaker 1: off the ground, to do it right, to have the
22:33
Speaker 1: production values, and to build a brand to the point
22:37
Speaker 1: where advertisers want to be a part of it. And
22:42
Speaker 1: that's probably the biggest mistake the aspiring outdoor TV personalities
22:47
Speaker 1: make is these brands are not interested in funding your lifestyle.
22:51
Speaker 1: They're moving They're interested in moving product. So some of
22:54
Speaker 1: the best in in TV have been the most successful.
22:58
Speaker 1: I should say, have you know, have understood that. You know,
23:01
Speaker 1: guys like Pat Reeve from Driven TV, and he's been
23:04
Speaker 1: doing this for thirty years, he knows at the end
23:06
Speaker 1: of the day, if if his show, if he's not
23:09
Speaker 1: using product properly and not over not over selling it,
23:13
Speaker 1: you know, not it's not to the point where you
23:15
Speaker 1: raise suspicions exactly. And it's it's it's a battle that
23:18
Speaker 1: that I fight, um because I get it, you need
23:21
Speaker 1: to satisfy your your sponsors and your advertisers. But you're Also,
23:24
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to oversell. Viewers can smell
23:28
Speaker 1: the cell. You know, we'd I'd rather see them just
23:31
Speaker 1: use a product properly and then say, hey, look at
23:34
Speaker 1: this thing with Jack, I'm using here and this is
23:36
Speaker 1: making me you know, kilmore deer or a bigger deer. Whatever.
23:40
Speaker 1: Viewers get that they want they just want to see
23:41
Speaker 1: the success. So so we we try to minimize the
23:44
Speaker 1: commercial elements in a show, but you know, that's what's
23:48
Speaker 1: funding that. But like I said, I think the biggest
23:51
Speaker 1: mistake the youth are making is they feel like, oh
23:54
Speaker 1: these there's there's no brands out there that you know,
23:57
Speaker 1: their mission is to help somebody else, you know, pay
24:00
Speaker 1: for their hunting. It's they want to move products. So
24:02
Speaker 1: and that's what we're That's a lot of our content
24:05
Speaker 1: inspires people to get out and hunt and and you
24:08
Speaker 1: know they learn a lot from you know, on new
24:11
Speaker 1: products and how to use them and use them properly.
24:14
Speaker 1: So increasingly, you guys want to be I mean, coming
24:16
Speaker 1: from the network perspective, you want to be in a
24:18
Speaker 1: situation where you're saying like, sure, you're buying space from
24:23
Speaker 1: our network. But there's some parameters around this like I'll
24:31
Speaker 1: I'll sell it to you on the condition that your
24:34
Speaker 1: product meets a certain threshold of quality. And and that
24:38
Speaker 1: too has evolved because you know, Outdoor Channel has UM
24:42
Speaker 1: has had very high standards UM for the better part
24:46
Speaker 1: of a decade where and we've we've been sold out
24:49
Speaker 1: for the most part for the past fifteen years, so
24:53
Speaker 1: we can discriminate a little bit about you know, what
24:55
Speaker 1: kind of content we're willing to take. Oh for help
24:59
Speaker 1: for you say, for fifteen years, you haven't had like
25:01
Speaker 1: worry about how you're going to fill that spy that
25:04
Speaker 1: space though not known in in absolutely in prime time.
25:07
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have a lot of flexibility because
25:09
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of long time shows that have
25:12
Speaker 1: owned those time slots for a long time and and
25:14
Speaker 1: have been very successful. Um. You know for us and
25:18
Speaker 1: for them that that's I say a lot. I'm in
25:20
Speaker 1: the business of creating these mutually beneficial relationships. We have
25:24
Speaker 1: all of these assets and investments in our networks and
25:27
Speaker 1: building our audience so that when the show when Mediator
25:30
Speaker 1: comes on, you know it's gonna it's gonna reach that audience. UM.
25:34
Speaker 1: And then the producer needs to go out and be
25:36
Speaker 1: successful in selling that time to their sponsors to fund it.
25:40
Speaker 1: And if if they're not successful, then we're not going
25:43
Speaker 1: to be successful. But yeah, we've been sold out for
25:45
Speaker 1: the better part of a decade. Well we're emailing. You mentioned, uh,
25:50
Speaker 1: you you mentioned the good, the bad, and ugly about
25:53
Speaker 1: or television. What do you mean by that? Uh? When
25:56
Speaker 1: I took this job, you know, I had, you know,
25:59
Speaker 1: a vision and and really a goal to to leave
26:02
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing not just hunting and fishing intelligence, but
26:06
Speaker 1: in a better place than than um than when I
26:08
Speaker 1: when I came into it. Um. But there's a lot
26:12
Speaker 1: of masters, you know, and there's a lot of you know,
26:14
Speaker 1: um people have very specific tastes and what they like,
26:18
Speaker 1: and so you know, we have some producers who are um,
26:22
Speaker 1: you know, loud and and um and great characters and
26:26
Speaker 1: they tend to draw a good audience, but they also
26:30
Speaker 1: draw detractors. And so I'll have you know people, Oh
26:33
Speaker 1: you need to get rid of that show because of
26:35
Speaker 1: that or I'm only into uh, you know, western archery, hunting,
26:39
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't care about you know,
26:41
Speaker 1: Midwest deer and and guys whispering in the tree. So um,
26:47
Speaker 1: and yeah, so I have to program the network to
26:51
Speaker 1: reach a broad audience, whether it's you know, we have
26:54
Speaker 1: upland shows and not everyly, you know, and we have
26:57
Speaker 1: archery shows, and so I get the ugly thing. I
27:00
Speaker 1: get all the viewer feedback, although social media is evolving
27:02
Speaker 1: some of that now. Most people just go to the
27:05
Speaker 1: show pages and start bashing in that, but they're less
27:08
Speaker 1: likely to call, you know, if someone wants to. We
27:10
Speaker 1: have a feedback form on our website, and so I'll
27:13
Speaker 1: get it. But so if somebody wants to send feedback,
27:15
Speaker 1: they have to go to our website. It's not hard
27:17
Speaker 1: to find. They find the form, they fill it out,
27:19
Speaker 1: and they have to answer a couple of questions and
27:21
Speaker 1: they so. So by the time I get that kind
27:24
Speaker 1: of feedback, I'm dealing with somebody who's passionate about it.
27:26
Speaker 1: And um, you know, we we respond to viewer feedback,
27:29
Speaker 1: and I'll personally respond if someone has is critical, as
27:34
Speaker 1: long as they're respectful, I'm happy to respond. What would
27:38
Speaker 1: be an example of a criticism that would come in,
27:40
Speaker 1: I mean those people being dissatisfied with something they saw
27:43
Speaker 1: Right on Outdoor Channel we were running some syndicated shows
27:47
Speaker 1: We're running Wickedtuna right now, which is an awesome show
27:50
Speaker 1: if him and follow Wikatuna um. And we did deaditi'st
27:54
Speaker 1: Catch and Duck Dynasty and Duck Dynasty. Uh, A lot
27:57
Speaker 1: of our people, the core audience, hunting audience don't. They
28:01
Speaker 1: don't like Duck Dynasty. But that surprised me to hear
28:05
Speaker 1: when someone, someone who's very familiar with that show was
28:08
Speaker 1: explaining that it wasn't it's not hunters weren't watching that
28:12
Speaker 1: show as much. Right, So the the idea, so, like
28:14
Speaker 1: I said, we have we have many masters, and we
28:17
Speaker 1: work with affiliates, you know, Dish, Direct TV, Comcast, all
28:21
Speaker 1: the major carriers. And this hunting market is not expanding
28:27
Speaker 1: the financial side that you know, there's a finite amount
28:31
Speaker 1: of money in this market. It wasn't getting bigger hunting.
28:35
Speaker 1: It's debatable, you know, numbers are are declining or participation
28:38
Speaker 1: is declining. So as a for our company to succeed
28:42
Speaker 1: and for our producers to succeed, we had an initiative
28:45
Speaker 1: to try to expand our audience. We had research that
28:48
Speaker 1: showed that people who maybe don't participate in hunting or fishing,
28:52
Speaker 1: but like outdoor adventure programming like Deadliest Catch, like Duck Dynasty. Um,
28:58
Speaker 1: we called him like it's a primary attain anable audience
29:00
Speaker 1: for us. So that's why we brought in Duck Dynasty.
29:04
Speaker 1: They have this huge brand. Whether you like the show
29:07
Speaker 1: or not, the brand recognition for Duck Dynasty back in
29:10
Speaker 1: the day was like of the general public were aware
29:14
Speaker 1: of Duck Dynasty and we were the first network to
29:16
Speaker 1: syndicate it, and it brought in new audience. We can
29:19
Speaker 1: we can show, we've done research, we've seen the numbers.
29:22
Speaker 1: So it actually helped us grow our audience and helps
29:24
Speaker 1: us maintain our distribution. But if I'm a white tail
29:28
Speaker 1: hunter from Iowa, I don't want to watch duck Dynasty
29:32
Speaker 1: or you know, fake reality TV or whatever it is.
29:35
Speaker 1: So you want to learn how to kill big giant
29:37
Speaker 1: bucks and yeah, and the reality is this, Um, the
29:41
Speaker 1: hunting market is driven by deer and the fishing market
29:44
Speaker 1: is driven by bass. So yeah, my impression of how
29:48
Speaker 1: hunting my impression of how people watched Hunting TV probably
29:54
Speaker 1: the correct, But my idea was that people watched it
29:56
Speaker 1: like how people watch the news. Where are people that
29:59
Speaker 1: just have UM and they just watch what's there? You're
30:03
Speaker 1: saying that people like the viewers Cherry Pick, like I
30:06
Speaker 1: watched that show. I don't watch that show, you know.
30:09
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest and this wasn't from research,
30:12
Speaker 1: but just from talking to people. Most of our viewers,
30:15
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're they're hardcore. So if you're watching hunting,
30:18
Speaker 1: it's because you're really like you're in into hunting. And
30:22
Speaker 1: I think they judge the shows they watched mostly by
30:25
Speaker 1: if they would want if they would want to be
30:27
Speaker 1: in camp with the talent. You know, I um, I
30:31
Speaker 1: hunted last year with Roger Regland, who's been in the
30:33
Speaker 1: business for thirty years, and and part of it was
30:35
Speaker 1: because I was like, when I watched Roger Regland on TV,
30:38
Speaker 1: I want to experience what it's like to be in
30:41
Speaker 1: a camp with Roger Regland. And that's a lot of
30:43
Speaker 1: the feedback you get in social media as well as
30:46
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Waddells, I wish I could hunt with
30:48
Speaker 1: Kip Campbell from Red Arrow, so so you know, and
30:50
Speaker 1: there are guys that that don't appeal to certain people.
30:53
Speaker 1: So I think when they watch it, they're like, yeah,
30:55
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like almost I can't hunt now.
30:58
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna be watching these guys hunt and that's
31:02
Speaker 1: that's how they picked the shows they like. What are
31:05
Speaker 1: some of the um of the uh kind of like
31:08
Speaker 1: the famous talent pool, right, what are like? You got
31:13
Speaker 1: people that you look forward to them calling, and then
31:19
Speaker 1: hosts that you really don't look forward to them calling,
31:23
Speaker 1: like right, because you're you're communicating with all these people,
31:26
Speaker 1: they're chancing of them. We'll hear this. No, no, okay.
31:28
Speaker 1: So um, I started as a producer and UM and
31:34
Speaker 1: and had my own company. So I've I've run a
31:37
Speaker 1: small business and most of our producers are small business owners,
31:41
Speaker 1: and I've walked that path. It's not easy. So I
31:44
Speaker 1: go into whether I like somebody personally or connect with
31:48
Speaker 1: them as a friend, whatever. I go into almost all
31:51
Speaker 1: of the conversations with a certain amount of respect for
31:53
Speaker 1: what they're doing growing their business. You know, we have
31:58
Speaker 1: producers who have you know, ten employees and it's you know,
32:01
Speaker 1: so they're they're very passionate about hunting and and the business.
32:05
Speaker 1: So so yes, there are times when I my phone
32:08
Speaker 1: rings and UM, I wouldn't say I cringe, but it's
32:11
Speaker 1: like okay, and I'm you know, I the biggest problem
32:15
Speaker 1: I have is I I don't I can have three
32:18
Speaker 1: things I need to get done in a day, and um,
32:21
Speaker 1: my day will be hijacked by like eight fifteen. And
32:23
Speaker 1: Mondays are the worst because something will come up over
32:26
Speaker 1: the weekend and so I'll get a call and they're
32:28
Speaker 1: they're they're all important calls. So I try to take
32:31
Speaker 1: them all as I can, but it's hard to get through. Um.
32:35
Speaker 1: But I we definitely have characters in in the lineup
32:38
Speaker 1: and um, um, there's there's none I don't there's none
32:43
Speaker 1: that I dislike, but definitely have those that are just
32:46
Speaker 1: a hoot. I'm yeah, I'm I'm a sucker for you know,
32:50
Speaker 1: people with passion. So and so, I like, I had
32:54
Speaker 1: a conversation today with Mark Zona. He's a bass fishing guy.
32:57
Speaker 1: Zona's awesome fishing show. And that guy he's hard, hard core,
33:00
Speaker 1: he is intense, he's an amazing already. He's a Chicago guy,
33:07
Speaker 1: lives in Michigan. But he's, um just a great character
33:10
Speaker 1: and um and he's somewhat polarizing too to you know,
33:14
Speaker 1: some people don't like his style because he's, you know, dude,
33:16
Speaker 1: He's a he says dude a lot. But it's but
33:18
Speaker 1: he's authentic and I'm drawn to that in our talent.
33:22
Speaker 1: I like our I like talent who are the same
33:25
Speaker 1: off camera and on camera, because at some point it's
33:29
Speaker 1: hard to I don't want to know. It's like, oh,
33:31
Speaker 1: on this on camera guy or the It's most of
33:33
Speaker 1: our our hosts are authentic, you know. And uh, I
33:37
Speaker 1: like that. And um, we work with Ted Nugent and
33:41
Speaker 1: um to explain Ted, and I've worked closely with him.
33:45
Speaker 1: He's in a league of his own. I mean, he's
33:47
Speaker 1: a rock star, he's a hunting TV star. He's yeah,
33:52
Speaker 1: and and I mean Ted has um there's nobody can
33:57
Speaker 1: do what Ted does. I mean people think they might
34:00
Speaker 1: be able to do, but to go on to CNN
34:01
Speaker 1: and take on Pierce Morgan and and when just be Ted,
34:05
Speaker 1: you you can't. I've met Ted and I've met Donald
34:09
Speaker 1: Trump now, and you can't connect with these guys like
34:12
Speaker 1: we can connect. We can connect over fishing, we can
34:14
Speaker 1: connect over food, we can connect over Ted is just
34:17
Speaker 1: he's so driven and that that dude works harder than
34:20
Speaker 1: any human being I've ever seen in my entire LEAVE mean,
34:23
Speaker 1: he still does like two concerts a year and he
34:26
Speaker 1: hunts like forty days a year or it's like seriously,
34:30
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's just always out doing something. Um
34:33
Speaker 1: and he's and he's passionate. So UM we had we
34:37
Speaker 1: we did something as a network that Ted didn't appreciate
34:40
Speaker 1: and he called me one day and um told me that,
34:44
Speaker 1: And for fifteen minutes he told me that, And I
34:47
Speaker 1: was like, man, and he was. He was in a
34:50
Speaker 1: very been a very very spirit very quickly spoken, articulate fashion. Yeah. No,
34:54
Speaker 1: and he exactly and it wasn't bad and he was
34:57
Speaker 1: not disrespectful. But I was like, going, man, mo, people,
35:00
Speaker 1: if you want to hear Ted Nugent go off like this,
35:03
Speaker 1: you have to find it on YouTube. I'm like, one
35:05
Speaker 1: on one on the phone. I wish I could have
35:06
Speaker 1: recorded it because he's he's brilliant that way and UM
35:10
Speaker 1: so that Yeah, I enjoy working with Ted and um
35:15
Speaker 1: and but he's one of the most unique talents on
35:18
Speaker 1: our network. So when you're when you're fitting out like
35:21
Speaker 1: the programming, right, do you picture like walking into a
35:24
Speaker 1: big sporting goods store where you're like, oh, here's the
35:29
Speaker 1: fishing section. Make sure the fishing is okay, and then
35:32
Speaker 1: here's my you know, like warm water. Yeah, here's upland
35:38
Speaker 1: over here, here's camping, here's big game hunting, here's the waterfowl.
