ATA Day 3 - 3: Mule Deer Foundation - TAGNBRAG

Mule Deer Foundation –

Past, Present, & Future

Over twenty years ago, the concept of giving something back to mule deer was a dream of Emmett Burroughs. As Emmett traveled around the country hunting and filming mule deer, he realized that many of us take this awesome species for granted.

Think about what the world was like in 1988. Mule deer had been extremely abundant right up until the winters of 1983-84. Across the West, the record snowfall lingered long into spring and early summer. Many mule deer and black-tailed deer perished, mostly starving for lack of food covered by snow and from cold temperatures.

A few years later, Emmett observed that mule deer populations had not rebounded from this die-off. Many factors contributed to mule deer not coming back – loss of habitat, predators, poaching, highways crossing through the middle of transitional ranges, and subdivisions being built on winter ranges. State wildlife agencies were busy trying to grow more elk and dealing with endangered species issues.

On top of that, funding to state wildlife agencies was in decline. Mule deer management, which had been a staple of most fish and wildlife agencies, was taken for granted. It was as if mule deer, which were at one time the premier big game species, were no longer worthy of prominence.

Emmett gathered together a few of his close friends and acquaintances and asked them to think back at how much they had taken mule deer for granted. He challenged them with the famous words, “We must give something back to mule deer and black-tailed deer.”

In July 1988, the Mule Deer Foundation was incorporated as a 501(c)3 wildlife conservation organization. Founded in Redding, California, the original Board of Directors developed the mission statement of MDF, “The mission of the Mule Deer Foundation is to ensure the conservation of mule deer, black-tailed deer and their habitat.” As with many wildlife conservation organizations, MDF started having banquet fundraising events to raise money for projects benefiting mule deer.

TAGNBRAG –

Tag N’ Brag started as a notebook of ideas created by David and Dean Giarrizzo while they were in college at Ohio State University. They wanted to create a place where all hunters and fishermen/women could connect, share experiences, and exploit themselves as outdoorsmen/women.

In the fall throughout their college careers, David and Dean would spend countless hours in the car going to and from school to the hunting grounds. They even scheduled classes on the same days as each other so they would have opposite days off to go hunt. Much of the time spent in the car and some in class was focused on jotting down ideas and creating the vision for Tag N’ Brag.

In December 2011, they launched the first version of www.tag-n-brag.com. In less than two years they have turned the outdoor social network into a brand recognized throughout our industry. www.tag-n-brag.com is going to re-launch a new custom designed website at the end of November. We now have an iOS and Android phone application, our own blog, and our own web show on tag-n-brag.tv. We have great plans of expanding the Tag N’ Brag brand even further and look forward to connecting hunters and fishermen/women worldwide.

Own The Season TV –

Starting in 1998, Art began giving seminars to small audiences for Primos. Since then, he’s traveled across the country speaking at venues large and small, from local sporting clubs to Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s, the Iowa Deer Classic, and the Field & Stream/Outdoor Life Deer and Turkey Expos. When speaking with people, Art draws upon his own past experience, successes and failures, as well as the over 150 days per year in the field hunting, guiding, and scouting. Michelle joined the seminar circuit in 2013, speaking on safety, first aid, and CPR for the outdoors.

After having planted food plots, practicing woodland management, and completing timber stand improvement and pond projects on his own 40 acres, leases, and properties of friends and neighbors for eighteen years, Art started habitat consultation services in 2015.

Art and his wife, Michelle, are experienced in videography, having filmed for Archer’s Choice Media Productions and the Double Bull Archery video series starting in 1998. They launched their own show, Own the Season, in 2019.

—

Listen to the episode here:

ATA Day 3 – 3: Mule Deer Foundation

I’m with the Mule Deer Foundation. I go into the nonprofit and talking to them about what they’re bringing to the table and why you, our audience, should get involved with these conservation organizations. Jared, what’s happening over to Mule Deer Foundation?

