One of the best things about hunting is the chance to promote heritage and family. It’s an excellent way of getting back to our American roots and exploring the cultures of each team member we hunt with. It’s also a great way to exercise our constitutional rights as outdoors men and women – including our Christianity. American Roots Outdoors TV (AROTV) brings a fresh perspective on the American outdoors, tailored especially for the Internet age. Alex Rutledge and Ben Moore started AROTV as a modern way to depict and capture the reality of hunting and fishing while exploring the cultures of friends, faith, and heritages, alongside our Constitutional rights in an entertaining and informative manner. AROTV is the show for every true outdoors-man or woman, and American Christians. Alex and Ben’s mission is to launch in January, starting out with 26 episodes a year. American Roots Outdoors TV is a breakthrough event that you should not miss: if you have a smartphone, you can watch American Roots Outdoors TV in your tree stand, wherever you want! As All-American hunters, always remember that when your roots are deep and strong, there is no reason to fear the wind.
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This is part one of a two-part show with Alex Rutledge and Ben Moore. Alex recently founded American Roots Outdoors. Alex has had a long history in the outdoor industry. He’s an inductee of The Legends of the Outdoor National Hall of Fame. He’s going to talk about our hunting heritage, our families, the constitution, and faith. These wraps this all up into different segments of the show, so it’s going to be very interesting. He and Ben are going to talk about hunting whitetails.
Listen to the podcast here:
Part 1 Of American Roots Outdoors With Alex Rutledge And Ben Moore
I’ve got Alex Rutledge on the shoulder day. Alex has previously been with Hunter Specialties. He had a TV show called Bloodline TV, but he’s going to announce to all my listeners across North America something new he’s got going, American Roots Outdoors TV. One thing you need to know about Alex, he’s an inductee to The Legends of the Outdoor National Hall of Fame. Alex, welcome to the show.
Bruce, it’s an honor to be on the show with you. Thank you for what you do for the hunters across America and Whitetail Rendezvous. I’m honored to be on your show and I’m excited about the new project that my wife and I and our team has created. It’s called American Roots Outdoors TV. What our whole focus is to promote heritage, family, and the cultures of each team member and people we hunt with, and our constitutional rights as outdoors men and women and our Christianity. What we’re doing is we’re creating something, introducing something new and fresh to the outdoor industry. What we’re going to do initially is start this off very slow and grow this brand with our partners, sponsors on webisodes. Our mission is to launch this and we’re capturing footage and we’re going to do 26 episodes a year starting out and we’re excited about this.
Tell me about the format of the show. How did this all started?
I created Bloodline Outdoors in 2010 with another team. I was an owner and host of it for approximately six years and sometimes things just don’t work out. I sold the business in 2014 and after my partnerships that I was in and it didn’t work out. We continued to support Bloodline even though I’m not the host and we wish nothing but the best for Bloodline and its team members. My daughter, one morning goes, “Dad, I know you’re wanting to do something else. I’ve done some homework for you. I’ve done some research for you that stands for what you’re about. I’ve come up with a name roots.” She got on the internet research, the name roots and roots, if you look up the definition, it all goes back to many things, especially our families. Our whole focus is to promote family-point oriented show and webisodes and hopefully it touches families and motivate them to want to do more with their families and encourage others to want to be good stewards of the land and conservationist, etc. That’s the whole mission statement.
My daughter came up with a name and we went on GoDaddy and search the name American roots outdoors and it was not protected. We own those names, .tv, .com, .org, .net. We own all of it. We’re launching this thing and it’s all about us. It’s not about me. Even though I’m the host and owner, even though I’m going to be promoting our partners and our teams. We’ve got seven teams that we’re creating across the nation, so it’d be fourteen people. All fourteen of these people have stuck with me through the thick and thin and when I’ve been in the valley. They showed their true integrity and friendship to me. I also have seven board members that are successful business people that’s involved in the outdoor industry that I go to for advice when I make decisions. We have a total of 21 members in our group.
What’s the format of the show? If somebody clicks in, what are they to see here and what’s it all about?
It’s all about myself and our team members traveling the country. Maybe in their hometowns of hunting with their family members or friends or farmers, whoever it is. You’re going to get to see different cultures captured on film and lifestyles and techniques. It’s got to be knowledgeable, entertaining webisode episodes. It’s going to be something that everybody will not want to miss. The cool thing is instead of going to a network initially with this is that we all know that the future is in internet. If you have a smartphone, you can watch American Roots Outdoors TV in a tree stand wherever you want to. When it’s on a network, you got to DVR or wait for the show to come on. The big surge is social media. That’s where the future of a lot of this is going is social media, internet, etc., especially this young generation and this is creating a huge numbers of people that like to get involved in this internet.