35:43
Speaker 1: Like do you do? You try to keep all that
35:45
Speaker 1: in mind and make sure that you're not missing anything
35:48
Speaker 1: or could or do you want to realize now? And
35:50
Speaker 1: then you have like a big hole. You know, I
35:52
Speaker 1: inherited first of all, you know this the the lineup
35:55
Speaker 1: essentially in the schedule, and I have a pier who
35:58
Speaker 1: I work with, UM Katie Gladstone, who actually does the scheduling,
36:01
Speaker 1: so she's more analytical on the on the schedule and
36:04
Speaker 1: she's looking at ratings UM. But the business, the time
36:08
Speaker 1: by business has really established a lot of that for us,
36:12
Speaker 1: where seasonally there's UM, there's less demand in TV hunting
36:18
Speaker 1: TV in first and second quarter, so fishing kind of
36:21
Speaker 1: built up in first and second quarter. And then the
36:24
Speaker 1: retail cycles because hunting retail, you know, it's mostly like September, October, November,
36:31
Speaker 1: so that's when the retailers and the advertisers want to
36:33
Speaker 1: be in there. So the market has kind of driven
36:36
Speaker 1: some of that schedule. And then yes, we will do
36:39
Speaker 1: UM will focus more white tail or big game in
36:43
Speaker 1: primetime and third and fourth quarter. But you know, weekend
36:47
Speaker 1: mornings have become fishing uh pretty much year round. UM.
36:51
Speaker 1: Weekend afternoons are very good UM day parts for us UM.
36:56
Speaker 1: So we will run waterfowl, upland and some of the
37:00
Speaker 1: non big game in those time slots. So it has
37:03
Speaker 1: kind of it has kind of filtered out that way,
37:06
Speaker 1: much like you do see in a retail store because
37:08
Speaker 1: you're chasing people's interests, or you're chasing because because you're
37:12
Speaker 1: chasing what people let me put this there for way,
37:15
Speaker 1: so you're timing it out because that's where the advertising
37:18
Speaker 1: dollars are for producers. Are you timing it out because
37:21
Speaker 1: some guys like I'm hunting deer in a week, I
37:23
Speaker 1: want to watch about deer now, And I don't want
37:25
Speaker 1: to watch about deer in May because in May I
37:28
Speaker 1: want to watch about fishing. Right. Yes, our our viewership grows.
37:32
Speaker 1: Viewers watch when they're actually participating, so there's like a
37:37
Speaker 1: real feedback between what a person's ex what a person
37:42
Speaker 1: is experiencing, and what they're wishing to watch. Yeah, or
37:46
Speaker 1: like if they're mentally preparing for their hunting season, they'll
37:49
Speaker 1: start watching more hunting and then while they're but what
37:53
Speaker 1: about dudes watching wardens. They're not like seeing like I'm
37:55
Speaker 1: gonna be getting busted by a warden next week. Now,
37:57
Speaker 1: Warden Wardens was a bit of an anomaly it um,
38:00
Speaker 1: and you know, we think it was successful because it
38:03
Speaker 1: had such a broad appeal. Like in the story packages
38:06
Speaker 1: were smaller, you know, they were only like five minutes segments,
38:09
Speaker 1: Like you might not be interested in the you know,
38:12
Speaker 1: antler hunting on a game range, but that was only
38:14
Speaker 1: five minutes. The next one's going to be, you know,
38:16
Speaker 1: some guy shooting at elk decoy and that was kind
38:19
Speaker 1: of interesting. So it was like an ensemble type show
38:22
Speaker 1: that follows these a bunch of different people as opposed
38:25
Speaker 1: to you know, if you know, trout fishing historically hasn't
38:28
Speaker 1: rated very well and so if but if you're a
38:31
Speaker 1: trout fisherman, you got some of that on Wardens or
38:34
Speaker 1: and everybody's had their own warden encounters or warden stories
38:37
Speaker 1: and and when we're in Montana and now we're in Michigan,
38:39
Speaker 1: those are both great states. I mean, Montana is a
38:42
Speaker 1: very unique state in terms of its resources. So we
38:45
Speaker 1: had viewers just wanted to learn about Montana and the
38:48
Speaker 1: wardens were great characters there too, so um, they it
38:53
Speaker 1: just had broad appeal. If you if you're gonna go
38:55
Speaker 1: look at all the let's just say all the hunting content,
38:58
Speaker 1: So remove fishing counts, all the hunting content from Outdoor channel,
39:02
Speaker 1: Sportsman channel. What percent of all of that content is
39:07
Speaker 1: driven by the white tail deer? Mm hmm it's probably Wow.
39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah you like that. Yeah, you know the first thing
39:21
Speaker 1: you said, I can't believe it. Yeah, I would have
39:24
Speaker 1: thought high. I would have thought a little higher. White
39:26
Speaker 1: tails and turkeys though, what's that? Yeah, what's what's so?
39:32
Speaker 1: What's number two next to white tails? Um? We do
39:35
Speaker 1: a lot of elk, so, a lot of a lot
39:37
Speaker 1: of big game um, and some of the aspirating moose.
39:41
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's big game. I think people like the
39:44
Speaker 1: people like to watch a moose show, right. Jim Shocky
39:46
Speaker 1: will tell you that. You know, his ratings they bump
39:49
Speaker 1: every time he does a big yukon moose. So um,
39:53
Speaker 1: and that's aspirational. We see a lot of that. You know,
39:56
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people who participate in sheep
39:58
Speaker 1: hunting or goat hunting, but they'll watch it on t
40:00
Speaker 1: V because it's one one thing is interesting though your
40:03
Speaker 1: show is very different I think. But a lot of
40:07
Speaker 1: times like the big international destinations and I'm not talking
40:10
Speaker 1: to Africa, I'm not. But like you know, hunting in
40:12
Speaker 1: the Himalayas or or as Michael Widelf accused, Jim Shocky
40:17
Speaker 1: hunting red bearded devil goats in Djibouti or something like that,
40:22
Speaker 1: it doesn't really drive you know, viewership, because you know,
40:25
Speaker 1: your your average Joe can't really wants to see deer,
40:28
Speaker 1: or they can relate to a moose, or they can
40:31
Speaker 1: relate to an elk even if they don't participate. Now
40:33
Speaker 1: because in there, it's in there like spatial awareness. Man,
40:37
Speaker 1: it's like a thing that one could feasibly go do right.
40:39
Speaker 1: And people while you'll watch some sheep shows or something
40:42
Speaker 1: like the ibex shows because the destinations are really cool
40:45
Speaker 1: and and it's it's kind of out there, but they it,
40:48
Speaker 1: you know, it's it people. They're not they're not driven
40:52
Speaker 1: like they are for deer hunting. I like Shocky tho.
40:56
Speaker 1: He's a good dude. He's a he's a very very
40:58
Speaker 1: interesting guy, really really nice guy, authentic too. So last year, um,
41:05
Speaker 1: he came into our booth at the archery trade show,
41:08
Speaker 1: just to say hi, and Um, I was at a
41:11
Speaker 1: brief conversation with him. Within thirty seconds, there's somebody standing
41:16
Speaker 1: next to him waiting to tell him a story or
41:18
Speaker 1: meet him or do something. He was there for like
41:20
Speaker 1: three hours, meeting his fans and talking to people. He
41:23
Speaker 1: didn't do it appear wasn't a scheduled appearance. He wasn't
41:26
Speaker 1: just you know, just you know, loving it and people
41:29
Speaker 1: staying they're being like, look at this, but my cousin shop. Yeah, exactly.
41:32
Speaker 1: There's a downside to that too. I've had conversations, Um,
41:35
Speaker 1: you know, Um, Will Primos is a guy who I
41:39
Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for, and I'm telling you
41:44
Speaker 1: as just like a communicator and a consistent personality. Yeah,
41:48
Speaker 1: and just like a guy that seems like a good
41:51
Speaker 1: human being. Will Primos. Yeah, So I'm going hunting with
41:54
Speaker 1: him this fall. I get, you know, good for you.
41:56
Speaker 1: I get some good opportunities and I want to Um
42:00
Speaker 1: have those experiences. We don't while I can, so I
42:04
Speaker 1: don't get to do a lot. But Will and I
42:07
Speaker 1: we actually did some business together five years ago and
42:10
Speaker 1: we had talked about going and this last year I
42:12
Speaker 1: just said, well, I think now is the time I've
42:13
Speaker 1: never gone on an elk hunt. I've probably watched ten
42:17
Speaker 1: thousand elk hunts on TV. So I'm excited and I'm
42:20
Speaker 1: a I'm a very passionate like turkey hunter. And you know,
42:24
Speaker 1: when I get a turkey, I call it turkey and
42:26
Speaker 1: it it's goblin and I can feel it Drummond and
42:28
Speaker 1: Strutt and I just get super excited. So when I
42:31
Speaker 1: have an elk coming at me, and the first time,
42:34
Speaker 1: I told well, I might have to wear diapers because
42:36
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how awesome it's going to be. So
42:40
Speaker 1: We're going to New Mexico and I'm going to do
42:41
Speaker 1: on archery l hunt in September. You talked about that
42:45
Speaker 1: thing where that happens, where it's like you you want
42:48
Speaker 1: to be with someone to listen to, even just to
42:50
Speaker 1: put in and I like, honestly have a bunch of
42:53
Speaker 1: the CDs like to put in his stuff. And here
42:57
Speaker 1: Will pretty most explain things right right, He just explains
43:01
Speaker 1: things now and then in a way where, um, he
43:04
Speaker 1: explains things where I'm jealous that I had thought to
43:08
Speaker 1: put it that way, and that it's you're drawn into
43:12
Speaker 1: Will and the pre most just it's one of the
43:14
Speaker 1: top shows on our network. And it's not They've got
43:17
Speaker 1: good production values and they've got a great team. But
43:19
Speaker 1: the reality is it's exactly that he just connects with
43:23
Speaker 1: the viewer on a very deep let. People are comfortable
43:25
Speaker 1: with him, They trust everything he says. He's not just
43:29
Speaker 1: schlepping product. He is. Actually he's you know, passionate about
43:33
Speaker 1: he's using it, he's developing product. So he's been very
43:36
Speaker 1: successful at doing that. One of the things it is
43:38
Speaker 1: for me is he likes animals. Yeah, he likes animals.
43:41
Speaker 1: He likes knowing about them, he likes being around them.
43:44
Speaker 1: For him, animals are not a tool by which to
43:49
Speaker 1: secure fame or perceived fortune or something that he kind
43:55
Speaker 1: of also a little bit doesn't maybe like that much.
43:58
Speaker 1: It's like he loves wildlife and likes to be in
44:02
Speaker 1: proximity to it and and all the elements of the
44:05
Speaker 1: hunt and the camaraderie and the family and yeah, it's
44:09
Speaker 1: and likes talking to them. You don't speak the language.
44:12
Speaker 1: Things like he's real it's just a cool slogan and
44:15
Speaker 1: tricking him. Yeah, if humanity were to end and all
44:19
Speaker 1: the planet were to die off, except for just Will Primos.
44:22
Speaker 1: I think that Will Primos would still go um out
44:26
Speaker 1: and observe wildlife. Yeah, I'm getting this. You know, I
44:32
Speaker 1: shook the dude's hand with time, and he didn't know
44:33
Speaker 1: who I was or what I was doing. It was
44:35
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but I'm just getting this and
44:37
Speaker 1: listening to his his DVDs. Yeah, Yeah, he's he's a
44:41
Speaker 1: he's a good guy and and and you know, an
44:43
Speaker 1: amazing businessman too, you know. Um, I'm trying to think
44:47
Speaker 1: he tells a story about how he got started um
44:52
Speaker 1: making the mouth calls. He used, he used to buy
44:57
Speaker 1: condoms for to take it to Latex, And I think
45:01
Speaker 1: he tells a story about being I think he I
45:03
Speaker 1: think he went and bought it, had to buy some
45:05
Speaker 1: condoms and he ran into like the father of one
45:07
Speaker 1: of his classmates, and it was so anyway, that was
45:10
Speaker 1: before he was buying it commercially in that. But there's
45:13
Speaker 1: there's so many little stories like that in this That's
45:18
Speaker 1: why I want to spend time in camp with these
45:19
Speaker 1: guys to hear more like that. Uh, you brought up
45:23
Speaker 1: the idea. I'm not floating as you brought this idea. U.
45:26
Speaker 1: UM is hunting TV good or bad for the sport.
45:31
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, there's a lot of people
45:32
Speaker 1: who hunt, a lot of people who finished I feel
45:35
Speaker 1: that would say it's bad. That's why I brought it.
45:39
Speaker 1: I hear it from I hear it from them all
45:40
Speaker 1: the time. I want, well, I want to That's why
45:42
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about because I'm interested to hear
45:44
Speaker 1: what you all think about it. Um. I I generally
45:48
Speaker 1: think it's good, and we at the network worked very
45:52
Speaker 1: hard to make sure that it's good in terms of
45:55
Speaker 1: the quality that makes it to air, the ethics around it,
45:59
Speaker 1: the story telling, the conservation message, the you know, recruitment
46:04
Speaker 1: and participation. I think those are all good things. But
46:07
Speaker 1: when I talk about the good and the bad and
46:08
Speaker 1: the ugly about TV, it's like, well, there's there's other
46:11
Speaker 1: sides of it that you know, people don't care for.
46:13
Speaker 1: If you're a Western big game hunter, you don't like
46:17
Speaker 1: to see some of the things that you know your
46:19
Speaker 1: your colleagues might do and and a big part of
46:22
Speaker 1: the market. Does you know there's there's people who don't
46:25
Speaker 1: like predator hunting, you know, or just you know it's
46:28
Speaker 1: not for or Africa hunting. You know, there's that's very polarizing. Um,
46:32
Speaker 1: you know, part of our programmatic mix. UM. So in general,
46:38
Speaker 1: I think it's good, but I thought it'd be something
46:40
Speaker 1: worthy of discussing because you know, there are there are
46:43
Speaker 1: those who who who don't think it is that this
46:45
Speaker 1: is um, this is a personal sport, and that it
46:49
Speaker 1: doesn't belong on TV. I think it's done a lot
46:52
Speaker 1: to help promote hunting, and when it's done properly, it's
46:55
Speaker 1: a very good thing. Yeah, if I was the imagine,
46:58
Speaker 1: like if I was to think of the different criticisms
47:02
Speaker 1: I hear, I think that that that's kind of that's
47:06
Speaker 1: a big one. It's just that that Thomas mckiner, he
47:11
Speaker 1: didn't use it in this in this context, but like
47:14
Speaker 1: pissing in the cathedral, you know that it's like this,
47:18
Speaker 1: it's this very personal thing. You're in the out of doors,
47:22
Speaker 1: you're out you know you're in the outdoors because you're
47:26
Speaker 1: someone asked you where why some people say out of
47:28
Speaker 1: doors and outdoors. When I grew up as a magazine
47:30
Speaker 1: Michigan out of doors, I just got in my head
47:32
Speaker 1: out of doors. When you're in the outdoors in nature,
47:35
Speaker 1: it's like this personal experience you're having and some people
47:42
Speaker 1: feel that too film it is, to film it and
47:47
Speaker 1: put it out there for distribution, it's kind of like sacrilegious.
