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Welcome to another exciting episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon and I’ve got Scott Fitzy on the line with us today, listeners and this guy has some fantastic stories. Scott, say hello to our listeners.
Scott: Hi! How you doing, listeners? Fitzy here with Outlaw Swamp, it’s good to be talking to everybody today. I’m excited to be on your show.
Bruce: Let’s just jump right into Outlaw Swamp Outdoor Adventures, we were just talking about the place you got and the farm and the swamp and everything outside of Boston, Wisconsin so Scott, tell us about how Outlaw Swamp Outdoor Adventures got going.
Scott: Yeah, it’s funny. I was one of those guys that chased that corporate ladder for 17 years and really had some lofty goals of making it to the top or what I thought was the top. And found myself before I was 40 as a VP with one of the larger corporations and was just traveling constantly and constantly. And after a while, I was traveling 200 days, 250 days a year and I just thought to myself, “You know what? This isn’t me and I’ve got to get out of it.” And I looked around the table and I thought, “This isn’t what I want to be.” I was missing stuff with my family and my friends and I was missing the woods. It was killing me, actually.
So I started Outlaw Swamp because we were, as we all grew up on the family farms and were able to hunt there was a bunch of us, I’ve been hunting with the same guys for 25 years. And there wasn’t a spot that was just ours. We had to hunt a certain area. We couldn’t do this, we couldn’t do that and it was funny. So three days before opening gun season 12 years ago, I was having a business lunch and a guy said he had 60 acres of nothing good but swamp land up by Lyndon Station. Instantly, my ears perked up because we were 150 miles from there and I’m thinking, Lyndon, really? I bought it sight unseen. It was an interesting conversation to come home and tell my wife that we just bought some hunting land. But that’s, she gets me so it makes it a lot easier. But we were all out there, the swamp crew, Chad, Shane and Jack and Darren and Kimmy and I, we’re all sitting around and I looked at these guys. I said, “Look at you outlaws.” I said, “I had to buy an old swamp just so we could all have a place to hunt and get together.” My cousin Shane said, “Yeah, Outlaw Swamp.” And that’s been five years now and it’s just been nothing but a pleasure to put this together and be out in the woods with these guys. I just love it.
Bruce: You just talked about the tradition of hunting. Let’s stay with that a little bit and unpack that. It’s important to us all to follow our roots and you know my background story in 1966 Union Center Wanee Walk, Baraboo river and I shot my first buck and that’s what started me in the whitetail industry. And I didn’t have a father who hunted but I had friends from college at University of Wisconsin La Crosse that invited me to their farm and we’ve been hunting that same farm for, count the years, a long, long, time. And every fall I go back there and I wouldn’t miss it because of the guys and the relationships and the families and the kids. It’s unbelievable what the tradition of hunting’s meant to me and share with our listeners what it’s meant to you.
Scott: You know, the tradition is what it’s all about for us and I was fortunate enough that I had my Uncle Jack who dragged me along with my 30-30 Marlin lever action, probably the most dangerous gun but if you grew up as a kid in Wisconsin, the 30-30 is what you started with deer hunting. Dragged me around the family farms, even though he was five years older than me, and just was great. Taught me how to shoot, taught me how to hunt and then it transitioned from my cousin Jim Ryczek bought a shack or built a shack out of the woods that were on his land. And, I mean, dinners there, listening to my cousin Casey and Colin and Kevin play guitar, sitting around cooking meals. We cut up our own deer. It’s the whole tradition of watching the elders pass on the stories from one generation to another that I knew I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be the Jim Ryczek of my generation to be able to say we’ve got a place to hunt, we’ve got a place to break bread and we’ve got a place to tell these stories that’ll last forever.
Bruce: You were sharing with me that you bought your grandparent’s or some family member’s farm house?
Scott: I bought my great grandma’s house that my grandpa and grandma Fitz owned and it was funny because there were a bunch of brothers and sisters and when my great grandma passed away, I want to say it was ’83, my grandpa got it it. They cut cards and my one great aunt got a queen and he got a king and he had that house and boy, I tagged along with him every chance I got, I went up there with him and I cut the grass and stayed out at that house. When my grandma Fitz was ready to get, you know, let the house go, I just jumped on it. I bought it as is and I replanted, I built my hunting garage on there where we hang out at and it’s just a special place for me.