Our proof of concept with that, my story and how we started. My first show is about 31st. I’ve had over 83,000 downloads, I’ve been over 30,000 people in social media and it’s all organic growth. It’s guys like you saying, “Check out Bruce at Whitetail Rendezvous. It’s an informative show.” It’s exciting. I’m 70 years old, Alex, and I’m passionate. When I get to look at my schedule for the day and say, “I got four shows. I’m going to talk to four people throughout the country.” I’m paralleling this to what you’re doing. You and your crew, your team are going to go different places. You’re going to see different people, learn different techniques, and be part of the culture, but you’re also going to keep your family involved and talk about our faith and our constitution and all wrapped up in one show. How long is your show going to be?
Anywhere from eight minutes to twelve minutes long. Some could run longer. We’re also going to capture stuff that hasn’t been captured. It seemed like the focus in the outdoor industry, especially in the whitetail world, is all about these 200-inch deer. I’m the first one to tell you that I would kill every 200-inch deer I can kill. Most of the blue collar hard-working people that only have weekends to hunt or vacation days, they all want to shoot a 200-inch, too, but we all need to face this. It’s not reality, not everybody kill 200-inch every year unless you live in a state that has 200-inch whitetails on your property that you manage and you’re wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with being wealthy, but the reality is most of your blue-collar workers, common people, that may have a small piece of property or hunch government land, a 13- class whitetail is a huge dear to them. We want to commend those people that are doing this. We’re not against killing 200-inch deer or growing or managing a property with 200-inch deer.
The trophy is in the eyes of the beholder. Share on X
The trophy is in the eyes of the beholder, Bruce. That’s the deal. The thing is we want to motivate people and families to get outdoors with your family members and hunt. Don’t feel bad if you shot a 140 or 150. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve been in shows and watch some of the arrogance in some of these people. It’s unbelievable. We all need to get along with the outdoors men and women in this industry. I want to forget one conversation I was in and they said, “You got any pictures during you killed last year?” I said, “I got a four and a half, five-and-a-half-year-old, a 140-inch deer I killed.” He said, “We have them as two-year-old where I’m at. We don’t shoot them.” Then I get into a conversation with him telling them that trophy’s in the eyes of the beholder and the 200-inch deer don’t come very often where I’m at South Central Missouri or lower Alabama or Mississippi. We want to motivate people to try to grow big deer. There’s nothing wrong with shooting 130, 140-inch deer, don’t feel a little bit of that, but we’re going to do is capture the story of the hunter and his relationship with that dear and tell the story. It’s a movie in a sense. People appreciate people that are down to earth, telling the truth, and seeing the struggles in reality of trying to harvest a big mature buck.
Jim Shear, I’ve known for over 50 years and he was just a kid when I started hunting the same farm. Garrett, his son killed the first 180-buck we’ve ever taken off that farm. Eddie, who owns a farm and farms. It took a 173, ten or fifteen years ago. Just because of good methods and practices, we’re seeing bigger and bigger deer. It’s your deer. It’s your trophy. I don’t care if it’s a doe. I don’t care if your son just shot his first spike buck or your daughter. It’s your trophy. We talked about Brendan Valentine, and she told me right when I started this thing, she said “Bruce, every single deer that’s taken is a trophy. You live out west, Bruce. Tell me about all the elk you’ve killed.” I said, “I killed a lot of cow elk and that’s a trophy because they eat good.” I’ve shot some nice pools, but every single elk is trophy because of the people I am with, the places that I’m hunting, and the whole experience. So many times, we get wound up on 200-inch deer. I’ve seen 200-inch deer both mule deer and whitetails. I’ve never shot one. I don’t know if I will, but it’s the hunt and people and I just love what you’re doing with the American Roots Outdoors because it’s the reality of, “This is what you can expect.” The Outdoor Channel and Pursuit Channel, all that, that’s great and that’s entertainment, but the reality of it is, and I’m sure you’d agree with me, let’s make it real for these folks.
They still argue with each other about somebody shooting 180-inch deer that’s mature and you’re killing 200-inc deer every year. That doesn’t make you better. You’re just blessed to be able to be in the situation you’re in. I’ve got a guy on our team members. He’s been a true friend for many years. I’ve known this boy since he’s fourteen years old. He is a police officer, a Deputy Sheriff in Cheatham County, Tennessee. He’s 29 years old and his name’s Ben Moore. He’s on American Roots Outdoors. He’s one of our brand development managers over Tennessee. How many deer have you shot, Ben Moore, in Tennessee?
I’ve shot a lot. I’ve been blessed that several good deer, I’ve got nine or ten 150. Over the last few years, I’ve hunkered down and tried to manage my beard a little bit better than people around me and it’s paid off.
Share your thoughts with our audience, Ben. Bruce, your thought process on American Roots and what it means to you to be a part of this and the emphasis on shooting mature deer and the trophy.