There are always a lot of great things going on within MDF overall with mule deer conservation and blacktail conservation. We’re primarily over in the western half of the country because that’s where mule deer and blacktail deer do live. We’ve got a very strong membership base and volunteer base that is a great group of people that are very dedicated towards conservation of mule deer and blacktail deer throughout the western half of the country. We have our big conservation expo, the Western Hunting Conservation Expo. It’s a big celebration of conservation during that timeframe. With this big conservation expo, it’s a lot of like-minded people that gather together during this event. We raised a lot of funds for a lot of great conservation projects throughout the footprint of MDF.

Why should a person be a member of the Mule Deer Foundation?

Be a member of an organization because you will be able to give back towards something that you love. Share on X

It’s always important to be a member of the organization just because you’re giving back towards something that you love. There are a lot of people with an affinity towards Western-style hunting. A lot of our conservation is always directly related towards conservation betterment of mule deer. A lot of those conservation projects not only benefits mule deer but a lot of the other animals within that area. It’s always important to give back towards that aspect. Being a member, you always get a lot of different benefits such as the MDF magazine. We always love to keep our members updated with what’s going on within the organization and within the hunting industry through the magazine.

What are some of the challenges with mule deer? I do live in Colorado. I have a whitetail show and I hunt extensively in the Midwest like Nebraska, Dakota and places like that. What’s up with mule deer because we know CWD is a big issue with whitetail. What’s challenging mule deer now?

There are a lot of things that can challenge almost any species, especially over on the West. It could either be droughts or major fires. There’s always fire season out in the West. We’re always looking at trying to either rebuild habitat, put in different guzzlers, create water sources just to be able to help these animals thrive out in these areas. CWD like whitetails, that’s always a major concern. The more that we can do together and the more we can learn about CWD, the better off we all are.

How about predation?

That is another aspect that does take into account is some of the animal herds as well. We’re always working as much as we can to help the betterment of the herds.

People in the past, I know on a lot of Western States’ DNR dockets of decreasing mule deer. Is the trend still decreasing, stabilizing or are we seeing a trend of population base and aid recruitment increasing?

Overall, a lot of the things that we do are helping benefit the mule deer. It certainly does create a better atmosphere for them to make it more conducive for better herds. The more we can work with our state and federal agencies, the better off we are to help increase these populations of the mule deer.

Do you know any numbers? Is it increasing or is it level or is the mule deer population still decreasing?

It’s definitely getting towards that stabilization, but they are the pulse as to what can come in the western states. They’re very susceptible to many different things. It’s great to look at the mule deer to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to help that.

One last bit, what do you see is the future of the mule deer in the West?

We’re continually growing. I think the more we grow, the more we can do.

Jared, thank you so much for talking with us at ATA 2019.

Thank you very much.

ATA Day 3 – 3: TAGNBRAG

I’m with Tag N’ Brag. Who’s Tag N’ Brag? You better get on social media. Giarrizzo brothers have got it going on with Tag N’ Brag. Dean, why don’t you start off and say why you started this thing?

We’re born with the passion of the outdoors, hunting and fishing. My dad, my grandpa and my uncle primarily, maybe it started with them dragging us in the woods. We were five, six years old running behind them, getting in the woods with them. The whole lifestyle and the passion for hunting and the outdoors has been ingrained in us since a young age and we fell in love with it. It’s more of a lifestyle now. It’s just the way we live. As we started getting a little bit older and into our teens, we wanted into the film. We grew up watching the Monster Buck films, The Drurys and everything like that. We were always reminiscing and dreaming that we could do it too. It started with having a passion for the camera too. We love entertaining people in front of the camera. We entertained ourselves really. That’s what started the fun of it. From there, it snowballed into what we’re doing now. It’s a cool story.

David, from your point of view, what’s new with your company right now?

A couple of years ago, we switched from the TV format, thirteen episodes. We’re focusing on the kill and trying to feel like we had killed deer in order to produce outdoor television. Now, we have a vlog style web show. We’re doing 120 to 150 episodes per year, which is cool because we give our viewers the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our motive is if we take the kill out of the film, do you still want to watch it? Are you still ingrained with our personalities? Are you still entertained with what we’re doing?