47:51
Speaker 1: There's like the whole point of it is that it's
47:54
Speaker 1: private and self contained and it's something that you live
47:57
Speaker 1: and experience in your own space and in your own head.
48:00
Speaker 1: To take that and package it for consumption and put
48:04
Speaker 1: like a personality behind it, it just it strikes him
48:08
Speaker 1: as being a little bit offensive. And I think that
48:12
Speaker 1: of the other things, like the other criticism, I'll have
48:15
Speaker 1: people come and be like, oh, it's you know, it's
48:16
Speaker 1: all an infomercial, right, And I think you can kind
48:19
Speaker 1: of explain that by talking about what the model of
48:23
Speaker 1: it is, like, like how it works, how it's funded.
48:25
Speaker 1: But the and I don't even really pay attention to
48:27
Speaker 1: that one. But the one that does strike me is
48:29
Speaker 1: that one where it's just like it's sacrilegious. And I
48:32
Speaker 1: think that, uh, the reason that speaks me a little
48:34
Speaker 1: bit is because it is something that, um, it is
48:38
Speaker 1: something that that I do like that part of me
48:42
Speaker 1: feels right like there there's there's like push and pull
48:45
Speaker 1: inside everyone's head. And I think even my own brothers
48:48
Speaker 1: who I grew up hunting and fishing with and there
48:50
Speaker 1: are two of the most dedicated hunters and fishermen that
48:54
Speaker 1: I know. Uh, they just out of the box, were
48:57
Speaker 1: deeply suspicious of my involvement in doing outdoor television writing
49:07
Speaker 1: about it. Supportive of that, right, they felt that aesthetically,
49:13
Speaker 1: that's like okay, but then look at the deep history
49:15
Speaker 1: of it, like people have been writing about it since
49:18
Speaker 1: people were writing, so there's like there's a trajectory there,
49:21
Speaker 1: there's like a thing that's like for hundred plus years
49:25
Speaker 1: more well, I mean, the it's kind of funny how
49:28
Speaker 1: deep it goes because if you go back and look
49:30
Speaker 1: at the oldest known representational art in Europe is people
49:37
Speaker 1: while aren't right writing the story of their hunt on
49:40
Speaker 1: a cave wall. So it's something that it's like acceptable
49:44
Speaker 1: because there's something very personal and intimate about writing. But
49:47
Speaker 1: to them it was kind of like you're gonna do
49:50
Speaker 1: what all right, film it and then put out your
49:55
Speaker 1: innermost personal experiences out for like why would they want to? Why?
50:00
Speaker 1: You know, just a suspicion man. And I haven't fully
50:03
Speaker 1: and I haven't fully I've never really found like a
50:05
Speaker 1: really great way of countering I haven't found like a
50:12
Speaker 1: great way of countering the argument. There's something people say
50:15
Speaker 1: and I'm I always look forward to him saying it
50:18
Speaker 1: because you can you can tear their argument apart so
50:20
Speaker 1: easy that it's almost fun. But that one is not
50:23
Speaker 1: one I really look forward to taking now because I
50:25
Speaker 1: have to kind of say, like, if you feel that way,
50:27
Speaker 1: I'm probably not going to change your opinion about it.
50:29
Speaker 1: I'd like, I'd like if you watch the show, but
50:32
Speaker 1: in your show could change that person's opinion. But there
50:35
Speaker 1: are others and they're they're not wrong for it. That
50:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't because there it's more of a character driven hunting show,
50:41
Speaker 1: and it is kind of a hey, you know, look
50:43
Speaker 1: at me. Michael wat L is a very passionate U
50:45
Speaker 1: you know, hunting that, but he's a character. People watch
50:48
Speaker 1: him because they're they're curious about, you know, what he's
50:51
Speaker 1: gonna say and how how he acts in that. Very
50:53
Speaker 1: different than um you know, UM Sportsman's channel is we've
50:58
Speaker 1: differentiated the networks a little bit. Our outdoor channel is
51:01
Speaker 1: more UM general entertainment talent driven type content, where Sportsmen,
51:06
Speaker 1: because a lot of our magazines have driven that content,
51:09
Speaker 1: is more editorial style. It's less about the talent and
51:13
Speaker 1: more about the the art, and so our our viewers
51:16
Speaker 1: are different that way. And interestingly enough, UM, I remember
51:21
Speaker 1: that the exact number, but it's probably around like of
51:25
Speaker 1: our magazine readers actually watch the network the TV because
51:30
Speaker 1: it's a different it's just a different type of consumer.
51:33
Speaker 1: If I'm going to read UM Guns and Ammo, it's
51:37
Speaker 1: because I'm interested in guns and AMMO and I'm gonna
51:40
Speaker 1: go I want to go deep. If I'm going to
51:42
Speaker 1: watch um The gun Father on Outdoor Channel, it's because
51:47
Speaker 1: I want to be generally entertained. It's not because necessarima
51:50
Speaker 1: firem enthusiasts. So so when someone says, you know, I
51:53
Speaker 1: think it's a very personal thing, they're right. For them,
51:56
Speaker 1: it is, But for millions of others it's not. It's
51:59
Speaker 1: it's inspiration all they're they're learning. As you're gonna say,
52:03
Speaker 1: it's it's very hard to generalize too. And we have
52:05
Speaker 1: two hundred different producers and a lot of different shows,
52:08
Speaker 1: so you know, I could tell you that, yeah, Um,
52:11
Speaker 1: your show is is very personal for people, and they
52:14
Speaker 1: you know, they whereas some of the others, you know,
52:17
Speaker 1: not so much. It's just about that hunt and and
52:20
Speaker 1: huge audiences like those shows too, So there's no right
52:23
Speaker 1: or wrong answer either. No, the aspirational stuff is big
52:26
Speaker 1: because we get so many notes from people who watch
52:32
Speaker 1: the show. I'm sure, oh, show any show and then
52:36
Speaker 1: and then say that like say to themselves, I'm going
52:39
Speaker 1: to go do that, right, which is cool to hear
52:42
Speaker 1: about um, and and it's like it's nice to know
52:45
Speaker 1: that that there's that inspiring aspect of right and as
52:49
Speaker 1: in everything, there's also flips side of that where you're like, man,
52:52
Speaker 1: so tags just got even a little bit harder to draw.
52:56
Speaker 1: We used to get we get and Montana's are unique
53:00
Speaker 1: and so Wardens would generate a lot of feedback. And
53:03
Speaker 1: I remember, I've probably saved him. I should send you
53:06
Speaker 1: some of them. Uh. You know, the locals in Montana
53:09
Speaker 1: did not like the Warden show because you're showing people
53:13
Speaker 1: where we you know, all of our great hunting. We
53:15
Speaker 1: don't like non residents. Keep them out of here. You
53:18
Speaker 1: don't pay taxes in Montana. You shouldn't be hunting here
53:20
Speaker 1: as I really, I mean, so, um, we got some
53:23
Speaker 1: pretty good gredging tourist state. I've always said, yeah it is.
53:28
Speaker 1: We've had interesting, interesting experiences there too, just trying to
53:32
Speaker 1: operate a show for um six years in Montana. I
53:35
Speaker 1: mean there there was resistance, yeah, from the general population,
53:39
Speaker 1: and there's also people who who absolutely loved it, but
53:44
Speaker 1: not everybody. Ye, A lot of people hate any kind
53:46
Speaker 1: of incursion into their own thing. We try to be
53:48
Speaker 1: really respectful, uh, in any kind of public land situation,
53:54
Speaker 1: which is the bulk of ours. Yeah, the bulk of
53:56
Speaker 1: ourself is filmed on public land, and we have certain
54:00
Speaker 1: like lines we don't cross in terms of not blowing
54:06
Speaker 1: a spot out. But that criticism is extended even like
54:09
Speaker 1: that kind of thing is extended way outside of just
54:14
Speaker 1: hunting television or fishing television. Because in the ski world,
54:18
Speaker 1: the surf world, I'm sure probably in the mountain biking thing.
54:22
Speaker 1: It's like there's people who feel passionate and do it.
54:25
Speaker 1: They look at representations of it like public outputting. They're
54:28
Speaker 1: already suspicious of public output people putting the experience out
54:31
Speaker 1: for public asumption, and the first thing that's gonna jump
54:34
Speaker 1: in their mind is you're gonna send the masses to
54:37
Speaker 1: my spot. And when it comes to things like a
54:41
Speaker 1: particular break to a surfer or a particular meadow, that's
54:47
Speaker 1: real man. It's like people are talking about like, oh,
54:50
Speaker 1: you're gonna ruin you know, tourism is gonna ruin Paris. Right,
54:54
Speaker 1: You're talking about like millions of people and you're adding
54:57
Speaker 1: some number more and it's hard to track it. But
54:59
Speaker 1: if you've got like a little meadow, it's easily identified.
55:02
Speaker 1: Easily identified. One dude ruins it. So get this. So
55:05
Speaker 1: coming off of I cast my wife and I did
55:07
Speaker 1: some fishing to two short stories from their one Mark Davis,
55:11
Speaker 1: who does Penn's Big Water Adventures, Big Salt Water, great show,
55:15
Speaker 1: great character, Penn pen reels, Yeah, pen reel so um
55:18
Speaker 1: my and Mark goes all over the world fishing and
55:21
Speaker 1: he had somebody come up to him at the show
55:23
Speaker 1: and they said, you know you gotta come down here.
55:24
Speaker 1: We got red fish and Mars like do you like you?
55:27
Speaker 1: And guy was just selling him on the quality of
55:29
Speaker 1: the fishery and the giant fish and how amazing it was.
55:32
Speaker 1: Mars like, do you do you like your fisher You
55:34
Speaker 1: like how it does? Then I'm not going to go
55:36
Speaker 1: there because if he goes there, everybody else will go there.
55:40
Speaker 1: Not to show, but like people will show up and
55:42
Speaker 1: it can have a significant impact on the fishery. And
55:45
Speaker 1: the example I'll give you is my wife and I
55:48
Speaker 1: fished with Carter Andrews. After I cast and we um,
55:52
Speaker 1: we can we found these red ant chovies, these giants
55:55
Speaker 1: schools a red ant chovies really cool and like the
55:57
Speaker 1: size of a football field, and there was ar been
56:00
Speaker 1: rolling in them, and um, we've we did a Facebook
56:05
Speaker 1: live event and I caught a tarp in the next
56:08
Speaker 1: day in that in that um And apparently two or
56:11
Speaker 1: three days later, there's like nine boats off this area
56:15
Speaker 1: because people recognize the bridge or whatever. We probably they
56:18
Speaker 1: knew we were off the Virile Virile beach and it's like,
56:21
Speaker 1: you know, that was just some minor social media exposure
56:24
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's like, I mean I
56:26
Speaker 1: was gone already, but they had continued fishing, and they're like, yeah,
56:29
Speaker 1: when they showed up, there were already three boats on it.
56:31
Speaker 1: Two other boats came in. The word is out, yeah,
56:34
Speaker 1: but but here's but that's the funny. That's the kind
56:36
Speaker 1: of the point I'll make it too, is the word
56:38
Speaker 1: there's three people right, like that is that's the tipping point, right,
56:44
Speaker 1: and but then that that's that spot is like done.
56:46
Speaker 1: It I mean there's too much pressure now and it's
56:48
Speaker 1: like everything moves off. But on a on a more
56:50
Speaker 1: positive note though, um, there's when you go to a
56:54
Speaker 1: tackle shop. It's probably the same in Montana where you
56:57
Speaker 1: go to a fly shop, but the word gets out,
57:00
Speaker 1: like you know, whopper ploppers is a is a top
57:03
Speaker 1: water bait and you can't find him around here because
57:06
Speaker 1: somebody started catching fish on whopper poppers And now all
57:09
Speaker 1: the stores are sold out. So you'll go in across
57:12
Speaker 1: the country and like rapp Las headquartered here in Minneapolis, um,
57:16
Speaker 1: and they sell countdowns use like just original floating rapplers,
57:20
Speaker 1: and in one store they can't keep them in stock,
57:23
Speaker 1: and then another story they can't sell them because it's
57:26
Speaker 1: just some guy locally had success on it. And people
57:29
Speaker 1: just start hearing what and the and the tackle guys
57:31
Speaker 1: starts you know there there starts moving him. So as
57:35
Speaker 1: a community we are we do a lot of word
57:37
Speaker 1: of mouth, I think, So you right, it has a
57:39
Speaker 1: downside where you can you can really have an impact.
57:43
Speaker 1: The criticism so high. They're like if you do something
57:46
Speaker 1: like if if a person in the outdoor media does
57:50
Speaker 1: something where you reveal that people are pissed. But then
57:53
Speaker 1: if you go to any you know, you go to
57:55
Speaker 1: any mountain town, right, and you go with a local
57:58
Speaker 1: fly shop, they put a say in which board what
58:00
Speaker 1: do you call a little things like that. I love
58:02
Speaker 1: that they put like a little board out on the
58:04
Speaker 1: sidewalk that says where the bite is and what they're
58:07
Speaker 1: biting on. I think that you get rock Creek squalles.
58:10
Speaker 1: I think it's brilliant because exactly, you know, if you're
58:12
Speaker 1: a retailer, you you need people to have success, you know, so,
58:16
Speaker 1: and that's that's what like, But no one goes and
58:18
Speaker 1: kicks the door. Maybe the dude, do people get pissed
58:19
Speaker 1: at flashops were sending everybody where the hot bite is. Yeah,
58:24
Speaker 1: but at the same time big information to I think
58:27
Speaker 1: also a creek. It's like, Okay, I know this guy
58:31
Speaker 1: is telling me this. Probably just told the last people
58:34
Speaker 1: that we We were over in the Henry's Fork this year.
58:38
Speaker 1: UM ran over there to uh fish, you know, the
58:42
Speaker 1: salmon flies were coming off on the Henry's Fork and uh,
58:46
Speaker 1: some of the guys I was with there like we
58:48
Speaker 1: gotta go int the fly shop and I gotta pick
58:50
Speaker 1: up a few things. I said, Okay, no matter what,
58:54
Speaker 1: this stretch that I want to fish is what we're
58:56
Speaker 1: gonna fish, and that's what your intell like, I do
59:00
Speaker 1: not care what these guys think, So of course we
59:05
Speaker 1: end up fishing the stretch that the guys at the
59:08
Speaker 1: fly shop told us to fish, and I was just
59:12
Speaker 1: in a bad mood the whole time we get down there.
59:15
Speaker 1: There's more trailers at the put in than I've ever seen.
59:20
Speaker 1: The people running shuttles on the river have like two
59:26
Speaker 1: fifteen passenger vans out of shuttle shuttle drivers because they're
59:30
Speaker 1: moving more boats and trailers on the stretch than they
59:32
Speaker 1: ever have. And I'm like, folks, this is this is
59:35
Speaker 1: what a sucker looks like. That's unique to fly fish
59:38
Speaker 1: because bass fishermen lie. I mean, they'll come off the
59:40
Speaker 1: water and do you what'd you catch your fish on? Oh?
