Well happy holidays folks! Deer season
has wrapped and I'm transitioning to hard water fishing as I write
this. Filming for Blue Collar Outdoor TV was a complete success and
I'm in the process of pitching season two of BCO TV to the network,
as well as starting to work on another media type project. So all is
well. Filming and post production schedules kept me from writing
throughout the fall, but I now have the time to start hitting the
keyboard again with all work being done on the show. The last eight
months has been quite the journey and I've decided to use this post
as an opportunity for me to share what I've learned over the last
twelve months as it applies to life working in outdoor media.
Mother Nature Runs The Show
We all know those types of hunting or fishing situations that are “sure bets”. For me it's fishing late ice stocked trout lakes and bear and turkey hunting in the spring. The plan was to film ice fishing for trout in early April, then scout and prepare for the coming deer season while the ice was going off, then prep bear baits and finally hunt turkeys in late April. I'd then hunt bears in late may early June.
Well, mother nature had other plans. I started to get worried at the end of march when the snow kept building up instead of melting. April came and I started hitting the trout lakes hard, with little to no success due to the colder than normal water temps and late thaw. I came out of early April with absolutely zero content for the show. Filming strike one.
I then sat at home waiting for the snow to melt so I could scout and prepare for whitetails. This was a long wait as the snow didn't melt until April 20th. I then needed to make a choice, ether film turkey hunts or prepare for whitetails. The choice was simple, for me whitetails always take priority so I ditched my sure bet turkey hunt to make the time to prepare for fall whitetails right. Filming strike two. Then it was time for bear hunting at my north camp. Up there I use lakes for access to my bait sites. Well, the baits were late going in due to the delayed ice off. This wasn't a huge issue as plenty of bears had found my baits by the first week of June. I set up camp and got ready for what I thought was going to be a great adventure type hunt for BCO TV. WRONG! I had hit green up to perfection and my baits went dead literally overnight due to the abundance of food everywhere. I hunted HARD for the entirety of the nine day hunt, with two whole encounters to show for it. I went home with an un-notched tag in my pocket, filming strike three.
Mother nature kicked my butt in the spring of 2013, plain and simple. Many would have thrown their hands up and walked away. But I always look for an upside, another way to make things work.
Making The Best Of A Situation.
I'm an outdoors man first, and a cinematographer second. During my bear hunt I woke up the morning of June 5th to an amazingly beautiful day, clear, calm and warm. I had brought my kayak along to use to quietly access my bear baits. But this day the kayak would be used in more of a traditional way. I knew of this little lake back in a creek system that held amazing numbers of pike and figured I'd go have some fun catching them. I had mounted two cameras on my kayak and decided to film the impromptu fishing trip more for fun more than anything else. I loaded the boat up on the box of my truck and headed for some fishing. I slipped into the water around 10:00 am and after a short row was ready to fish. Now I'm not lying when I say I caught ten fish in ten casts, then proceeded to slam pike for three hours.
I captured some of the best fishing content I had ever filmed, all on a “fun” fishing trip. I might have gone home without a bear hunt on film, but instead had an amazing day on the water to edit into a show instead. I had made the best of a bad situation. While I was up there I was able to do some prep work for whitetails and film some technical segments as well.
Work Hard Towards Goals, Believe In Yourself.
I mentioned earlier that I worked hard in the spring of 2013 to prepare multiple locations to hunt whitetails. This includes creating edge cover, prompting new browse and mast to grow, dig in water holes and to fine tune my stand sets in regards to access and scent management. Most of this work was done on one specific farm in the south west corner of Manitoba, and I had plans to hunt it hard the first 14 days of the deer season. I went into the 2013 deer season more confident than ever before.
September 2nd found me sitting 20 feet up in a burr oak tree waiting for a shooter deer after returning home from a quick elk hunt. I was ready to give up by the 4th, the deer simply weren't on the farm like I had thought they'd be. I had thoughts of heading to other farms I had hunted in the past with great success, but decided to hold off for a few days and give these particular spots a good run. I had my first encounter with whitetails the morning of the 5th, two does slipped in from an alfalfa field towards their bedding area, and right past my stand. This boosted my confidence a bit. I then slipped into my favourite set the evening of the 6th and checked the scouting camera that was hung in there. One of my target bucks had walked passed the camera's the previous two evenings during daylight hours, and the confidence went up a little more. With 15 minutes of filming light left I caught a noise to the east. It was the other shooter buck on that farm, and he was going to walk right in-front of me. After a few minutes the four year old 4×4 stepped out with another two year old and finally gave me both an ideal shot for the camera and bow. I laced the buck and he ran 40 yards, then piled up in a huge crash.
That was a wrap on my 2013 Manitoba deer season. Preparation, patience and persistence paid off in a big way. 28 hours of hunting produced two encounters with four deer, far from what I had expected. But I had faith in my set ups, my techniques and didn't give in to the negativity that was trying to creep into my thoughts.
My 2013 hunting season went much smoother after that. I had an amazingly rewarding whitetail hunt in Saskatchewan that turned into the best episode of BCO TV. I filmed some good friends having a blast shooting waterfowl. I then captured the mentored youth waterfowl hunt and took a first time deer hunter out on a hunt. I went into the fall not knowing what would happen, and came out of it feeling more secure that BCO is on the right path, and that I have what it takes to make a career in outdoor media work.
So where am I going with all of this? Well I learned first not to count my chickens before they hatch, the spring filming session was a bomb and I almost threw in the towel right then. But through sheer determination and sacrifice I was able to make six episodes of BCO TV come together. I simply wanted it bad enough and took the measures to make that happen, a great lesson for anyone. Then there's the technical side of filming and editing, I made huge gains in my skill to turn raw content into an enjoyable watch for all. Finally, I never once forgot what being in the outdoors is about, having fun, staying humble and not once stepping outside of personal ideals and ethics to ensure I had enough content for BCO TV. Going into this journey I was adamant that this be the case, and it was in the end. Filming season one of BCO TV has been a rewarding experience, one that I will use to improve and grow BCO because of the lessons learned this year.
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