We teach people along the way because we’re like any other die-hard hunters. We plant food plots. It’s a 365-days-a-year thing for us. We want to bring you along for the journey and we pride ourselves more on documenting rather than creating. We’re not trying to create some crazy slow-motion film. We’re going to document everything we do and bring you along with us. It snowballed our following and our interaction over the last couple of years, which is pretty cool because we’re at a show here like ATA. We can’t walk from meeting to meeting without getting grabbed by someone, “Tag N’ Brag this, Tag N’ Brag that,” and that’s humbling. It feels like we’re making an impact and that’s what we set out for initially. It’s cool to be to this point.

Like we’ve talked about in the warm-up, organic growth is important. Speaking about that, how do people reach out and find you?

All you’ve got to do on Facebook is search Tag N’ Brag. It’s @TeamTagNBrag on Instagram and on YouTube. All of our vlogs are launched on Facebook. We do a lot of premiers now with our vlogs. If we launch a vlog, we’ll launch it live and Dean and I will be there interacting with it and stuff too. We’re on Instagram and stuff daily. A lot of people enjoy the stories that we post because we don’t hold much back from the camera on our Instagram stories where we can let loose a little bit more and be even more of ourselves. Team Tag N’ Brag on Instagram, Team Tag N’ Brag on YouTube and just Tag N’ Brag on Facebook.

When you’re walking around here at ATA at your age, what do you think the future is for people coming into the business, building what you guys are building? What’s your vision?

It’s moving a lot more digital, especially with the younger generation. That’s who we’re trying to attract. Our vision is to get more people involved in the sport. Show that it’s fun and show the values that we learned as kids growing up and get more people involved because of the family and the camaraderie around the sport. Much more, it feels congested with a competition a little bit where I got to shoot a big buck in order to be somebody. If it’s not a four-and-a-half-year-old or a five-and-a-half-year-old, the buck is not big enough, we didn’t grow up hunting like that. For us, getting down to our roots and showing people that this is a fun sport that they can enjoy. It has values that go beyond the sport of hunting too.

Then you’ve got the conservation side of it, which is a whole separate ball game but equally as important. This sport and this whole industry are necessary for the growth and the prosperity of wildlife. If there weren’t hunters or weren’t conservation, these species and everything that everyone’s enjoying in the outdoors would be a completely different picture. That’s something that I don’t want to see, but I realized the importance of conservation and the impact that hunters have on wildlife.

Even outside of hunting too, we grew up in three generations of family business in the auto body industry. It would have been easy for us to just say we’re going to jump into that and that’s what we’re going to make our life about. For us, it was more of getting outside the box. We’d never wanted to be the type of people that went to a job, 9 to 5, hated it, came home and could leave it. For us, it was going outside the box and pursuing your passions. It’s creating your own life and trying to motivate people and inspire people that they can do the same thing no matter if it’s hunting, fishing or another passion that they have.

I’m smiling because here are two young guys, they are on fire, they’re passionate but they also want to share. They want to share the hunting tradition. Whitetail Rendezvous is all about the hunting tradition. I’ve been hunting the same farm for over 50 years. There’s a lot of tradition built into that. I hear these two guys talking about that, Dean and David, it just warmed my heart. I don’t know how else to say it but with guys like this coming up, the hunting industry is in good shape because we’ve got guys making an impact. We’ve got guys willing to stand up and say, “No, that’s wrong or yeah, that’s right. That’s why it’s right. Let’s do something more about it and get it together to work.” Let’s talk about CWD. Do you know anything about that?

A little bit. It’s becoming more and more prevalent where we hunt in Ohio too. Right now, in Ohio, you can bait deer all year round, but there’s talk among the DC and stuff like that, that they may take that away or diminish it to a certain extent because of that. One of the states that we hunt a lot too is New York and you can’t bait, put mineral out at any time of the year, offseason, on season, whatever, solely because they don’t want the spread of CWD going around. I wouldn’t say we’re extremely well-versed in it but as hunters, as conservationists trying to educate ourselves even more now, especially with how close to home it’s hitting us is extremely important.

One more time, how do people find you on the web?

Go to Facebook, just search Tag N’ Brag. Go to our Instagram, Team Tag N’ Brag. On YouTube, Team Tag N’ Brag as well. We pride ourselves in following up, answering every message, every comment. We want to hear from you. Please reach out if you have any questions or if you want a hunting buddy to share a story with. We’d love to hear from you.

