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Bruce: …four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and hey, listeners, we’re heading to West Virginia, and we’re going to connect with Michael Wilson, founder of Mountaineer Outdoorsmen and Prostaff for the West Virginia Chapter LTD Outdoors. Michael?
Michael: Yes, sir.
Bruce: Welcome to the show.
Michael: Thank you sir, a pleasure to be here.
Bruce: Hey, let’s just talk about Mountaineer Outdoorsmen. Tell us about that.
Michael: Mountaineer Outdoorsmen started a little over a year and a half ago. I’d been in the military for eight years, got out not too long ago, and had done a lot of stuff in the mountains, riding, fishing, stuff like that. Shot my bow a lot but never got into hunting, and my buddy Chad Barnett, he’s a good friend of mine said, “Hey man, you need to try hunting. You’re doing pretty good at shooting,” and stuff like that, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. My dad did it when I was growing up, and did my first year of hunting, and I started thinking, “Why not share my experience?” Because there’s not a lot of people in West Virginia sharing that experience, sharing everything.
Too many people was involved in trying to get a TV show or whatever. I just wanted to share every day struggles, good and bad, and sitting on Chad’s couch one day, January of ’14, and I said, “Chad, why don’t we do this?” I’d come up with the name, and we got a hold of some friends, and we started posting. It’s growed leaps and bounds since then, especially with me being a rookie. Like I said, I just really started hunting in the 2013 season.
Bruce: So you’re a rookie and you’re getting into the outdoor industry, website www.mountaineeroutdoor.wix.com/mountaineeroutdoors, and tell us about that journey, how you did it. Not because you made the decision to do it but how did you do that?
Michael: The journey so far has actually been tough at certain times because I have found that there’s so many people out there that don’t understand the 100% effort that you have to put into this. So when you go to try to ask for a company to team up with you, partner with you, they kind of got their iffies especially when you’re new. I just started a Facebook page, started posting, me and my friends started posting, and I approached…actually the first company I ever approached was a scent company because that’s one of the first thing you use while you’re hunting a whitetail is attractants, and scents, and cover scents, and stuff like.
And I explained to them, I said, “Hey, I’m new. I’m not going to promise you all this great stuff. I don’t know what I’m capable of yet.” And they got back with me and said, “Sure. Let’s see what we can do as a group.” They are still with us, they have done excellent in supporting me, teaching me. I have excellent team members that have taught me also. I think, let’s see, my first year, I ended up getting a doe. This past season was my most successful season. I ended up getting a doe, my first buck, and got a bear, a turkey so I was on a roll as a rookie, that’s for sure.
Bruce: Heck yes you were. Congrats man.
Michael: Thank you.
Bruce: Hey, let’s talk about whitetail. Now, have you hunted whitetails extensively or is it just another critter to go chase out in the woods?