59:43
Speaker 1: You know, we were fishing crank bits and deep weel lines,
59:46
Speaker 1: and of course they're fishing like worms on docks. They'll
59:48
Speaker 1: lie about everything, but the fly shops will, you know,
59:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if they embellish, but I appreciate it
59:54
Speaker 1: when they do. As a but I can see how
59:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna You're gonna stack that river up in that
59:58
Speaker 1: section because they're telling everybody. I was standing there with
1:00:01
Speaker 1: a body mine one time years ago and we had
1:00:05
Speaker 1: just skinned to bear. It was spring, spring season and
1:00:11
Speaker 1: we're coming out a logging road and a guy pulls
1:00:14
Speaker 1: up and he looks at my buddies pants and says,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: to him, looks like someone got one. And he still
1:00:20
Speaker 1: looked some straight in the face as well, it's just
1:00:22
Speaker 1: some old rabbit blood, you know. And it's like awkward
1:00:26
Speaker 1: because everyone knows that it's just not true. And it
1:00:30
Speaker 1: was kind of like more it was almost more painful
1:00:33
Speaker 1: to me than if he had just said Like I
1:00:35
Speaker 1: would have been irritated if he had said it, but
1:00:37
Speaker 1: it was more painful to me to have a standing lie, right,
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Like I have a difficult time like if someone says, hey,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: how is the fishing, um, I find I find myself
1:00:51
Speaker 1: trying to not lie. But then you know, but oh
1:00:55
Speaker 1: it's okay, I got a couple, right, I can't just
1:00:59
Speaker 1: be like nothing. One factor was something of it, Yeah,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: because yeah, you wind up trying to be like not
1:01:08
Speaker 1: a horrible person, but then also you want to serve
1:01:11
Speaker 1: your own purposes a little bit. We're so fortunate Minnesota.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: Like there bass fishing. If you like catching bass, I
1:01:18
Speaker 1: mean that they that saying is I think God put
1:01:23
Speaker 1: bass on the earth so everyone could catch a fish,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: and muskies to separate the men from the boys. So
1:01:29
Speaker 1: we're gonna go muskie fishing tonight, but if we want,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: we catch bass. And you can catch bass on every lake, yeah, exactly,
1:01:35
Speaker 1: every single well, every lake in Minnesota has bass in it.
1:01:39
Speaker 1: And they're they're not that smart, and they're they're fun.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: And so I'm all, I'm all about participation, growing participation,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: taking kids out, taking friends out. I love to take
1:01:50
Speaker 1: them hunting and fishing. So I'm I'm an open book
1:01:52
Speaker 1: when it comes to and I also like on my
1:01:54
Speaker 1: social media, I'll post when I don't have success because
1:01:56
Speaker 1: otherwise people think, well, you know that I only they
1:01:59
Speaker 1: don't underst and that we don't always go out and
1:02:02
Speaker 1: and and catch tons of fish. Um. I've been able
1:02:05
Speaker 1: to fish by myself more this. I've got three young boys,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: so it's normally I'm not ever by myself between friends, family,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: and work. But when I go on my own, I'll
1:02:14
Speaker 1: go and I'll explore new water or new techniques and
1:02:17
Speaker 1: I won't have success. But you know, we're gonna fish
1:02:20
Speaker 1: a spot tonight that I found when I was looking
1:02:22
Speaker 1: for small moth beeds and I ended up finding a
1:02:26
Speaker 1: giant muskie area. So what do you call the area?
1:02:30
Speaker 1: This was just a weed bed, so it was and
1:02:32
Speaker 1: it was the water was crystal clear, and I was
1:02:34
Speaker 1: I just kind of drifted over and I looked down
1:02:36
Speaker 1: and it looked like a railroad tie laying on the bottom.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: And yeah, well that's how I found that one. But
1:02:42
Speaker 1: you'll see a lot of them. And in the summer
1:02:45
Speaker 1: when the water is really hot. We don't generally target
1:02:47
Speaker 1: them when the water attempts are way high, right, and uh,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: but they'll they'll they'll be kind of lethargic. They'll be
1:02:53
Speaker 1: up in shallow water, just kind of sunning. You can.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: You can boat up to them and poke them with
1:02:56
Speaker 1: your rod and they'll swim off, but they won't eat.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: Then you know they're not they're not catchable. They're just
1:03:03
Speaker 1: not in that kind of pattern. I was kind of Uh.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: I went fishing with Matt Elliott from bench Man. You
1:03:09
Speaker 1: have to like, but he's a yeah, yeah. He served
1:03:12
Speaker 1: Matt Elliott his uh first ever bass sandwich. Oh nice,
1:03:17
Speaker 1: A hobby what do you call it? An amateur competition
1:03:21
Speaker 1: bass fisherman who had never eating a small mouth sandwich.
1:03:25
Speaker 1: He had a little small tear rolling down his cheek.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, he's just wiping that tuter sauce off
1:03:32
Speaker 1: and he didn't want his wife to realize that they
1:03:35
Speaker 1: were good. But some of those the rigs, you know,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: so I was super asking a bunch of questions, and
1:03:41
Speaker 1: I never get a fish with that stuff going through.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: She drop shot. That is exactly what I was going on.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: There are some rigs that these bass guys tie up
1:03:54
Speaker 1: that I just wouldn't fish with, purely for the fact
1:03:58
Speaker 1: because I'd be like, well, of horse, you're gonna catch
1:04:01
Speaker 1: fish with it? Like, of course that isn't that the goal? Yeah,
1:04:06
Speaker 1: but if if there's a foregone conclusion, I'm just not
1:04:10
Speaker 1: that into it. Musty things super appealing because but the
1:04:14
Speaker 1: drop shot thing, I'm like, well, when years ago when
1:04:18
Speaker 1: I started hearing I do want to get back to
1:04:20
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. But years ago, when I started
1:04:22
Speaker 1: hearing people say drop shotting, I was picturing I don't
1:04:26
Speaker 1: know what else picturing. I was pictured some I just
1:04:30
Speaker 1: heard it. I thought it must be some elaborate right,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: eighteen knots and you know, crazy things running off here
1:04:38
Speaker 1: and there or whatever. And then when I saw them, like,
1:04:41
Speaker 1: that's what drop shotting is. But my man, does that
1:04:43
Speaker 1: work good? Oh my god? How can it not? I mean,
1:04:46
Speaker 1: I guess that's yeah, But yeah, I guess I would
1:04:49
Speaker 1: skew more towards the musky side of things because I
1:04:51
Speaker 1: want want experience, you want casts. Yeah, that's it's not
1:04:58
Speaker 1: for everyone, So that it is. You have to enjoy
1:05:00
Speaker 1: the journey and everything else around it, just like it's
1:05:03
Speaker 1: a difference between gun hunting and bow hunting. You know,
1:05:06
Speaker 1: the success rates not that high, but you still do
1:05:09
Speaker 1: it because you're you're you're passionate about it and it's
1:05:12
Speaker 1: not always about that kill. It's about the big picture
1:05:15
Speaker 1: and being outdoors gets me more days in the woods.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: So in uh, in outdoor TV and hunting TV, are
1:05:26
Speaker 1: there lines that cannot be crossed? Surely if a producer
1:05:29
Speaker 1: turned into thing where he was hunting panda bears, you
1:05:32
Speaker 1: guys would be like, you know what, um, I'm not
1:05:36
Speaker 1: gonna be running in that episode. We have we have
1:05:40
Speaker 1: very strict guidelines and we have a quality control team
1:05:43
Speaker 1: that that enforces those and the producers are aware of those.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: If you're an independent producer, you don't want to spend
1:05:48
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars on something that's not going to make
1:05:51
Speaker 1: it to air. So so it's pretty buttoned up, I
1:05:55
Speaker 1: would say, but yeah, we have we have lines, you know,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: we we have we want to protect the sport, and
1:06:02
Speaker 1: so there's things in their safety issues. You know, we
1:06:04
Speaker 1: don't want to show things that are unethical or unsafe.
1:06:08
Speaker 1: We don't allow blue sky shots. So you enforce ethics, yes,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: like beyond law, yes, we I mean, our our guidelines
1:06:16
Speaker 1: say you need to follow the laws, and then you
1:06:19
Speaker 1: also need to follow up some of the general safety.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: It's not a you know, obviously anything that's illegal is
1:06:24
Speaker 1: is not allowed on you know, you have to follow
1:06:27
Speaker 1: all game laws and and and and if there's violations,
1:06:30
Speaker 1: we are very strict and how we enforce those. Talk
1:06:35
Speaker 1: about some of the things that have happened recently with
1:06:36
Speaker 1: hosts getting in uh, with hosts getting in the hot water.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: I can think of three off top of my head. Yeah, well,
1:06:42
Speaker 1: in the in the last three, yeah, I mean, our
1:06:45
Speaker 1: actions were pretty swift and pretty consistent. We've do you
1:06:47
Speaker 1: mind laying out the story of what happened, Um, and
1:06:50
Speaker 1: just broad brushstrokes in um like in the case of
1:06:55
Speaker 1: Chris Brackett for Fear No Evil. UM, Yeah, you know
1:06:59
Speaker 1: it's uh. First of all, I told you that, you know,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: I have a lot of respect for the people that
1:07:05
Speaker 1: I work with in these producers, and Chris was one
1:07:08
Speaker 1: of them. Because Chris started with nothing. He was a postman,
1:07:12
Speaker 1: and he had a dream and he had a passion
1:07:13
Speaker 1: and he I saw a video that Chris sent to
1:07:17
Speaker 1: Pat Reeve and it was essentially a demo and said, hey, Pat,
1:07:20
Speaker 1: I love what you do at Hunter specially I want
1:07:22
Speaker 1: to get into this space. And you know, so to
1:07:26
Speaker 1: see what happened was disappointing in a couple of because
1:07:32
Speaker 1: the incident that happened in Indiana happened it's like five
1:07:35
Speaker 1: years ago now a right, so that the where where
1:07:38
Speaker 1: he shot two dear um and you know, you put
1:07:42
Speaker 1: himself had ta had a take for one shot one,
1:07:45
Speaker 1: you know, and there's there's questions around that too because
1:07:47
Speaker 1: he had a camera guy with him and and people
1:07:50
Speaker 1: don't know the whole story. You know, they did tag
1:07:53
Speaker 1: the first dear that that that he shot, and you know,
1:07:56
Speaker 1: so there's there's nothing there, there's no really don't know
1:08:00
Speaker 1: the details of the story. I'm not I'm not like
1:08:02
Speaker 1: being coy. Yeah, I really don't know the details of
1:08:05
Speaker 1: the story. And what what the only thing people know
1:08:07
Speaker 1: is from what they saw in the video is that,
1:08:09
Speaker 1: you know, a deer came out and he shot the deer,
1:08:12
Speaker 1: and then another one came out and he shot that one,
1:08:14
Speaker 1: and you know, and he says he wasn't sure he
1:08:17
Speaker 1: shot this first one, and there's and it's all speculation
1:08:21
Speaker 1: on that. So so yes, you know, to take you
1:08:24
Speaker 1: through that. So when I heard I saw the video
1:08:26
Speaker 1: and that, you know, I was disappointed. I mean, you know,
1:08:29
Speaker 1: disappointed on a human level. And I was. I was
1:08:32
Speaker 1: you know, Chris Head has evolved and had already evolved.
1:08:35
Speaker 1: He's a changed man from what he was four years ago.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: And people think that, you know, he went through this
1:08:40
Speaker 1: and then found God, and Chris was actually had had
1:08:43
Speaker 1: already transformed his faith life. But he's human. We're all human.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: So he made a mistake. And then another video comes
1:08:49
Speaker 1: up about him, you know, be rating a camera guy
1:08:53
Speaker 1: and it's like I've I've been there before. I've never
1:08:56
Speaker 1: never be rated a camera guy like that. But you know,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: Chris put a lot of pressure on himself back four
1:09:01
Speaker 1: years ago when he made that second shot to try
1:09:04
Speaker 1: to produce something, you know, to and and he made
1:09:07
Speaker 1: a mistake and he's paid a pretty significant price for it.
1:09:10
Speaker 1: I mean, he we removed that we find out about it,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: you know there um um, there's some questions that we
1:09:17
Speaker 1: had to do a little bit of research and you know,
1:09:19
Speaker 1: and talk to Chris and talked to others about it,
1:09:21
Speaker 1: but we pulled the show immediately. Decision No, it's you know,
1:09:26
Speaker 1: we have guidelines. It was tough on a human level
1:09:29
Speaker 1: because you know, I care for my producers, I care
1:09:31
Speaker 1: for Chris, and I've felt bad for him, and I
1:09:34
Speaker 1: don't want to you know, I don't want to pull
1:09:35
Speaker 1: the rug out. This is his career, this is what
1:09:37
Speaker 1: he's built up. But um so um yeah. And then
1:09:42
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, yeah, with the show just you know,
1:09:45
Speaker 1: he lost some sponsored support. And and Chris is a guy.
1:09:48
Speaker 1: He's he's a he's a he's got a great heart.
1:09:50
Speaker 1: You know, I've had him at my home with my
1:09:53
Speaker 1: kids and he's great with my kids and that, and
1:09:55
Speaker 1: he made a mistake and it and it cost him.
1:09:58
Speaker 1: I think it costs more than than it probably should have.
1:10:01
Speaker 1: But if then if he was a private individual, yeah,
1:10:04
Speaker 1: oh yeah, absolutely private individual, this would have been. First
1:10:08
Speaker 1: of all, he's he's never been charged with anything, so
1:10:10
Speaker 1: he he just lost his career. He didn't, he doesn't
1:10:13
Speaker 1: get a ticket. He hasn't. There's nothing has become of it,
1:10:17
Speaker 1: and nothing probably will other than he's lost his livelihood
1:10:21
Speaker 1: as a TV host. And it's interested in the three
1:10:24
Speaker 1: cases that I'm thinking of, which, uh, the three cases
1:10:31
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of where we're hunting show personality has been
1:10:33
Speaker 1: in trouble, have been in trouble around these issues of
1:10:35
Speaker 1: shooting something and then shooting something else. I think the
1:10:42
Speaker 1: thing you hear about it, I think you hear about
1:10:46
Speaker 1: the people fear is people are like, oh, being in
1:10:48
Speaker 1: that situation where you're this you know, hunting celebrity, which
1:10:52
Speaker 1: is a term people hate. Right, There's this hunting celebrity
1:10:56
Speaker 1: and they're under such pressure to um, they're under such
1:11:01
Speaker 1: pressure to like get that big buck in order to
1:11:05
Speaker 1: become more famous, that they're putting these situations where they
1:11:09
Speaker 1: have poor judgment because they're trying to service business, right,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: which would sort of imply that that violations and getting
1:11:20
Speaker 1: in trouble is sort of just like only happens in
1:11:24
Speaker 1: out door TV, which we all know that it certainly doesn't.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of guys are getting a lot
1:11:30
Speaker 1: of trouble all the time who are not putting it out.
1:11:32
Speaker 1: But it's the thing I think that people feel. Another
1:11:35
Speaker 1: thing I think people feel from the other side is
1:11:37
Speaker 1: um people like to make examples of people, you know,
1:11:44
Speaker 1: so when someone gets in trouble for something like that,
1:11:48
Speaker 1: you know, especially who's in the public eye they get
1:11:50
Speaker 1: in troubled or something like that, it gets quickly amplified
1:11:55
Speaker 1: where people are very ready. And and chriss As he
1:12:01
Speaker 1: had a polarizing brand. You loved him or you didn't.