Let’s wrap up one more thing, David.

Get out there and buy a hunting license. Go hunting and enjoy the sport. Don’t let anyone tell you how to hunt. Hunt your way and enjoy it. Be passionate about it and if you’ve got a cell phone or whatever, document it and share it with your friends. Get somebody else involved because as a sport that seems to be on a decline, we need to catch it. We need to all rally together and be one as hunters. It’s important.

The more we can work with our state and federal agencies, the better off we at increasing the populations of the mule deer. Share on X

I want to go off that and just say there are no rules to hunting. People think they have to live up to a standard or hunt this way, food plot, I got to shoot this age deer, whatever. Hunt your way. Everyone says to us and I heard it a couple of times at our show like, “You guys don’t catch anything out of your videos.” A lot of television stuff you see now, it’s not as real with the everyday hunter. That’s because we have our own way of hunting and we don’t want to hold anything back. That’s how everyone should hunt. Hunt your way and enjoy it. You don’t have to do it a certain way. Everyone’s got their own way and if you enjoy it a certain way, get out there and just enjoy the outdoors. That’s what it’s about.

Just looking at these two young guys, David and Dean, at the top of this piece, there’s a bright future for hunting when we got guys like these that let it all hang out and say, “This is the way it is. This is where we’re going on with our show and this is it.”

We appreciate you having us on, Bruce. That was a pleasure.

ATA Day 3 – 3: Own The Season TV

I’m with Art and Michelle Helin. They just launched at ATA, Own the Season TV. Michelle, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that?

It worked out well and I realized the timing of it and that we were going to be here for our launch. I thought what better place to launch it than here with the Outdoor Channel Group and all of our sponsors. We’re able to go live on Facebook with them there at the MOTV booth and announce it to everybody.

Who are some of your sponsors that are going to be supporting the program?

We’ve got all of our sponsors here. Realtree has been a great sponsor for us, Vortex Optics, Arctic Shield, Pradco, New Archery Products.

A new one this year, back to HS calls, Hunter Specialties. Their call lines in both turkey and deer and their turkey lineup as far as decoys. We’ve got Easton Hoyt. That’s all of them that we’ve been dealing with. All of them that are behind us and standing behind us, which has been a lot of fun. We’ve been with a lot of these companies. Some of them for as long as 24 years that I’ve been in this industry. Some of them are newer within the last ten to fifteen, but they’ve been the same companies that we’ve been with anywhere from 10 to 25 years.

Pursue your passions and create your own life. Share on X

I’m happy to say that Michelle and I are going to be working together. They’re going to be helping promote Whitetail Rendezvous and I’m going to be doing the same thing. You’re going to hear a lot about Own the Season TV on Whitetail Rendezvous coming forward in 2019. I’m glad that we’re moving forward and working together and promoting both our businesses.

We appreciate that relationship too, Bruce. We’re looking forward to that.

I’ve been fortunate to be on a few of Bruce’s podcast. Him and I have worked together in the past. It’s going to be a great relationship and help each other out down the road here and help each other grow some more. He’s been great. If you haven’t heard his podcast, go back and listen to him. He does a great job.

Thanks for that, Art. There are lots of TV shows out there, MOTV. Let’s share with our audience something about what’s so special about that setup.

What’s unique with our relationship with our show with MOTV is that we’re one of the first shows there that are MOTV originals or MOTV exclusive. Our show isn’t going to be on TV first and then airing the older episodes. We’re going to be exclusively on MOTV. That’s our official home for Own the Season. The other thing that we bring to the table is a focus on education and helping people learn. Us sharing what worked for us during a specific hunt or other outdoor activity to help the viewers be successful as well.

Art, what do you want to add?

It’s all about education. I’ve always liked to educate. I do a lot of seminars throughout the country. We’ve worked with TV before because we like to educate and work with a lot of different special needs hunters and handicapped hunters and different people. We want to educate and that was a great thing on MOTV that we could take that platform on there and be exclusive. It’s a little more open. They let us do a little more of what we want to do and what we need to do to help educate. Not only in the hunts but how to help other people become successful. Whether if there’s a handicapped hunter, how to help that hunter get to where they’re going and how to do things. That’s the platform. Why we chose that platform is to help that end of things grow.