Bruce: How many acres does the Outlaw Swamp crew hunt?
Scott: Well, we hunt like three or four different states. We’re a fortunate family that Casey Ryczek, who’s part of the Ryczek Hunting Company, they have like 500 hundred acres and that’s where I grew up hunting as a kid so we get to go there. There’s a Synsic [SP] Farm where Pat Synsic is out there hunting from the crew and Jack Fitz’s land behind his house and then I got my 60 where at leas with another 100 next to it so 160 there and Rich Raisbeck’s got the Snake Ranch over by Bagley, Wisconsin and Jim Moore’s land down in Illinois. So out of all these pieces of land, I mean, I guess it would be around 1,000 acres or more when you get down to the places that we’re fortunate enough to be able to go out and hunt.
Bruce: Share with the listeners how you manage your land or parcels of land you have in your crew for quality deer, a balanced herd, big bucks, if that’s what you’re looking for. Tell us about that story.
Scott: It’s funny because I never really, until I was able to spend the time, I never really had those strategies. Sure, you put trail cams, sure you go ahead and do your scouting but now, I’m really into the quality management of it. I’m into making sure that my herd’s healthy with food plots on there. We do manage by taking, we try to have the right doe to buck ratio on there and really making sure that our deer our healthy, let them grow up. And making sure . . . like last year, I’ve been following this buck for two years, called him Ernie Buck [SP] and then the land and he was shot the last day of gun season but he was shot by the neighbor. It was a good shot, he was a young kid, it was a buck of a lifetime for him and I didn’t end up taking a buck off of the swamp last year and that’s okay.
I mean, besides when we’re filming for a show, when you want to make sure that you get this big buck on film, the part of it is it’s important for us, it doesn’t matter any of our land on there, that we’re making sure our deer are healthy and that we’re taking a nice buck off there each year rather than just going out. . . Now granted, I’m going to take some deer for deer meet. We eat a ton of deer meat, especially ice fishing in our shanties all winter but the right deer to buck ratio, I would say, is my most important thing that I zero in on at the swamp.
Bruce: Talk to me about food plots or how you make sure you’re holding your deer on all the properties that you have.
Scott: Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, the food plots, if you’ve ever tried to put a food plot into the swamp it’s a tough thing. I actually was out there doing food plots and the swamp, it dry up in the spots that we hunt but it doesn’t dry up until later in the season. So I could have rode a boat out there to my plots this year but the most important thing is I didn’t know anything about farming, you know? I just, you know, we put seed out there and this and that so what I started doing was I started going and talking to guys like Kevin Bolyer [SP] and Don Higgins and Real World Wildlife Seed and I started to Tommy Langer up in Lyndon who was a farmer who knows about the seed and really, how am I supposed to plant it? When am I supposed to plant it? How do I take care of it? What do I do at the end of the year to be able to get it to come back the next year?
And I tell you what, I couldn’t be happier. We’re holding deer, we’ve got full plots that are setup prior to them going into the big fields, surrounded by corn fields and bean fields. And I was really focused in on trying to get that staging area where I still have light to shoot before they get into the fields and I couldn’t be happier with the results that we’ve had on our properties by doing that.
Bruce: You mentioned your neighbor getting the buck of a lifetime. Did you go over take pictures or . . . ?
Scott: Of course! It’s a celebration. You know how it is in Wisconsin, somebody shoots a big buck like that. . . And Jason, Jason, Dan’s son, who shot that big buck and he was on a drive, we do a drive in gun season at the end of the swamp, especially when things are as slow as they were this year towards the end of the week. And everybody gets together and sees the buck. I mean, there was a buck that was taken this year by Trevor Barmore [SP] on the Ryczek land that was just a beautiful buck. He actually pulled up and I could see the buck horns out the back of the truck, coming up out of his truck bed and the great thing about it is this guy is not shy. He’s a good kid, hasn’t shot a deer in a couple of years and to have this monster that Casey had on film all year and had on trail cams to get this deer, well I tell you what, it was a great night at the shack that night. We had a lot of fun celebrating Trevor that day.
Bruce: Ladies and gentlemen, listeners, you just heard something very special that happens in Wisconsin. If you have good relationships with the neighbors and having hunted there for more years than I’d like to say, actually not, but it’s so important to get to know your neighbors. If you have a situation right now that you’re not real friends with neighbors, go buy a case of beer, go buy a hot apple pie, go buy a brisket and cook it up and take barbecue over to that guy or gal and say, “Hey! I’m your neighbor and I know you don’t like hunting or if you do hunt, you shoot everything that walks but I appreciate you just being here.” And make a friend.