When I think of roots, I think back to my dad teaching me all about the outdoors and it’s put me where I’m at. We have to have a foundation. We have to start with the foundation. That is the root. We have to nourish and keep them growing. I can shoot 130-inch deer, 120-inch deer and it means just as much to me as shooting a 200-inch if it’s mature. I’ve seen five-year-old with 110-inch racks before. It’s just a mature deer it’s what matters. People get caught up in this industry so much, like Alex said, shooting this 250-inch, 180-inch and that’s all they think is a trophy. That’s not right.
Ben, I hear more and more people are looking at mature deer and that’s how we get the 180 off our farm because about ten years ago we said, “After Thanksgiving, the kids can go out, who’s ever hasn’t shot a deer, a doe is whatever deer they want to shoot, go ahead and shoot.” The rest of us that are put some deer down on the ground, “We’re going to go back and when you see a deer and you say, “That’s a great deer. I’m going to shoot it,” then go ahead and shoot it,” but try to get the maturity, the three and a half and worked at a four and a half. You can get your deer hunters on your land or your crew to take mature deer. It’s amazing what’s happened, so we’re proof positive of that. Your thoughts, guys?
That’s what we’re trying to say here. We want to reiterate that we don’t have a problem with a child shooting a spike buck. That’s the trophy to that child, his first deer, whatever. We’re about doing whatever the landowner, hunter wants to do, but however we also want to educate and say, “If you want better numbers on your property and more bucks, you need to let these bucks walk also.” We’re playing both sides of the fence here, but we’re encouraging people to grow more mature bucks and trophy is in the eyes of beholder. It’s about the story line, the relationship of you and that buck. When you go and pull your camera cards and you capture these photos and you get drawn to this certain book and you give them the name. We’re all about that and that’s what we’re going to show in our episodes.
We will not belittle anybody for what they’re doing. However, I want to emphasize this. If you want big, mature bucks on your property, you cannot go in and shoot a bunch of small bucks. If you want to grow big bucks, you got to let them walk three and a half plus let him go older. The one thing we do in our properties and our management thought process is the same with an American Roots Outdoors. If you’ve got a three-and-a-half-year-old eight pointer and he’s been an eight-pointer for the second year on, we’ll take eight-pointers out at three and a half. We will a lot of times because that’s all they’re ever going to be. I started doing it on my property several years ago, so we’re keeping that gene pool, the roots of that family gene or that certain template gene going on our property.
We want to motivate people and families to get outdoors with your family members and hunt. Share on X
I talked to biology stuff and they’d start talking about age class and age class recruitment. They start putting all the real factors underneath that. What I do is say, “If I let them go, they’ll grow. Then what we do, if we got a squirrely deer that’s three and a half years old, we’ll put him down because his horn, we know he’s not going to develop. You’re talking to guys both Alex and Ben that are 365 hunters. If you want to get after the mature bucks, that’s what you’re going to be. I’ve been doing this is show number 276, 83,000 downloads and people are going out to mature deer. People are coming after mature deer and are becoming better stewards. Alex and Ben are all about being stewards because we need to be stewards of our constitution and stewards of our face. Guys, jump into that a little bit.
We all know if you’ve been watching the news and you followed the candidates that our constitutional rights are under attack, especially the second amendment and our Christianity Amendment. We are under attack as Christians in America, that’s men and women and gun holders. Our second amendment as it says that we have the right to bear arms. What’s going to happen is if certain individuals are elected, they’re going to change the Supreme Court judges. They’re going to elect Supreme Court judges that’s going to go after your gun rights and your Christianity. I’m a Christian. I’m proud to say I’m a Christian and our whole team is everybody and the people on this team. If you will watch what’s going on in America, there are so many different religions going on and coming into our country. We are under attack. Liberalism is not good for America.
We’ve got to protect that constitution to keep America strong and I’m going to ask our audience, how many of you remember as a kid growing up, especially if you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, even 70s, what did you do on Sundays as a kid growing up? We were taught about God, our creator and we were taught about family. Focus on family on Sundays. On Sundays, we go to family dinners after church and we’re going to be together and spending time together in our roots. It seems like the divorce rate is tremendous in American because of liberalism.
What happened to the values of a man and woman getting married and staying true and blue and working out their differences in their marriage? What’s happening is with this divorce rate at a very high right, you have a lot of women that’s raising the children by themselves. That’s where we come into. We’re going to take a lot of these kids hunting and we got a youth hunt. My great niece, Addie Rutledge, is on a deer hunt. She’s eight years old, little blonde headed blue-eyed girl. Her mom was getting married to this man when she was pregnant, and he got killed in an accident. She’s raising this daughter on her own. We got them good stewards. We got models to show Jesus Christ’s and love and everything that we do in this world. We got to get our focus back to God, one God in America. When we do that, you’re going to see a greater atmosphere and you’re going to see a greater America. What’s more important to you, your money, your family, constitution? It all leads back to the constitution. Once we protect that constitution, everything that we care about is going to be protected.