I’m excited where this whole thing’s going. How do people find you?

They can find us at ArtHelinOutdoors.com and then they can find our show, Own the Season, on MOTV. Also, we’re going to be doing a lot more on YouTube as well. We’re doing some more educational things there, some maybe shorter tips, maybe blooper reels, things like that.

Some short promo, some different things about new products that are coming out from companies. If it’s a mid-year product, we’ll be putting those on there because they’re too short to actually put on an episode of MOTV. That’s our focus on that new YouTube page. It’s a little more of the new product releases. As she said, blooper reels, which we have plenty of those. They’re the things that we’re going to be doing now. We’ve got our website, we have Own the Season Instagram page, Art Helin Outdoors & Own the Season TV on Facebook. There are a lot of different things that you can look for and find us on and we’ll be there.

I’m excited to be working with you, guys. I hope this year, we can get together and at least do some turkey hunting. If not, meet up for the deer hunt. Beyond that, these folks are quality folks that put together a quality product and checkout Own the Season TV with Art and Michelle.

About Mule Deer Foundation

The purpose of the Mule Deer Foundation is to ensure the conservation of mule deer, black-tailed deer and their habitat.

MDF is dedicated to the following goals:

To restore, improve and protect mule deer habitat (including land and easement acquisitions) resulting in self-sustaining, healthy, free ranging and huntable deer populations.
To encourage and support responsible wildlife management with government agencies, private organizations and landowners.
To promote public education and scientific research related to mule deer and wildlife management.
To support and encourage responsible and ethical behavior and awareness of issues among those whose actions affect mule deer.
To support regulated hunting as a viable component of mule deer and black-tailed deer conservation.
To develop programs that focus on recruitment and retention of youth into the shooting sports and conservation.

About Tag N’ Brag

In the fall throughout their college careers, David and Dean would spend countless hours in the car going to and from school to the hunting grounds. They even scheduled classes on the same days as each other so they would have opposite days off to go hunt. Much of the time spent in the car, and some in class was focused on jotting down ideas and creating the vision for Tag N’ Brag.

In December 2011, they launched the first version of www.tag-n-brag.com. In less then 2 years they have turned the outdoor social network into a brand recognized throughout our industry. www.tag-n-brag.com is going to re-launch a new custom designed website at the end of November, we now have an iOS and Andriod phone application, our own blog, and our own web show on tag-n-brag.tv.

We have great plans of expanding the Tag N’ Brag brand even further and look forward to connecting hunters and fishermen/women worldwide.

About Own the Season TV

Art Helin of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, began hunting over 30 years ago under the instruction of his father and grandmother. What started as small game and deer hunting in his home state grew to an obsession to hunt nearly every big game species across North America. Raised in a hunting and fishing family, Michelle began hunting with Art at the age of 16 and they married three years later. Art’s hunting success and passion for teaching others has led to his pro/field staffer positions for various manufacturers since 1996. Together with his wife, Michelle, and the staff of Art Helin Outdoors, he promotes these companies and the great outdoors by working trade shows, attending retail store events and providing in-store training to their employees, . Starting in 1998, Art began giving seminars to small audiences for Primos. Since then, he’s traveled across the country, speaking at venues large and small, from local sporting clubs to Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s, the Iowa Deer Classic, and the Field & Stream/Outdoor Life Deer and Turkey Expos. When speaking with people, Art draws upon his own past experience, successes and failures, as well as the over 150 days per year in the field hunting, guiding and scouting. Michelle joined the seminar circuit in 2013, speaking on safety, first aid & CPR for the outdoors.

After having planted food plots, practicing woodland management, and completing timber stand improvement and pond projects on his own 40-acres, his leases, and properties of friends and neighbors for 18 years, Art started habitat consultation services in 2015.

Art and his wife, Michelle, are experienced in videography, having filmed for Archer’s Choice Media Productions and the Double Bull Archery video series starting in 1998, and launched their own show, Own the Season, in 2019.

Posts

ATA Day 3 – 3: Mule Deer Foundation – TAGNBRAG – Own The Season TV