Scott: Awe, absolutely! I mean, it’s almost like being in the army. When you hunt with somebody, you can learn more off of hunting with somebody and spending time in deer camp, those relationships will last forever. And as your circle increases, I’ve been fortunate enough to hunt all around the country and just down turkey hunting with Chase Bowman and those guys, Darren, Leon, and Gary Moore from Carpenskin [SP] just a couple . . . that’s why, I mean we’re lifelong friends now. The last day I said, “You know what I’m going to do, boys?” I said, “I’m going to cook. We ain’t going to eat anywhere.” So we borrowed a grill, we sat around and we cooked up some tips and told stories and the traditions, not much different whether it’s Wisconsin or Virginia or North Carolina or Florida, I mean, wherever you’re at, you’ve seen those deer camps stay pretty consistent on how they develop into strong relationships that you build over years, whether they’re family or not.
Bruce: Hey Scott, will you give a shout out for Chase Bowman’s new business?
Scott: Yeah, Chase Bowman, Bound for Blood. I tell you what, this guy’s the real deal. There’s a lot of people that see guys on TV and they look and they go, “Okay, that’s great.” But this guy, every vacation, every dollar this guy does is around hunting and we just hit it off and his new show is coming out in October and it’ll be on the DISH Channel 266 every Wednesday at 7 A.M.. Bound for Blood. It will be Chase Bowman, Denny Surratt, Darren Leone are the hosts and I’ve got to tell you, I’m happy to say that the Outlaw Swamp’s been asked to be a part of that and we’re going to film for Chase this year. Matter of fact in August, I’m going to go down and shoot a hog with him and he’s going to come over to my piece in Missouri and we’re going to do some bow hunting and filming over there and I suspect Chase and I will get long in the tooth going on some of these hunting trips.
Bruce: Listeners, Chase Bowman is the real deal. We were fortunate enough to have him on the show early on and you won’t find a better guy out there, period.
Scott: I talked to him this morning, I see that he’s on your list of experts on there. It’s just a lot of fun. The best thing about it is he’s not so serious. I mean, he just loves to hunt and, you know how you get around other people who kind of have that infectious fever for hunting like you have? And it doesn’t take but a couple minutes and a couple stories before you guys are hitting it off, having a cocktail, talking about when we’re going to do this again together. But I dig Chase and his group and I’m looking forward to the swamp guys meetings him.
Bruce: Let’s get back on the whitetail. Let’s talk about hunting a swamp. I’m sure our listeners are going, “Okay, how do you hunt a swamp?” Walk us through, spend a couple of minutes talking about hunting your swamp.
Scott: Man, that’s a great question. And I tell you, I don’t have it perfected so. . . I’ve had that swamp for 12 years and the thing about it, it doesn’t matter if you study the topography of the swamp because it’s ever changing and you’re trying to reclaim most parts of it every year and you’re always dependent on the weather. It doesn’t matter, I’ve had years where the swamp been’s completely flooded where we couldn’t even take four wheelers back to our stands and stands were not even able to get to. So it’s so important that you really understand at the beginning of the year. I mean, whitetail hunting is a 365 day a year for me. Every day there’s something that I’m thinking about or trying to work on, whether it’s food plots, whether I’ve got to move stands or whether I’m changing what’s in my food plots for the next year.
And when you come into the swamp, you know in the spring, you’ve got a pretty good idea of how that thing is gonna lay out for you when it comes towards September 15th and how you’re going to be able to get back to your certain spots. Normally, the deer are going to keep their patterns that they’ve kept over the years and that you track. But the big bucks love the bedding areas in the back of the swamp. I guarantee there’s deer back in that swamp that I’ve never seen in 12 years. I know there is, I’ve found sheds. So the fact that when you’re hunting the swamp is understanding what areas you’re going to get to, what patterns have changed due to the levels of water that has risen and due to the bedding areas that may have had to change for the fact that the water is high because the most important thing, at least in my opinion, those deer are going to want safety. And they’re going to want to be able to go back where they’re not being pushed around a lot and you definitely get that advantage while hunting a swamp.