It’s amazing over 200 years ago our forefathers wrote that document. If you haven’t thought about that God created it that way because those men had to take those words and that thoughts from someplace. It just didn’t show up because there was no email. Mail took days and days to get any place. They created this document for us. Alex and I and Ben can talk about the things we were talking about with free expression and freedom of speech. That’s a constitutional right. People are exerting that pro and con, but they have a right to express themselves, everybody does. The thing is that Alex is working and working hard to bring his notoriety and his fame to the marketplace and say, “We’re going to change this up. This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to visit with people and talk to them about all the things that matter.” Hunting is a big part of my life. Here I am, 70 years old, working every single week, five shows a week and talking about whitetail hunting. The important thing is we build community and we build respect and character, integrity.
God loves all colors, red, white, blue, black, yellow. He loves everyone in the world and what I have to say about that is I am hoping to anybody moving to America, you can bring your cultures with you. Don’t try to change us. Live as we live. Learn our language. If I can learn yours, I will, but it’s America. Stand up, say the pledge of allegiance to the flag, believe in my God, our God that helped create the constitution. I’m not attacking or being negative in anyone but think about it. In God’s word, He tells us, go into the world and minister. Why do you think so many people want to come to America? Because it’s freedom. Because America is such a great country.
When we turn and get off our high hat, we all get out and standing up for what’s right. I’m asking all the audience to support American Roots Outdoors because this is our mission statement. We’re going to show love. We want everybody to love one another. God loves the drinker. He loves the drunkard. He loves the thief. He loves the whoremonger. That doesn’t mean you’re going to go to heaven. It’s all about surrendering, giving it all to him. God is the final judge. What we’re doing, we’re showing love in American Roots Outdoor and standing up for our rights. It’s time that America wakes up, especially the outdoors men and women and stand on the values that was handed to us by our forefathers and our constitution and protect it.
The guys at QDMA, they send me information every once in a while. There’s approximately seventeen million plus or minus whitetail hunters just in the United States. That’s not even Canada. Then when you think about that and then you think of the $37 billion-dollar outdoor industry that’s related just to the outdoor recreational sports, hunting, and fishing and such, we are a big factor, but only if we make our voice heard, only if you go and vote. I’m not going to tell you how to vote, but I’m going to tell you make sure you vote and become part of the process, not part of the Twitter people and they bash this and they bash that. Some people aren’t going to vote. Your responsibility as a citizen for the United States of America is to vote. Period. Ben, your thoughts?
We got to keep our faith close and our family close and our passions. We got to keep them alive. Share on X
There are two things that I always said. You can’t forget who you are and where you came from. That’s what America needs to remember. What they were founded on, as outdoorsman, we can’t forget that. We got to keep our faith close and our family close and our passions. We got to keep them alive. We’ve got to stand up for what’s right and what we were given so many years ago.
Ben and I was having a conversation over a nice dinner. We grilled some steaks and we got to talking about our constitutional rights. It’s amazing how this conversation’s got off on this, which is very important. Ben, you made a statement. You’re a police officer, why don’t you tell everybody where you stand when they come in to take your guns.
As a police officer, I wouldn’t say that taking people’s guns from them would be nothing but a bloodbath. As a police officer, I have to override that people should have something to protect themselves with and their family with. Having somebody that you get an office and take that from us is not right. We have to stand up for it. People use weapons for bad things. They also use them for good things, too. There’s a negative and a positive to it, but it’s not the gun that kills, it’s the people. We have to be mindful of that.
How many people have been killed with vehicles? How many people been killed with a baseball bat? How many people have been killed in airplanes? How many get killed with illegal drugs?
Chicago, one of the largest cities in America, also the toughest gun laws in America and they have more gun violence in any city in the country. To liberals that want to take our guns, how’s that going to help make a statement with trying to take our guns? It’s going to make it worse because everybody is going to beat that law and have these guns and you’re going to see more because of what you’re doing. If you take their guns, the people that are using it to protect themselves from hoodlums are still going to have the guns because they’re going to find them. It’s like the drug problem we have an American. They’re not stopping drugs.
We’re going to spin it off to part two and we’re going to talk about whitetails.
Hey folks, if you enjoyed the first part of Alex Rutledge and Ben Moore, you’re going to enjoy a change of pace because we’re going to talk about nothing but whitetail hunting. Hunting those whitetails, those wildly bucks, the mature bucks that everybody wants to see, but they’re hard to pattern and hard to put down. These guys are going to share some top-notch secrets.