1:12:04
Speaker 1: You know, he had his catch line of buoya when
1:12:07
Speaker 1: you shoot a deer, very passionate about it. You either
1:12:10
Speaker 1: loved it or you didn't. And uh, for every viewer feedback,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: I got people saying they didn't like Chris Brackett, I
1:12:16
Speaker 1: got ten that said they loved him. You know, so
1:12:19
Speaker 1: because people found a defensive that kind of like like
1:12:21
Speaker 1: they just didn't like, you know, they didn't want they
1:12:23
Speaker 1: didn't connect with them. And so so that you know,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: you get the keyboard warriors, and you know they they'll
1:12:28
Speaker 1: go off on him. So so when that incident happened,
1:12:31
Speaker 1: it essentially made all of his detractors right. They kept
1:12:34
Speaker 1: and they came out and and I would tell you it, um,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: it was disappointing. I love this industry. I love the
1:12:41
Speaker 1: hunting industry, the fishing industry and that, but we are
1:12:44
Speaker 1: fast to consume each other when something like that happens.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: And and there were people that seemed to take pleasure
1:12:51
Speaker 1: out of taking him down, and that was heartbreaking. I
1:12:54
Speaker 1: was looking at the thing the other day involved in
1:12:56
Speaker 1: an acquaintance of mine where something no one knows, something
1:13:00
Speaker 1: may or may not have happened. I didn't really looked
1:13:03
Speaker 1: into it yet, but I've heard not a television person,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: just a person that maybe got sideways with law a
1:13:09
Speaker 1: little bit. And man, there's a lot of people rooting
1:13:12
Speaker 1: that he did, hoping that he did within the industry,
1:13:16
Speaker 1: like just people aware, just like the the cannibalization. And
1:13:20
Speaker 1: I think that, but I think in these case, in
1:13:22
Speaker 1: some of these cases where it would be like it'd
1:13:25
Speaker 1: be interesting because there's this other case. Are you will
1:13:28
Speaker 1: are you willing to talk about an instance that involves
1:13:31
Speaker 1: an individual whose initials are t v UM on on
1:13:38
Speaker 1: our network. Um, I don't know who it is, right,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we talk about Sorry, I thought you were
1:13:49
Speaker 1: talking currents. So that's a old one. But it's just
1:13:52
Speaker 1: an interesting case study, right in something that winds up.
1:13:57
Speaker 1: Let's just talk in general terms because I don't know
1:14:00
Speaker 1: what my limitations out in that situation. So in general terms,
1:14:04
Speaker 1: it was an someone made, a person made an accident, Okay,
1:14:09
Speaker 1: a person had a what I from having done a
1:14:12
Speaker 1: lot of hunting, a thing that I regard to be
1:14:15
Speaker 1: something that could happen to anyone, meaning you, let's just
1:14:21
Speaker 1: set different situations where you see a deer, there's a
1:14:26
Speaker 1: buck standing there, and you shoot, but you go over
1:14:28
Speaker 1: there's two bucks or two dear, because there's one behind
1:14:32
Speaker 1: it that you were bedded down up a little rise
1:14:34
Speaker 1: that you were unaware of. That could happen to anyone, right,
1:14:37
Speaker 1: Or a situation being that here's a buck, you shoot,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: the buck goes down. Also in the buck stands back
1:14:43
Speaker 1: up again, doing the right thing to shoot again, but
1:14:47
Speaker 1: you go over in his two bucks. Now, in those cases,
1:14:51
Speaker 1: even if you are a hunting celebrity, I think in
1:14:56
Speaker 1: those cases, were you to self report r I Field.
1:15:00
Speaker 1: You probably wouldn't lose your show. No, you probably wouldn't
1:15:03
Speaker 1: get skewered. You might even get rewarded is really the
1:15:08
Speaker 1: wrong term. But people might recognize the step you took
1:15:13
Speaker 1: right and decide not to skier you and try to
1:15:19
Speaker 1: destroy you. We've had positive cases where that happened. You know,
1:15:22
Speaker 1: Pigman had an incident in in Oklahoma. Um. You know,
1:15:26
Speaker 1: first of game laws are complicated, right, and I think
1:15:28
Speaker 1: he was in an area, UM, I don't remember the specifics,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: but you know he handed up I think shooting a
1:15:34
Speaker 1: hand turkey or something, and and he wasn't in a unit.
1:15:36
Speaker 1: He had to take hit. He had everything, he thought
1:15:39
Speaker 1: he had everything right, and he didn't. He owned up
1:15:41
Speaker 1: to it. He paid a small fine. It was it
1:15:44
Speaker 1: was an honest mistake. Whereas you know, in some of
1:15:47
Speaker 1: these cases you're talking about, the cover up is always
1:15:50
Speaker 1: worse than worse than the crime. And it's something I learned.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: You know, I've never had an inner in any kind
1:15:55
Speaker 1: of like that with with a warden, but filming wardens
1:15:58
Speaker 1: for six or seven years, you always gotta you gotta
1:16:02
Speaker 1: the The only answer is to come clean fast and completely.
1:16:06
Speaker 1: And that's your because these wardens are not out to
1:16:09
Speaker 1: get you. People make mistakes, they have a lot of
1:16:13
Speaker 1: latitude and what they can do. But if they know
1:16:16
Speaker 1: that you're being deceptive, You're You're done. There's no more sympathy.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: I mean you will, you will get whatever it is
1:16:23
Speaker 1: that you and they'll and the time they figure it out.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: So in some of these cases, um, um, yeah, you
1:16:32
Speaker 1: just have to own up to it because no, absolutely
1:16:35
Speaker 1: people make mistakes. But yes, if it's a case where
1:16:37
Speaker 1: you blatantly disregarded the law and wasted gain, you know
1:16:41
Speaker 1: that that's going to have deep and immediate ramificing. And
1:16:45
Speaker 1: that's what really seems like. Um, that's really seems like
1:16:50
Speaker 1: lead people into a very troubled path is the cover up.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: And and in that situation, you're making this kind of
1:16:58
Speaker 1: like quick decision. You're like, the was a chance if
1:17:02
Speaker 1: I just hide this right, covered up, there's a chance
1:17:05
Speaker 1: that nothing happens. The man is that seductive. But there's
1:17:10
Speaker 1: also the chance that everything that the world as I
1:17:14
Speaker 1: know it could end right. And by going the route
1:17:21
Speaker 1: of being like Mr Game warden, I made a mistake,
1:17:26
Speaker 1: there's gonna be there. There will be ramification, but total
1:17:30
Speaker 1: annihilation of oneself isn't probably in the mix. Now we
1:17:35
Speaker 1: have hun TV. Kurt Wells was in Canada years ago
1:17:39
Speaker 1: and I think a llegal moose was like fifty and
1:17:43
Speaker 1: he shot a moose and it was like forty nine
1:17:46
Speaker 1: and three quarters. I mean, you can't, you can't. And
1:17:50
Speaker 1: it was a good shot. I think it was a bowshot.
1:17:53
Speaker 1: He was like forty yards or something. And he self
1:17:56
Speaker 1: reported and um and paid a fine. It's an US mistake.
1:18:00
Speaker 1: It was, you know, he and the and the guide
1:18:02
Speaker 1: they judged it to be a legal ball and it
1:18:05
Speaker 1: wasn't same deal. You know, he could have he could
1:18:08
Speaker 1: have hid that, but no, he you know, did the
1:18:10
Speaker 1: right thing. Self reported, made that part of the story.
1:18:13
Speaker 1: He lost the trophy. I just I think it's made
1:18:16
Speaker 1: part of the story. Yeah, that's great. It was the story.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: You know, we gotta, we gotta. That's gotta be the story.
1:18:21
Speaker 1: We gotta. The story has to be do the right thing.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: And we actually in our guidelines, you know, you have
1:18:27
Speaker 1: to follow the law, but we we want to hold
1:18:28
Speaker 1: our host to a higher standard because we are being
1:18:31
Speaker 1: watched by everybody, and so you know, we always advised
1:18:35
Speaker 1: people don't don't you know, you know the rules, you
1:18:37
Speaker 1: need to follow them. You need to have license, you
1:18:39
Speaker 1: need to wear blaze orange. Where's blaze orange? Because right
1:18:43
Speaker 1: now law enforcement watches outdoor TV and they look for violations.
1:18:48
Speaker 1: We've had cases of that as well. We had award
1:18:52
Speaker 1: tell us what state we're in. We're The guy said, uh,
1:18:55
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need to be out of the
1:18:56
Speaker 1: field anymore. I got Facebook. Yeah I don't, so you
1:19:00
Speaker 1: know I was in Kentucky all right. The wardens said
1:19:04
Speaker 1: that Game Wars just you know, I'm sure partially joking,
1:19:08
Speaker 1: was like, I don't need to drive around anymore. I
1:19:10
Speaker 1: got Facebook. I had a uh you know Oregon. Uh,
1:19:14
Speaker 1: state troopers or game wardens, and some are supposed to
1:19:17
Speaker 1: be more game wardens than state troopers. But at a
1:19:21
Speaker 1: state trooper in eastern Oregon basically say that, Um, that's
1:19:28
Speaker 1: that's how he's made all all of his recent bus
1:19:32
Speaker 1: We're all through social media well and also just going
1:19:36
Speaker 1: to the local bar, I mean Montana. The wardens, they
1:19:39
Speaker 1: are successful. The most successful wardens are have very good
1:19:43
Speaker 1: local networks, and so because they know they've got fourner
1:19:46
Speaker 1: square miles are covering, they can't be everywhere, but they're
1:19:49
Speaker 1: sure here a lot because most guys who are poaching
1:19:52
Speaker 1: go to the bar and talk about it, and they're
1:19:55
Speaker 1: competitive to ye, and they have they have their own territories.
1:19:58
Speaker 1: That's what this guy was saying. And so a lot
1:20:01
Speaker 1: of the information that they get would be from other
1:20:04
Speaker 1: poachers being like, yeah, hey, I found this buck on
1:20:07
Speaker 1: the side of the road with the ted cut off.
1:20:08
Speaker 1: You're gonna do something about it. Got a pretty good,
1:20:11
Speaker 1: pretty good idea who it is. Yeah, it's like drug
1:20:15
Speaker 1: dealer shooting drug dealers exactly. Uh. I had another on
1:20:19
Speaker 1: that same trip, I think, Yeah, it's the same trip
1:20:22
Speaker 1: where the guy was saying, I don't need it, I
1:20:23
Speaker 1: have Facebook. Another thing that he's Another thing that he
1:20:27
Speaker 1: said to me that I thought was interesting is he
1:20:28
Speaker 1: doesn't like suppressors now um, and his argument against suppressors
1:20:37
Speaker 1: is the gun shot is a very important tool for him.
1:20:42
Speaker 1: And he was saying, as it gets when he's bow
1:20:45
Speaker 1: hunting and it starts getting close to rifle season, he
1:20:48
Speaker 1: can't finish a night in his tree stand because and
1:20:55
Speaker 1: he's like something about that, something about that shot, and
1:20:59
Speaker 1: he's done out was tree stand singing over and that
1:21:01
Speaker 1: you know, getting his truck going on that direction and uh,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: and that was his like criticism of suppressors. Yeah, I
1:21:07
Speaker 1: found it suppressing. It's I like it. You know, I
1:21:11
Speaker 1: followed a love and so I'm not trying to They're great, Yeah,
1:21:14
Speaker 1: they're great, but I never looked at it from them.
1:21:16
Speaker 1: I look at it from the perspective of quiet. Yeah,
1:21:18
Speaker 1: but he looked at it from perspective of he wants
1:21:21
Speaker 1: to know what's going on on the and you know
1:21:24
Speaker 1: they you can still hear them, but yes, you can't
1:21:26
Speaker 1: hear it like a like a right. It was. Yeah,
1:21:31
Speaker 1: it was the thing that I had. It was the
1:21:32
Speaker 1: thing I had considered when when weighing it in like
1:21:35
Speaker 1: all these different states and sort of like weighing what
1:21:36
Speaker 1: the relationship will be to two people being to use suppressors. Um.
1:21:40
Speaker 1: You know, I was in Scotland one time. They were shocked.
1:21:43
Speaker 1: They were shocked you'd be allowed to not use a suppressor. Yeah,
1:21:47
Speaker 1: because of what does the people's years. I was like, man,
1:21:50
Speaker 1: you guys use suppressors like you guys don't. It's very
1:21:55
Speaker 1: different now, um, free content, man, people go on YouTube
1:22:04
Speaker 1: watch hunting videos all day long and never pay for anything.
1:22:08
Speaker 1: What's the right what's that spell? Like, what's that when
1:22:14
Speaker 1: you look into your crystal ball? Um, what are the
1:22:18
Speaker 1: business challenges there? Or the or what do the what
1:22:21
Speaker 1: does it mean for the consumer? Yeah, I think there's
1:22:24
Speaker 1: room for for all of it. I think it's a
1:22:28
Speaker 1: different product. You know, I consume on my mobile device.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: I consume short videos whether they're you know, Facebook or
1:22:36
Speaker 1: YouTube or what have you. But it's very different than
1:22:39
Speaker 1: the television that I consume, whether it's hunting or not.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: So every producer you work with does short form content, right, Um,
1:22:46
Speaker 1: it depends. You know. We we went through this evolution
1:22:48
Speaker 1: where everybody had to invest in high definition equipment, you know,
1:22:52
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollar gear of gear because the
1:22:55
Speaker 1: idea was we're all going to have nine, you know,
1:22:58
Speaker 1: flat screens. And now viewers don't seem to care that much.
1:23:03
Speaker 1: They'll watch crappy video from a cell phone on a
1:23:06
Speaker 1: cell phone and and it's adequate. So I think that's interesting.
1:23:11
Speaker 1: So what year was it? When do you remember the
1:23:14
Speaker 1: timeline of one? Yeah, it was well, I can't remember
1:23:21
Speaker 1: where it was two thousand eight, two thousand seven to
1:23:25
Speaker 1: ten years ago. You know, the evolution people started moving
1:23:29
Speaker 1: towards HD you know, networks weren't carrying channels in HD.
1:23:33
Speaker 1: Now everything is pretty much an HD um. But the
1:23:38
Speaker 1: concept of free, I think free ultimately will um hurt
1:23:44
Speaker 1: the industry because if if it's not valuable, if the
1:23:49
Speaker 1: it will hurt on the high end of quality. Because
1:23:52
Speaker 1: if I'm Jim Shocky and people don't don't appreciate the
1:23:57
Speaker 1: quality that I'm delivering of my TV show because they
1:24:00
Speaker 1: can watch something for free on YouTube, then advertisers aren't
1:24:04
Speaker 1: going to support it, and then Jim's just not going
1:24:06
Speaker 1: to do it. So I think free content um free
1:24:10
Speaker 1: on the internet has has a has a place, but
1:24:13
Speaker 1: it's also a very crowded marketplace. Our networks are this
1:24:16
Speaker 1: are a platform where we have viewers who are trained
1:24:19
Speaker 1: to turn on the hunting channel they call it. They
1:24:21
Speaker 1: just they just turn it on and they watch hunting.
