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Take Aim Outdoors: The Bow Hunter’s Podcast
Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous, this is your host Bruce Hutcheon and I’m excited to be heading into Michigan today with Brandon Hammond. Now Brandon has his own podcast where he shares about bow hunting, and it’s, “Take Aim Outdoors: The Bow Hunter’s Podcast,” and also on the warm-up, he’d just shared that he’s aligned with Outdoor Podcast Channel. So Brandon, welcome to the show.
Brandon: Thanks a lot, Bruce. I appreciate you having me today.
Bruce: Now I’m very interested in, and I’m sure our listeners are interested, what’s this group you’ve got going called Outdoor Podcast Channel? Let’s spend a couple of minutes on that.
Brandon: Yeah, I’d love to. The Outdoor Podcast Channel was a idea, there’s the two co-founders of the channel, and probably all of us are on the network. So there’s a few shows and some of them you may have heard of like mine, Take Aim, but there’s The Big Buck Registry, there’s Hunt Fish Travel, there’s Up North Journal, Fish Nerd, The Turkey Hunting Podcast, and Bow Hunting Freedom, which I believe you were a guest on, Bruce?
Bruce: Yes.
Brandon: All these channels, podcasts I should say, just came up with ideas like, “Hey, let’s start a network where we will be under one signified place and that RSS feed will play. Mine’s Take Aim Tuesday and then Phil’s on Wednesday, Carrie’s on Friday that sort of thing. So a new podcast comes right through your iTunes podcast app or your Stitcher or whatever you decide to use. Or you can go the outdoorpodcastchannel.com, but you get to hear a new different show every day from turkey hunting to fishing to bow hunting to deer stories and so on. We just added two new shows this week that just got dropped in the RSS feed and we’re super excited to keep growing this.
Bruce: Why do you think podcasting, especially in the outdoor industry, is really starting to take off?
Why do you think podcasting, especially in the outdoor industry, is really starting to take off
Brandon: I truly believe it’s obviously a new outlet. It’s something that in our busy lives today, it’s basically on demand. It really reminds me, Bruce, of having a magazine, and you can throw in your truck and you have it out at your coffee table, it’s that type of relationship I believe that people have with podcasts. But it’s in the car, it’s on the treadmill, it’s sitting on your lunch break at work, it’s that same thing that people used to do with magazines, but they do it now with podcasts and I just think it relates. And even on the other side, the industry, I think they’re just going to gravitate to it, because it’s the same thing as a magazine. It’s print and they used to strive all the time in the outdoor industry, “Print! Print! Print!” for advertisement, well, it’s the same thing. You can go back now and listen to this show with Bruce and Brandon a year from now and there’s value to that.
I just think it relates to people. People love to hear stuff plugged into those ear buds right into their ears. And I just see the sky’s the limit for podcasters, especially this time, in the outdoor industry, the shows that are here and established, it’s just a really good time for these podcasters. I love it.
Bruce: Yeah, and I do too. That’s why we’re doing this and you’ve read my bio and I’ve got some experience, but I want to share the knowledge. And I talk about the tradition of hunting, family, and friends, and if we can encapsulate those thoughts into the podcast, then I think no matter who you are or what you’re bringing to the table as far as the aspect of hunting, there is certainly room to grow. Would you agree with that?
Brandon: Oh absolutely, and that’s the cool thing about it is your show is not going to be like mine and mine’s not going to be like Carrie Zylka’s and so on and so on and so on. We don’t have to be the same or we don’t have to base all the shows on just giving tips. Some of these shows can be relationship based, some can be towards mentoring, some can be towards conservation. It’s endless and I think you can’t fit the stuff we do in a 22-minute TV show on the Sportsman or the Outdoor channel.
Bruce: Nope, and that’s true. Let’s key on, you just mentioned a word, “conversation.” I know you firmly believe in that and you’re passionate about that, so let’s expand that for our listeners.
Brandon: Absolutely. For all of us, it’s just a dire time where sadly, not so much in the Midwest, but I’m hearing it quite a bit out West, by you, Bruce, that there’s some of the state and federal lands are going to start coming up for sale, and I just urge everybody, if you’re not a part of a group, to get a part of the group and try to combat some of the government lands that can go up for sale. And we’re about the only country in the world that has this kind of land that is open to the public. So I think we’re kind of sleeping on the fact that this could be taken away from us and we’re sleeping on the fact that we’re just so used to having it.
I just urge everybody, if you’re not a part of the Mule Deer Foundation, The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, whatever it may be, get online and just become a member, even if it’s Safari Club. But any of these groups are standing up and trying to save our public land, which guys, we know, without public land, that’s loss of habitat and it’s less hunting grounds for all of us. That’s a scary thought.
Bruce: Yeah, I’ll throw in Whitetails Unlimited out of Sturgeon Bay, and then QDMA, they’re out of Georgia, who are advocates. And QDMA, they have National Deer Alliance. Craig Dougherty is the executive director. National Deer Alliance costs nothing to sign up, because it is important. And what Brandon is saying is absolutely true. I can almost see land that people want to get and privatize it, and it’s Forest Service land, and they want to privatize so they can develop it, pure and simple. And it’s an issue. And it’s not an issue for the people so much west of the Mississippi, but you get … pardon me, east of the Mississippi, but you get west of the Mississippi and it’s a huge problem that any hunter that hunts out west should be concerned about. Thanks for that Brandon.
Let’s talk about bow hunting, you’ve been a bow hunter for a long time. The Bow Hunters Podcast is part and parcel of Take Aim Outdoors. Let’s talk about the development of that podcast.
Let’s talk about bow hunting, you’ve been a bow hunter for a long time
Brandon: Sure. A couple things happened is I was working with a friend on a different podcast and doing background stuff and a network launched and asked me to jump on board and just asked, “Hey, would you do a podcast?” I came up with the idea to do Take Aim Outdoors. And I looked around at the time and just saw a podcast that did covering the sport of archery and one that just did total archery tips and one that just did deer tactics. Well, I wanted one that just talked about bow hunting and I wanted one that encompasses that, and what encompasses a lot of bow hunting is the industry. It’s the gear we use and the people in it. I just kind of drove all that together and that’s what Take Aim is.
So we have guests from the industry on the show, and we cover the bow hunting season. We actually do a mini-series from October to December. We call it, “In Season” and we talk about every week of bow hunting, so whether it’s the start of October, the October lull, into the pre-rut to the rut, we cover it all, and just give the rundown during the season. And then as soon as hunting’s over, we jump right into ATA and then we get back with guests within the industry and other bow hunters from around the country.