1:24:24
Speaker 1: Whereas if I go to YouTube, you know, first of all,
1:24:26
Speaker 1: you have to find the right and you can you
1:24:29
Speaker 1: can narrow it down, you can search and do that,
1:24:31
Speaker 1: but you find that you sift through a lot of
1:24:33
Speaker 1: a lot of garbage to find some of the golds,
1:24:37
Speaker 1: and and it's and it's very I think it'll be
1:24:39
Speaker 1: very hard. Um. It would be very hard. I've got
1:24:42
Speaker 1: a son who's got a YouTube channel, right, he's got
1:24:44
Speaker 1: nineteen followers. How do you, as a as an aspiring
1:24:49
Speaker 1: outdoor talent build an audience? I mean, television is is
1:24:54
Speaker 1: still by far the best way to reach a mass.
1:24:58
Speaker 1: I look at Facebook recently had their issue with UM
1:25:01
Speaker 1: privacy and uh, you know the data the data issue
1:25:04
Speaker 1: they had and what they're spending. I've heard at one
1:25:07
Speaker 1: point it was a million dollars a day on linear
1:25:10
Speaker 1: television advertising to regain the trust of their user. They
1:25:15
Speaker 1: have this platform, UM, but they go to linear television
1:25:20
Speaker 1: to reach that audience. The Super Bowl last year, did
1:25:23
Speaker 1: you see who the presenting sponsor of the Super Bowl was? YouTube? YouTube?
1:25:27
Speaker 1: Bread so YouTube. Yeah, so they were the presenting sponsor
1:25:32
Speaker 1: of the SUPERO they see some value on linear television,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think for any any brand
1:25:38
Speaker 1: to say there's not value linear television is is UM.
1:25:42
Speaker 1: I think that's a temporary position. We're already starting to
1:25:45
Speaker 1: see where digital um. The good news is for an
1:25:48
Speaker 1: advertiser or brand, there are more and good digital options
1:25:54
Speaker 1: to get a message out and connect with people. The
1:25:56
Speaker 1: bad news is it's still not as good as TV,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: and you need, you need all of it. And the
1:26:00
Speaker 1: best the best brands have digital, they have print, they
1:26:03
Speaker 1: have radio, they have billboards, they have TV. You know,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: we don't always have the luxury in our space to
1:26:08
Speaker 1: have that that whole breath. But TV by far still
1:26:12
Speaker 1: delivers the other thing. It delivers. It delivers volume and
1:26:16
Speaker 1: quality and low risk. Because I might if I want to,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: if I have a product and I want to advertise,
1:26:22
Speaker 1: do a digital ad. I don't know where that adds appearing.
1:26:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know if it's appearing on
1:26:28
Speaker 1: appropriate sites or how that brand is, how my brand
1:26:31
Speaker 1: is being associated with that unless you know if if
1:26:34
Speaker 1: you're advertising on our digital platforms where if you're you know,
1:26:36
Speaker 1: if you have a holster, you know what's appearing on
1:26:38
Speaker 1: guns and ammos, Facebook or or website. So um, I
1:26:44
Speaker 1: read an article it was the the national advertising market
1:26:49
Speaker 1: in in all of television is driven by like two
1:26:53
Speaker 1: brands like Coca Cola and Unilever brands and all that.
1:26:57
Speaker 1: So and it's there's there's very little fraud. I mean,
1:27:01
Speaker 1: you buy advertising, you measure the results, you know how
1:27:04
Speaker 1: much you're paying, and and it's good and advertising works.
1:27:08
Speaker 1: We know advertising works, and in digital there are tens
1:27:12
Speaker 1: of thousands of people UM and and the results are
1:27:17
Speaker 1: are are highly suspicious, so there's no there's no magic.
1:27:21
Speaker 1: Yet the allure of digital and free is is strong
1:27:26
Speaker 1: because it's it's in theory cheaper. I just don't think
1:27:28
Speaker 1: it's as effective. And some of those big brands are
1:27:31
Speaker 1: going back to TV because it's more expensive, but it's
1:27:34
Speaker 1: it's it works and it still works. I think that
1:27:37
Speaker 1: there's just room for a lot of different things. And
1:27:42
Speaker 1: I think even if you look within like you know
1:27:46
Speaker 1: our own organization that I'm involved in, UM, well put
1:27:51
Speaker 1: it like this. I like to eat very well prepared,
1:27:56
Speaker 1: elaborate meals sometimes and I also sometimes eat a gas
1:28:01
Speaker 1: station hot dog, particularly when I was in high school
1:28:04
Speaker 1: in college. Right, I don't be like man now that
1:28:09
Speaker 1: gas station hot dogs have come out, UM, I no
1:28:13
Speaker 1: longer want to eat an elaborate, well prepared meal because
1:28:17
Speaker 1: it's just different. And so in doing UM, in doing
1:28:23
Speaker 1: and making content, I look at an episode like like
1:28:29
Speaker 1: I look at a Mediator episode, it's twenty two minutes
1:28:35
Speaker 1: where this is not an exaggeration. Every second was look
1:28:40
Speaker 1: fought over, every second of it, okay, and it requires
1:28:44
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money to do that. That's like
1:28:50
Speaker 1: its own thing. Um. I also like a funny cell
1:28:55
Speaker 1: phone video, right, But they're just very different. And I
1:29:00
Speaker 1: think right now I'm watching ken Burns is Vietnam series.
1:29:08
Speaker 1: It takes a lot to put that together, right, It
1:29:10
Speaker 1: can't be that that that free. Like as great as
1:29:13
Speaker 1: for YouTube content is, it's just I would hate to
1:29:16
Speaker 1: live in a world where somehow the pot we were
1:29:19
Speaker 1: starved of the polished stuff. But I don't think we
1:29:22
Speaker 1: will become starved of the polished stuff. But I think
1:29:25
Speaker 1: people keep trying to like force this idea or hoping
1:29:28
Speaker 1: there's this idea that it's just one version. The polished
1:29:33
Speaker 1: version will be abandoned and short of the guerrilla version,
1:29:38
Speaker 1: or the gorilla version will be abandoned and short of
1:29:40
Speaker 1: the polished version. It's like there's room for all of it. Yeah,
1:29:43
Speaker 1: And looking ahead, there's a lot of apprehension, you know,
1:29:47
Speaker 1: about where it's coming from. When when I started out
1:29:50
Speaker 1: in my career, I was writing for glossy magazines you know, um, which,
1:29:55
Speaker 1: by the way, I have been dead for over ten years.
1:29:58
Speaker 1: They were dying when I started. We have seventeen magazines
1:30:00
Speaker 1: that are that thrive. They're still doing quite well, and
1:30:03
Speaker 1: they've been they've been declaring that death and and a
1:30:06
Speaker 1: lot has changed there. I mean I remember having a
1:30:08
Speaker 1: ten tho dollar travel budget to do a magazine story.
1:30:12
Speaker 1: Like a lot of that stuffs changed and so came
1:30:14
Speaker 1: out of magazines and I went into traditional doing traditional books. Okay,
1:30:19
Speaker 1: and um, there's still a thriving book business. But then
1:30:21
Speaker 1: people declared that with Amazon, the traditional book you know,
1:30:26
Speaker 1: the author publisher relationship is no more. That's all gonna die.
1:30:30
Speaker 1: And I used to live with constant apprehension and fear
1:30:38
Speaker 1: about the future. But then at those times, they didn't
1:30:41
Speaker 1: even come up with a podcast yet, right, I didn't
1:30:44
Speaker 1: know about what I don't know what a podcast podcast
1:30:46
Speaker 1: was until I went on one. I've just gotten to
1:30:49
Speaker 1: the point now, after a long time of making things, Um,
1:30:54
Speaker 1: I've just gotten to the point now where I don't
1:30:56
Speaker 1: have I've kind of like worked through the fears and
1:31:01
Speaker 1: now it's become more of a curiosity about huh. I
1:31:05
Speaker 1: do wonder how all this is sort out, But I
1:31:09
Speaker 1: do maintain this idea that there will continue to be
1:31:12
Speaker 1: and I hope and push for it, there will continue
1:31:14
Speaker 1: to be ways to fund um ways to fund the
1:31:22
Speaker 1: really like not great in a way that I not
1:31:25
Speaker 1: mean great in the way that you're passing a value
1:31:28
Speaker 1: judgment other stuff, but ways to fund very polished, relatively
1:31:33
Speaker 1: expensive pieces of content that just to my eye really shine. Right. Well,
1:31:40
Speaker 1: look at TV or programming outside of you know, our industry, right,
1:31:45
Speaker 1: it's like we're all still whether you're not even if
1:31:48
Speaker 1: you're not paying for cable anymore, you're paying for Netflix
1:31:53
Speaker 1: to like watch highly produced I've yet to someone even
1:32:00
Speaker 1: tell me about like, oh yeah, go check out that
1:32:02
Speaker 1: new show on YouTube. Like it just hasn't happened yet.
1:32:07
Speaker 1: So because there's there's like people hard to do it
1:32:11
Speaker 1: for free, right, Well, one thing you'll see in all
1:32:16
Speaker 1: those cases and you look at you know, auto by
1:32:19
Speaker 1: Tel was going to kill the car dealers and all
1:32:21
Speaker 1: you know, um, you know, you know, the internet was
1:32:23
Speaker 1: going to kill print and and it and it definitely changed.
1:32:27
Speaker 1: It's it's gone through painful process. But all of these
1:32:30
Speaker 1: businesses had to adapt. And so if you don't adapt
1:32:33
Speaker 1: to this new technology as a network, if we didn't,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: if we weren't adapting, yeah we would, we would lose
1:32:39
Speaker 1: some relevance. But we are adapting. You look at Comcast
1:32:42
Speaker 1: and UH Dish Direct Tv. They are independently. Each one
1:32:46
Speaker 1: of them is investing over a billion dollars in products
1:32:51
Speaker 1: and services and the customer experience to make TV better.
1:32:54
Speaker 1: I used my wife as an example. She's not a
1:32:57
Speaker 1: big fan of pain our our cable bill, but we
1:33:00
Speaker 1: have Exfinity and we have the Axfinity remote that she
1:33:03
Speaker 1: talks to now and it's changed the way that she
1:33:05
Speaker 1: she can now. You know, for her, four under channels
1:33:09
Speaker 1: was just too much. Now she can through the remote
1:33:11
Speaker 1: get what she wants when she wants it. Video on demand,
1:33:14
Speaker 1: I think is becoming more more accessible where you don't
1:33:18
Speaker 1: have to, you know, dive in and search. If I
1:33:20
Speaker 1: want to watch meat Eater, I say meat Eater, and
1:33:23
Speaker 1: there's it's If it's on demand, it's available. UM. So
1:33:27
Speaker 1: television is evolving and the technology is driving it. And
1:33:31
Speaker 1: as a network, you were committed to being on every device,
1:33:34
Speaker 1: UH with all of our content wherever you want it.
1:33:37
Speaker 1: But and the whole, the whole cord cutting, and there's
1:33:40
Speaker 1: absolutely been a reduction, but we're still at I think
1:33:43
Speaker 1: around ninety million paid UM cable and satellite homes in
1:33:48
Speaker 1: the US, which is about what it was ten years ago,
1:33:51
Speaker 1: so it's off from its peak, but there's still a
1:33:53
Speaker 1: hundred million people, um. And we all have family, extended family.
1:33:57
Speaker 1: You know, people in your family who still like my
1:33:59
Speaker 1: mom uch of Jeopardy every day that you can, you know,
1:34:01
Speaker 1: and she's that's what that's what she will always do. UM.
1:34:05
Speaker 1: So there's people still consuming it. There's also a lot
1:34:09
Speaker 1: of people who have cut the cord and then they
1:34:12
Speaker 1: start cobbling their own there. So they do Netflix and
1:34:14
Speaker 1: they do ESPN, and they want Fox News and they
1:34:17
Speaker 1: want some others and all of a sudden, instead of
1:34:18
Speaker 1: paying a hundred and fifty bucks a month, they're paying
1:34:20
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty or a hundred and they're not and
1:34:23
Speaker 1: they're missing something out. So there's chord returners. There's people
1:34:27
Speaker 1: that are coming back. There's people moving to skinny bundles
1:34:30
Speaker 1: like we're on Sling and HD for Outdoor Sportsman and
1:34:33
Speaker 1: World Fishing Network's thirty four dollars a month. Uh. And
1:34:37
Speaker 1: their their video on demand is fantastic. You know, you
1:34:40
Speaker 1: can you can watch multiple episodes, not just the current one,
1:34:43
Speaker 1: and you don't have to watch it at the appointed time.
1:34:45
Speaker 1: So it's it's evolving, and I agree. I think you
1:34:49
Speaker 1: know you still that that challenge we have as a
1:34:53
Speaker 1: network and most people don't under don't understand this because
1:34:56
Speaker 1: you don't really care. But um, the people making decisions
1:35:00
Speaker 1: is about caring hunting, shooting, and fishing programming, whether it's
1:35:03
Speaker 1: our network or not, are not into the sport right,
1:35:06
Speaker 1: They don't. They don't generally care about hunting, shooting, or
1:35:08
Speaker 1: fish and they're mostly lawyers and accountants that we live.
1:35:11
Speaker 1: We live in a passion based industry, but they're not.
1:35:13
Speaker 1: They don't share it there in the numbers business. And
1:35:15
Speaker 1: so you know, we have to fight um to maintain
1:35:19
Speaker 1: our distribution and we want to try to grow it
1:35:20
Speaker 1: because we have great content. We want to get it
1:35:23
Speaker 1: out there. UM, but it's it's an uphill battle. If
1:35:26
Speaker 1: we had ninety million homes in Outdoor Outdoor Channel stead
1:35:30
Speaker 1: of thirty five million, we could be like History Channel
1:35:32
Speaker 1: and we could generate the ad dollars because just when
1:35:35
Speaker 1: you have that number, that that sure number of homes,
1:35:39
Speaker 1: your ratings will go up, you can sell more advertising,
1:35:42
Speaker 1: you get more dollars in there, and then you can
1:35:44
Speaker 1: invest in that content. So it's kind of a catch
1:35:47
Speaker 1: twenty two, where we have thirty five million subscribers for
1:35:51
Speaker 1: Outdoor Channel UM and because of that we don't have
1:35:55
Speaker 1: UM we we don't generate enough AD dollars to buy
1:35:59
Speaker 1: all the con tent. So that's how that time by
1:36:02
Speaker 1: kind of came full circle back to that time by mode.
1:36:04
Speaker 1: Do you feel that hunters like, how far behind in
1:36:10
Speaker 1: the technology thing? How far behind our hunters generally? I
1:36:14
Speaker 1: mean they gotta be lagging a little bit right behind
1:36:16
Speaker 1: like your average American and sort of adoption of new
1:36:19
Speaker 1: technologies and use of new technologies. Or do you feel
1:36:22
Speaker 1: that they just keep right and step because like they
1:36:24
Speaker 1: kind they're almost by definition a little bit of anachronistic, right, Well,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: our audiences tend to be older anyhow, Like you know,
1:36:30
Speaker 1: average ages probably in the in the late forties to
1:36:34
Speaker 1: mid fifties, and so that that's my age essentially. They
1:36:39
Speaker 1: you know, we are users of technology, but we're not
1:36:42
Speaker 1: drivers of the of it. So so our viewers are
1:36:47
Speaker 1: We're not really adopters, but some of them are. You know,
1:36:50
Speaker 1: we have our my Outdoor tv UM package which is
1:36:53
Speaker 1: uh just just are all the library of all of
1:36:56
Speaker 1: the old episodes, so you know that has excuse to
1:36:59
Speaker 1: them younger consumer. But it's also cheaper too, so it's
1:37:03
Speaker 1: part of someone skinny bundle for like ten bucks a month. Um,
1:37:08
Speaker 1: do you guys premier people's new episodes on my Outdoor Tv.
1:37:12
Speaker 1: There's something that we do, but for now it's it's
1:37:14
Speaker 1: mostly We do have some originals that we're starting to
1:37:17
Speaker 1: run on my Outdoor TV, but it's mostly UM library shows.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, and you think about your most passionate
1:37:26
Speaker 1: fans and you're you're a bad example actually, because I
1:37:29
Speaker 1: think there's people to do a lot of binge watching
1:37:31
Speaker 1: on yours. But like for Lee and Tiffany the Crush,
1:37:34
Speaker 1: it's a great hunting show, very popular, one of the
1:37:36
Speaker 1: best shows on the network for a long long time,
1:37:39
Speaker 1: and they're but they're fans don't watch, you know, they
1:37:41
Speaker 1: do twenty new episodes a year. Their fans don't watch
1:37:44
Speaker 1: every single episode, so because that's just not the nature
1:37:47
Speaker 1: of TV, Like if they only watch it when they're participating,
1:37:50
Speaker 1: sort of only watching September October, they may only catch
1:37:53
Speaker 1: three or four episodes a year out of twenty. So
1:37:57
Speaker 1: we have a hundred and fifty episodes of The Rush
1:38:00
Speaker 1: in our library, and chances are even there their best
1:38:03
Speaker 1: fans have only seen ten of their libraries. So people say, well, yeah,
1:38:09
Speaker 1: it's it's old shows. Well, these shows are evergreen. I
1:38:11
Speaker 1: mean it doesn't you know, sometimes the technology changes a
1:38:14
Speaker 1: little bit and maybe their sponsors change a little bit.
1:38:16
Speaker 1: But you know, doing a you know, shooting a mule
1:38:19
Speaker 1: deer with a bow from the ground is the same
1:38:21
Speaker 1: today as it was twelve years ago. And um, you know,
1:38:25
Speaker 1: so it's still it's evergreen content and we're finding there's
1:38:29
Speaker 1: there's a good demand for it and there there again
1:38:32
Speaker 1: you know, people ask why isn't it free, Well, because
1:38:34
Speaker 1: it's worth money and these producers have paid to produce it.
1:38:37
Speaker 1: So we're licensing libraries from producers and offering it to consumers.
1:38:41
Speaker 1: So we're packaging it for them in my outdoor TV.
1:38:44
Speaker 1: And you know, just like everything everyone, everything is moving digital.
1:38:48
Speaker 1: Well you know, you've learned, as you said, to kind
1:38:52
Speaker 1: of avoid the fear and that everything's not moving any
1:38:55
Speaker 1: way any one direction, definitively. But everything is evolving and
1:39:00
Speaker 1: we're evolving. It's just for me, it's been um to one.
1:39:09
Speaker 1: When you hear about the death of something, I now think, wow,
1:39:13
Speaker 1: probably not. And then when new things come in. I
1:39:17
Speaker 1: just become interested, you know, in the new things, and
1:39:20
Speaker 1: then less like like I said, Man, I've been being
1:39:22
Speaker 1: told about I'm doing a mega I'm doing a magazine
1:39:25
Speaker 1: piece for Outside right now. Um and I sold my
1:39:28
Speaker 1: first story outside of magazine in two thousand and I
1:39:31
Speaker 1: was hearing about that the end of that, I gotta,
1:39:35
Speaker 1: I gotta hardcover cookbook with Random House coming out, speakling
1:39:40
Speaker 1: grout Random and in printing Random House coming out this November.
1:39:43
Speaker 1: I've been hearing about how that's all calling it quits
1:39:46
Speaker 1: for my entire career, you know, in newspapers, and I
1:39:49
Speaker 1: know my former boss wrote for a newspaper for forty years,
1:39:53
Speaker 1: and you know he likes the ink on his hands
1:39:56
Speaker 1: Sunday Sunday morning reading paper. So you know over there
1:39:59
Speaker 1: that that that maybe someday going away. But the newspapers
1:40:04
Speaker 1: and they've all, they've all, they've all changed. I mean
1:40:06
Speaker 1: they're there. You could argue that they were maybe too fat,
1:40:11
Speaker 1: magazines were too fat and sort of things. You just
1:40:13
Speaker 1: have to adjust, but you can adjust and you can survive.
1:40:17
Speaker 1: And um, the content is still good. And I think
1:40:20
Speaker 1: the bottom line is whether it's long form TV or
1:40:22
Speaker 1: short form or you know, print and that the content
1:40:25
Speaker 1: is is uh, what's valuable. Yeah, it ones of being
1:40:29
Speaker 1: kind of like a like a gradual just a gradual
1:40:32
Speaker 1: evolution of things, you know, new things coming up. But remember,
1:40:36
Speaker 1: like what we're doing right now, right this didn't exist.
1:40:40
Speaker 1: This didn't at a time, this didn't exist. And now
1:40:43
Speaker 1: it's the thing that just you know, it's growing beyond
1:40:47
Speaker 1: early adopter phase and it's becoming a thing that's like
1:40:49
Speaker 1: part of the American life. So I read an article
1:40:53
Speaker 1: about um some YouTubers who were um I got and
1:40:57
Speaker 1: I don't remember what his what his thing was to
1:40:59
Speaker 1: be like, had five point four million subscribers to his channel.
1:41:04
Speaker 1: It wasn't in the outdoor space. It was something and
1:41:07
Speaker 1: you know, for years that based just grew and grew
1:41:10
Speaker 1: and grew, and now those guys are seeing declines. There
1:41:13
Speaker 1: seems to be that we think of Internet as being limitless,
1:41:17
Speaker 1: but there's only twenty four hours in a day. There's
1:41:20
Speaker 1: only so much time you can do anything, whether it's
1:41:22
Speaker 1: watch TV or surf the web or do what. So
1:41:25
Speaker 1: there's I think there's a natural max and you know,
1:41:29
Speaker 1: and it's possible in this hunting space, we've kind of
1:41:32
Speaker 1: that's that's part of where when you talk about all
1:41:34
Speaker 1: this content that's readily available, there's this there's this too
1:41:37
Speaker 1: much that no one's going to win, you know, like
1:41:42
Speaker 1: it is at the risk of some of the higher
1:41:44
Speaker 1: quality content going away, because if I'm a brand and
1:41:46
Speaker 1: I'm just going to support people doing free content for product,
1:41:50
Speaker 1: and that that high end is going to go away.
1:41:53
Speaker 1: But it seems to be that, Um, it's not. It's
1:41:57
Speaker 1: not infinite. There's a there's a there's a natural cap
1:42:01
Speaker 1: and like in um in in like newspapers and that
1:42:06
Speaker 1: I think maybe they push that limit. Well, now his
1:42:08
Speaker 1: technology is evolved, it's it's had to scale back, so
1:42:11
Speaker 1: we're that's probably where we're at in TV as well.
1:42:15
Speaker 1: Cal just thinking about fishing, yeah, I mean all sorts
1:42:21
Speaker 1: of stuff. Yeah, about giant moss keys, Oh, any time
1:42:25
Speaker 1: when the water is a good time. Yeah. Um, but
1:42:28
Speaker 1: do you do you have any any rapper uppers concluders, Yeah,
1:42:33
Speaker 1: you know, just I mean thinking about all the stuff
1:42:36
Speaker 1: that um was talked about here today. You know, I
1:42:40
Speaker 1: think you're exactly right. You know, there's plenty of content
1:42:42
Speaker 1: out there, Um that speaking match. Sorry, Mitch, you are
1:42:47
Speaker 1: exactly right that there's plenty of content out there that
1:42:50
Speaker 1: I don't, I do not associate with and I and um,
1:42:57
Speaker 1: and there's something I do and you know, my hope
1:43:01
Speaker 1: is that all the content out there is at least connecting.
1:43:05
Speaker 1: The real benefit is like connecting folks that don't have
1:43:08
Speaker 1: the amount of access to the outdoor space that we
1:43:12
Speaker 1: all do, that they're connecting to it, and they're they're
1:43:16
Speaker 1: gonna have some hold that land and the outdoors in
1:43:20
Speaker 1: general in high enough regard to want to see it continue.
1:43:26
Speaker 1: That would be my my best case scenario. And UM,
1:43:30
Speaker 1: but you know, I think there's the media would inspire advocacy. Yeah,
1:43:36
Speaker 1: and uh, at least get people to care enough to
1:43:42
Speaker 1: you don't want to make sure it exists, even if
1:43:44
Speaker 1: they're not out playing around in Um. You know. But
1:43:47
Speaker 1: but you know, I think there's some content out there
1:43:49
Speaker 1: too that UM your your example of you know it,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: I may not relate it to it, but there's a
1:43:57
Speaker 1: lot of folks out there who do. Like we for
1:44:01
Speaker 1: every negative email, we get ten positive ones. And UM,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: I think there's some content out there that can be
1:44:07
Speaker 1: used to sway that of the public that doesn't haunt
1:44:12
Speaker 1: towards you know, a negative opinion on hunt and there's
1:44:17
Speaker 1: content out there that can in the positive way. Right
1:44:21
Speaker 1: For for me, that's an argument for our networks and
1:44:24
Speaker 1: our guidelines because we are controlling that, whereas on YouTube
1:44:27
Speaker 1: you can put I saw something on YouTube a guy
1:44:29
Speaker 1: shot a dough with a fifty fifty b MG fifty
1:44:33
Speaker 1: col like sniper rifle and and in fact he missed
1:44:36
Speaker 1: the dough, but the doe's head exploded from the concussion
1:44:41
Speaker 1: of like just the whatever, the bullet passing over its head.
1:44:44
Speaker 1: It's like that as he thought that was pretty cool.
1:44:46
Speaker 1: He thought that was worthy of posting that. Wouldn't you
1:44:48
Speaker 1: know obviously never make air on our network, and none
1:44:54
Speaker 1: of us would advocate advocate doing that. But you know,
1:44:57
Speaker 1: it's a free society, so that you you'll have some
1:45:00
Speaker 1: that on on the YouTube, where whereas we have we
1:45:03
Speaker 1: do control that. And um but I mean even on O.
1:45:07
Speaker 1: S G stuff, you know that. I mean I've seen, uh,
1:45:10
Speaker 1: you know things again that I just don't associate with.
1:45:13
Speaker 1: And and I'm hunting fishing, dude, And if I don't
1:45:17
Speaker 1: associate with the chances are the non hunters probably are
1:45:21
Speaker 1: going to be like probably even question if it's legal,
1:45:25
Speaker 1: if it's right, you know, so, um, you know, net
1:45:28
Speaker 1: net not knowing for sure. I just hope that at
1:45:32
Speaker 1: the end of the day there's we're gaining and we're
1:45:36
Speaker 1: not not losing. Yeah, there's not much a concluder, just
1:45:41
Speaker 1: a thought digging though. I like it's thought. It's provocative.
1:45:46
Speaker 1: My and my my hope in being on here was
1:45:48
Speaker 1: to help you understand that we are looking out for
1:45:52
Speaker 1: that and we try and we're you know, we're not perfect,
1:45:54
Speaker 1: but we we have I think a pretty good process
1:45:57
Speaker 1: and a pretty good team in place to try to
1:45:59
Speaker 1: make or that we're doing that and and and keep
1:46:01
Speaker 1: getting better because I think the net of the net
1:46:03
Speaker 1: is hunting television can really help us and can help
1:46:08
Speaker 1: expand the sport and help people and help make people
1:46:10
Speaker 1: better Hunters enjoy it more, you know, want to participate
1:46:13
Speaker 1: more in it when it's done right, and as a network,
1:46:16
Speaker 1: we take that responsibility very seriously. That's good to hear. Yeah,
1:46:22
Speaker 1: we premiered I don't know Man nineties some episodes of
1:46:28
Speaker 1: mediat on Sportsman Channel over a long period of time,
1:46:31
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you, I had you talked about,
1:46:33
Speaker 1: you know that crossing that line. I somebody watched your
1:46:37
Speaker 1: Monkey Brain episode We Ate the Monkey Brain, and leg,
1:46:41
Speaker 1: I thought you didn't eat a brain those boys. That's
1:46:44
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones. No, I mean there was there was no
1:46:47
Speaker 1: eight must eight monkeys, right. So I got a call
1:46:50
Speaker 1: from a producer and that producer said, I just watched
1:46:52
Speaker 1: Steve Rannella eat a monkey on Sportsman Channel, So I'm
1:46:57
Speaker 1: pretty sure I can do whatever I want to now.
1:47:00
Speaker 1: It's but I would come in and I would come
1:47:03
Speaker 1: in and it winds up being a very different situation.
1:47:05
Speaker 1: Not different, but it's like it's, uh, you're in another
1:47:16
Speaker 1: country traveling with indigenous people's who have lived there for
1:47:22
Speaker 1: thousands of years, carrying on a traditional life practice of theirs,
1:47:28
Speaker 1: and you witness them go and kill a monkey, which
1:47:34
Speaker 1: they do it would be doing in the absence of
1:47:36
Speaker 1: a camera, and you're present for that, and then they
1:47:40
Speaker 1: prepare the monkey and you're served some monkey and you
1:47:43
Speaker 1: eat the monkey with them, and um, It's like someone
1:47:47
Speaker 1: could come and say you ate a monkey, or you
1:47:50
Speaker 1: come and be like, well, let's look at the context
1:47:53
Speaker 1: in which it was done. But sure, sure, man, Um,
1:47:57
Speaker 1: it wasn't lost on me that that is risk as
1:48:01
Speaker 1: the word wasn't lost on me that it's like a
1:48:04
Speaker 1: potentially hot issue. But if the context frat boys being
1:48:09
Speaker 1: like hey, I'll bet you a buck to shooting monkeys
1:48:12
Speaker 1: out of a zoo, It's like it's just very different, right,
1:48:15
Speaker 1: It's just different. So yeah, you're if you if you
1:48:19
Speaker 1: go by the test. And this is the thing I
1:48:21
Speaker 1: hear from people all the time, where like, well, what
1:48:25
Speaker 1: if someone just drops in, what are they gonna see?
1:48:28
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, you know, if you're the kind of
1:48:31
Speaker 1: person that just drops in and plucks seconds out of
1:48:38
Speaker 1: its broader context, you're more likely to find things that
1:48:41
Speaker 1: are upsetting to you. Then if you're the kind of
1:48:43
Speaker 1: person who comes in and takes those seconds and then
1:48:49
Speaker 1: sets them in their proper place, which is why in
1:48:52
Speaker 1: our guy Inline we talk about um, if you know
1:48:57
Speaker 1: you can hunt lions, you know lion it's legal, but
1:48:59
Speaker 1: we always recommend you you need to tell the story.
1:49:03
Speaker 1: You need to tell the conservation story or elephants or
1:49:06
Speaker 1: things like because it's it's controversial, and yes, if you
1:49:08
Speaker 1: take if you take a sliver of that content, you
1:49:11
Speaker 1: can make it look really really bad when in the
1:49:14
Speaker 1: in the big picture, we had um. Jenna Waller from
1:49:17
Speaker 1: skull bound on sports from Jenneal was getting harassed about
1:49:20
Speaker 1: a show she did. She and she took it was
1:49:22
Speaker 1: some some sort of um um antelope in Africa. Her
1:49:27
Speaker 1: whole episode was about the preservation of hyenas. If you
1:49:31
Speaker 1: watch that, I mean, yes, they hunted, they hunted planes
1:49:33
Speaker 1: game and she shot some sort of like and like Paula,
1:49:38
Speaker 1: I think it was um. But the whole they whoever
1:49:41
Speaker 1: complained about it, and they were anti hunters and as
1:49:44
Speaker 1: it's probably my concluder that I want to talk about um.
1:49:47
Speaker 1: You know, they ignore all the good and they just
1:49:50
Speaker 1: focus on that one little sliver. And uh, I think
1:49:53
Speaker 1: one of one of my concluders is that we are
1:49:56
Speaker 1: our sport is controversial to many people or just and
1:50:00
Speaker 1: you know the Cecil the lion incident and that I
1:50:03
Speaker 1: think that moved a lot of people off of neutral
1:50:06
Speaker 1: maybe towards the negatives. And you know, as sportsmen, we
1:50:09
Speaker 1: have a huge responsibility to to you know, I don't
1:50:13
Speaker 1: you're not gonna you're not gonna you know, we're not
1:50:15
Speaker 1: going to um um engage with Peta and convince them
1:50:19
Speaker 1: that what we're doing is right. But we do need
1:50:22
Speaker 1: to make sure that when someone does drop in what
1:50:24
Speaker 1: they see on our networks is they might not participate
1:50:27
Speaker 1: in it, but they should think that. Well, yeah, I
1:50:30
Speaker 1: understand that. And we're working on our conservation, some conservation initiatives.
1:50:35
Speaker 1: A lot of it is you know, statistics show that
1:50:38
Speaker 1: if you know, hunting for food is highly acceptable, like
1:50:42
Speaker 1: seventy of the general public accepts hunting for food, but
1:50:46
Speaker 1: hunting for trophies and using word like trophy hunting, it's
1:50:48
Speaker 1: like and it's it's such just as it's a goofy sebmantics, right,
1:50:55
Speaker 1: it's so My my concluder is, um, I've seen in
1:50:58
Speaker 1: those cases and in in the cases of you know,
1:51:01
Speaker 1: where the producers had issues. Um, we tend to do
1:51:04
Speaker 1: a lot of infighting and like the anti hunters, they
1:51:07
Speaker 1: don't need to engage with us because in many cases
1:51:09
Speaker 1: we're we're our own worst enemy in those situations. And
1:51:12
Speaker 1: and so as a network, we want to try to
1:51:14
Speaker 1: help be a positive force and bring people together and
1:51:18
Speaker 1: and educate people about our passion and the good things
1:51:21
Speaker 1: about hunting. And and you know, it's it's not just
1:51:25
Speaker 1: the kill. And it's another thing I'll say in our guidelines.
1:51:27
Speaker 1: You know, we don't say that you need to shoot
1:51:29
Speaker 1: big animals or you need to In fact, we never
1:51:33
Speaker 1: say that a two hundred inchdeer on camera doesn't rate
1:51:36
Speaker 1: any better than a hundred and thirty inchineer that like
1:51:38
Speaker 1: stand pots shoots. No, it doesn't. It doesn't drive ratings.
1:51:43
Speaker 1: I think advertisers want that because they want their products
1:51:46
Speaker 1: to be associated with extra successful exactly. But but then
1:51:50
Speaker 1: we're we're not focused on that. We want the more
1:51:52
Speaker 1: of the authentic experience in that so, um, you know,
1:51:57
Speaker 1: we just want it would be nice. Uh. Part of
1:52:00
Speaker 1: my goal and behind or is to help people understand
1:52:02
Speaker 1: that we are actively trying to expand hunting and put
1:52:06
Speaker 1: our best foot forward and put the best content on
1:52:09
Speaker 1: TV that we can so that we we've all got kids,
1:52:12
Speaker 1: we want them to be able to participate at the
1:52:14
Speaker 1: same level we are. And um, part of that is
1:52:17
Speaker 1: being able to get our message out and it comes
1:52:19
Speaker 1: with a certain amount of risk. Yeah. On that note,
1:52:25
Speaker 1: you have a pulse son, like what's going on in
1:52:27
Speaker 1: the media and talking about do you guys have an
1:52:31
Speaker 1: idea of like how that engages with the stuff that
1:52:37
Speaker 1: you're putting out there, like where you sometimes reach them
1:52:40
Speaker 1: or how they find you or how you're trying to
1:52:43
Speaker 1: reach them in terms like reach them with just However,
1:52:47
Speaker 1: like you're saying, like if that person drops in right
1:52:49
Speaker 1: and just somehow it's randomly on Sportsman's Channel, how does
1:52:53
Speaker 1: that happen? Do you guys know what that looks like?
1:52:55
Speaker 1: Or do you guys know other channels or other avenues
1:52:58
Speaker 1: that somehow engages you you And yeah, I mean in
1:53:03
Speaker 1: terms of like tactics and how to draw viewers to
1:53:06
Speaker 1: our networks and that you know, we'll like we do
1:53:08
Speaker 1: our own advertising promotion. Yeah, you mentioned like Duck Dynasty, right,
1:53:12
Speaker 1: that brings right, right, so we want to we we
1:53:15
Speaker 1: it's very expensive, as you know, to launch a show
1:53:18
Speaker 1: and to market it properly, and in fact, the economies
1:53:21
Speaker 1: of scale in our industries, you can't spend thirty million
1:53:24
Speaker 1: dollars on on marketing a series. Like if you did
1:53:28
Speaker 1: a movie, you know they'll they'll spend thirty million dollars
1:53:31
Speaker 1: to market that. So that's why we look at a
1:53:33
Speaker 1: Duck Dynasty who has this established brand to come in.
1:53:36
Speaker 1: So yes, that was a big part of it and
1:53:38
Speaker 1: and it worked, and same with the Deadliest Catch. We
1:53:41
Speaker 1: also do movies on Outdoor Channel and Friday nights Saturday nights.
1:53:45
Speaker 1: People like to watch movies, so we do the movie.
1:53:49
Speaker 1: But if you watch a movie on Outdoor Channel, you'll
1:53:51
Speaker 1: see there's trivia. We use our hosts to actually have
1:53:54
Speaker 1: outdoor trivia. We're working on some other things. We want
1:53:57
Speaker 1: to bring in a new viewer and let them know
1:54:00
Speaker 1: that this is what we're about. We have other really
1:54:02
Speaker 1: cool contents. So you may have found us via the
1:54:04
Speaker 1: movie or found us via Deadly as Catch, but look
1:54:07
Speaker 1: at everything else that's around. Got it good yet? I
1:54:16
Speaker 1: answered my question? Um, but you did. In your notes
1:54:20
Speaker 1: and we were emailing, you mentioned being an advocate for
1:54:23
Speaker 1: you know, family hunting and whatnot. And earlier we talked
1:54:26
Speaker 1: about how we're thinking that. You know, it's debatable, right,
1:54:29
Speaker 1: but what hunter numbers are doing right now? What what's
1:54:34
Speaker 1: going on with with you guys that like or what
1:54:37
Speaker 1: do you see even if it's not you guys, but
1:54:38
Speaker 1: what do you see? What do you feel like it's
1:54:40
Speaker 1: working the best to bring on new hunters? Do you
1:54:43
Speaker 1: kind of want to ask why you're not seeing more
1:54:45
Speaker 1: squirrel hunting? Is that? Yeah? Yeah, the small game versus
1:54:48
Speaker 1: the big No, it's not my question, Okay, Um, we donting.
1:54:54
Speaker 1: Jackie Bushman has a squirl hunting competition every year. Really
1:54:58
Speaker 1: yeah airgun it's an airgun company into that. Yeah, But
1:55:01
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, there's probably a lot
1:55:02
Speaker 1: of people who do a lot of different things to
1:55:04
Speaker 1: bring in war hunters to grow the sport, and you
1:55:06
Speaker 1: probably get to kind of see all that is. There
1:55:10
Speaker 1: is something you can point out that you say, man,
1:55:11
Speaker 1: that seems to really be working. Well, you know, we do.
1:55:14
Speaker 1: We use all of our social media channels and all
1:55:16
Speaker 1: of our print and digital channels to put the best
1:55:20
Speaker 1: foot forward for hunting and and and bringing kids hunting
1:55:23
Speaker 1: and that in our CEO, he's he advocates to producers
1:55:26
Speaker 1: to push more of that in your show, but by
1:55:28
Speaker 1: showing images and UM and and really airing hunts that
1:55:32
Speaker 1: help people understand how they can participate. I have had
1:55:38
Speaker 1: an interesting conversation with a guy and I won't say
1:55:41
Speaker 1: what state he is from because I don't want to.
1:55:43
Speaker 1: I don't want to blow his cover. But we were
1:55:45
Speaker 1: talking about hunting numbers and using licenses as a measure
1:55:50
Speaker 1: for participation and UM what he explained what's UM. Through
1:55:57
Speaker 1: contacts with Warden's they said in like major Metro All's
1:56:00
Speaker 1: in areas upwards of anglers don't buy a license. It's
1:56:04
Speaker 1: just they just don't write. So, but those anglers are
1:56:07
Speaker 1: buying bait, and they're buying rods and reels and tackle,
1:56:10
Speaker 1: and they're participating. They're just not buying a leisure So
1:56:13
Speaker 1: because of that, they felt in this state because he
1:56:16
Speaker 1: worked with the DNR and it wasn't Montana, it wasn't Michigan,
1:56:19
Speaker 1: just you know, but they felt that narrowed down to exactly,
1:56:25
Speaker 1: I don't want to get him in trouble. They so
1:56:27
Speaker 1: the numbers of anglers is underreported. Hunting on the other
1:56:32
Speaker 1: side of the coin, there are like twenty seven states
1:56:35
Speaker 1: that are one buck only, but you can party hunt.
1:56:38
Speaker 1: So guys are buying tags for their wives, their daughter
1:56:43
Speaker 1: or their mother so they can have extra buck tags
1:56:46
Speaker 1: in in their um, in their in their camp essentially.
1:56:51
Speaker 1: But those women aren't participating necessarily obviously some of them are.
1:56:55
Speaker 1: But so they're not buying bows, they're not. That's that's
1:56:58
Speaker 1: these guys will look doing research on why I more
1:57:01
Speaker 1: people aren't buying crossbows and compombos, is what they were researching,
1:57:05
Speaker 1: and that was part of it. It was the women
1:57:09
Speaker 1: are not actually, and and so we say, well, look
1:57:10
Speaker 1: at look at the number of women who are buying licenses, Well,
1:57:13
Speaker 1: not a hunter. I'm not saying that it's it's like,
1:57:16
Speaker 1: aren't participating. I know there are more women participating in
1:57:20
Speaker 1: hunting than previously, but it's they think it's overstated because
1:57:23
Speaker 1: of that, And and the states don't want to do
1:57:25
Speaker 1: anything about it because they might lose upwards of five
1:57:29
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in license sales if they change the rules,
1:57:31
Speaker 1: and then they lose federal matching funds, so they're kind
1:57:34
Speaker 1: of the kind of allowed. So it's tough to say, oh,
1:57:37
Speaker 1: you know there's only ten million hunters, Well maybe there is,
1:57:40
Speaker 1: or maybe maybe there's not, or you know, it's it's
1:57:44
Speaker 1: but we but we know it's not as it's not
1:57:46
Speaker 1: as acceptable now. And like with with social media and
1:57:50
Speaker 1: some of the other just communication tools that are available
1:57:53
Speaker 1: that the Cecil the Lione thing couldn't have happened fifteen
1:57:56
Speaker 1: years ago because that campaign would not have been able
1:58:00
Speaker 1: to be sustained by the anti hunters for thirty days. Yeah,
1:58:03
Speaker 1: the distribution channel wasn't there there right, So now so
1:58:07
Speaker 1: it's and you couldn't you couldn't have popularized the image.
1:58:10
Speaker 1: I mean, we've always had images that have come and
1:58:13
Speaker 1: we've always had images that have come and and you know,
1:58:17
Speaker 1: and really captured the American imagination and why they distributed
1:58:21
Speaker 1: and very impactful. But it just happens in lightning speed,
1:58:24
Speaker 1: and it happens more often, right, Yeah, got anything else
1:58:29
Speaker 1: you want to add? You honest, No, that does it
1:58:32
Speaker 1: for me. You're liking them golf shirts, man, when you're traveling,
1:58:35
Speaker 1: this is my only one. Makes you feel like you're
1:58:38
Speaker 1: makes you feel like you're you're cool and comfortable and
1:58:42
Speaker 1: but still professional that you're is that is that you're
1:58:46
Speaker 1: feeling exactly? I can't Did you get attacked by a
1:58:51
Speaker 1: bear or something? Got it got claw marks on it?
1:58:54
Speaker 1: It does look like that doesn't When when it happened,
1:58:57
Speaker 1: I was thinking that, look at that got scratched up.
1:59:00
Speaker 1: I have bear, But I was running through the forests.
1:59:03
Speaker 1: This new if you're not extreme enough, there's this new
1:59:06
Speaker 1: thing I came up with called game trail running. So
1:59:09
Speaker 1: if just trail running is not cool enough, if you
1:59:11
Speaker 1: can do game trail running or more extreme than that,
1:59:14
Speaker 1: is no trail running. So when the game trail disappears,
1:59:18
Speaker 1: just keep running off through the woods. At this moment,
1:59:21
Speaker 1: I actually wasn't running. I was probably just like hiking uphill,
1:59:24
Speaker 1: um heaving, trying to get my breath back. And yeah,
1:59:28
Speaker 1: I stepped on a log that had no more log
1:59:30
Speaker 1: left in it and just gave out and scratched up
1:59:33
Speaker 1: my leg. It would have been cooler if you said, yeah,
1:59:36
Speaker 1: I got attacked by it while running. I have one
1:59:40
Speaker 1: out random. I have one golf shirt that I just
1:59:42
Speaker 1: wore the other day for my tenth wedding anniversary. Um,
1:59:47
Speaker 1: and I've had that one golf shirt for forever, and
1:59:49
Speaker 1: it's like, if something special happens during the warm months,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: I wear that golf shirt and uh, it's got a
1:59:54
Speaker 1: lot of holes in it. Now, that's why I'm that's
1:59:56
Speaker 1: kind of why I'm curious in your going about your
1:59:58
Speaker 1: golf shirt. Moth got or just just time funny time
2:00:03
Speaker 1: time destroys all. I brought you guys golf shirts. That's
2:00:06
Speaker 1: a that's a gift. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not even lying.
2:00:11
Speaker 1: When I hit my when I hit my twentieth anniversary,
2:00:13
Speaker 1: I'm putting that bad boy golf shirt. I always called
2:00:16
Speaker 1: him polo shirts because I think like everybody when we
2:00:20
Speaker 1: were a kid. When I see a shirt like, to
2:00:21
Speaker 1: be frank, when I see a shirt like that, I
2:00:25
Speaker 1: think that that person likes the golf polo shirt, that's
2:00:30
Speaker 1: what because it used to like, Yeah, we're a kid,
2:00:35
Speaker 1: it's a polo shirt if it's got long sleeps. Don't
2:00:37
Speaker 1: they were long sleeves playing for rugby shirt. You're right,
2:00:42
Speaker 1: that's a polo shirt. But polo shirt because it's like
2:00:46
Speaker 1: clean X is a tissue shirt because yeah, actually warm.
2:00:56
Speaker 1: I'll sort it out later, do my own research. You
2:01:01
Speaker 1: start this one out after she does have a trout
2:01:03
Speaker 1: on there and it's it's clearly Patagonia, So I don't.
2:01:05
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a golf shirt. I am gonna
2:01:08
Speaker 1: go have an ordered Arnold Palmer here after this podcast
2:01:11
Speaker 1: is over to quench my thirst. All right, Well, Mitch Petrie, Ah,
2:01:15
Speaker 1: thank you very much for coming on the show. Thanks
2:01:18
Speaker 1: for having me.