Gary Elliot is the is the owner of Outdoor News and Reviews. In this episode, Gary talks about his passion for hunting and why he created Outdoor News and Reviews. After being reintroduced to the outdoors, Gary wanted a way to learn all the new techniques, all the new products out there. He started blogging and writing product reviews and it has just grown from there. Gary also dives into his childhood memories and how he developed his love and fascination for the outdoors and how he rekindled this passion when he was older.
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Gary Elliot outdoornewsandreviews.com Information About Archery/Hunting And Outdoor Products
I have Gary Elliot who is the owner of Outdoor News and Reviews as seen on Facebook.
Bruce, how are you?
I’m doing great. We’re excited to have you on the show. Let’s jump right into it. Talk to us about what you hope to do for the outdoor community with your Facebook page.
I started it in 2008. I was reintroduced to the outdoors, hunting and archery. I wanted a way to learn all the new techniques and products out there, so I started blogging. I started writing product reviews. I was getting requests and feedback from one of the owners of Bowhunting.net. As time went by, I learned to write a little bit better and produced things. Rich allowed me to write for Bowhunting.net. I’ve also, along the way, been able to write for Bowhunting.com on occasion and the blog has grown. Companies have allowed me the opportunity to write about outdoor products and hunting.
What type of products are people interested in the world of whitetails?
Bows, especially. We’ve gone as far right now with technology and materials, so marketing has us wanting faster bows. We’ve got new colors introduced to the market. People are able to pick almost any color they want. Technology allows us even to take those old bows. It’s not quite sandblasting but recoat those old bows, bring them back to life and make them the colors we want. We don’t have to have the high poundage bows that we used to have to shoot to get any speed or distance out of them.
Trail cameras are big, not only to the hunter but to the avid person feeding whitetails who are enjoying watching them feed and be in their backyards. The apps that are coming out are phenomenal for trail cameras. It allows the average whitetail hunter and everyone to have multiple cameras, monitor them, put them in, organize them, from moon phase to time of day, to date, everything. With technology, as it is in any avenue, there are good things and bad things, but there are a lot of good things coming from it at this time. Whitetail hunters, they are looking for that new thing and that new technology. When they do, depending on how well it’s marketed, they eat it up.
Gary, have you checked out Jon Livingston, DeerLab.com?
Yes, I have. I have talked to him at the ATA shows and spoke to him about that. We’re getting ready to do a review on it. I don’t have that many cameras to make it worthwhile but I have a friend who does. We’re getting together. We’re going to start putting something together. It’s a phenomenal piece of software and database-driven. For a person that loves to micromanage their cameras and their data, it’s definitely something worth looking at.
Whitetail hunters are looking for new technology, and when they do, depending on how well it’s marketed, they eat it up. Share on XWe had Jon on the show and he had incredible information about what he can tell from the date stamp on that photo of that buck and the doe in the woods. What were some of the impressive things that you saw that is immediately transferable to the whitetail hunter?
There’s so much from that software that you can narrow it down to what deer are coming in at certain moon phases. You can utilize it if you want to know what time of days that you have to hunt and what are available. You can go by time stamps and see what stamps you have and what deer are coming through. It’s phenomenal what the guy has done with the software to manage trail cameras.
Why do you think whitetail hunters are embracing technology so well?
We embrace it with a lot of other things in our personal life. When someone can adapt that technology to something that we love to do and can use it correctly, learn it easily and it has a purpose, we tend to, no matter what avenue we’re in, grasp that technology and use it. Whitetail hunters can take technology, utilize their time more efficiently. They can mark what deer they want, monitor that deer, find out where it’s going, where it’s been. Did it move more during a certain moon phase, time of day, weather or temperature? No matter what we do. Fishing can be the same way and that’s hunting as well, but with whitetails, they’re so smart they adapt so quickly to change that we can use that to try to outsmart them a little bit.
Talk to me about the tradition of hunting and what it means to you, your family and friends.
Growing up, I didn’t have a father who hunted. He grew up in the southeast part of Kentucky during the bad times, so hunting was a way of life for him and his family. They had to hunt to eat. As he got older, he grew out of hunting. I don’t think it had a lot of good memories for him because it wasn’t a tradition, it was a have-to, whereas a lot of my uncles and a lot of my cousins hunted down south. As I’ve gotten older and went down to Kentucky, I was introduced to hunting by my cousins. They did a lot of fur hunting. A lot of my uncles raccoon-hunted.
It always fascinated me. I always had a love for the outdoors. I would find myself going by myself out in the woods or with friends, sitting, watching nature. I got involved in photography at a young age. I began to photograph animals in the wild. Along with that barns because they have such a connection with our culture, our past, and they have such a great personality. The tradition, there was a love for hunting there nurtured and nested for a long time. As I’ve got older, I discovered girls and didn’t feel the love of hunting until I got older and said, “I’ve got to do it.” In my wife’s family, a few of them hunt. One of her uncles does. I go up and see him and learned some things from him. My past high school friends I’ve met up with and taken a little bit from all of them. I have a friend at church that has been a mentor and I listen to him. He’s an ethical hunter. I try to listen, read and take in as much as I can.
What’s something that you’ve learned hunting the last couple of years that you’d make sure that you’re going to carry that experience and technique on? Can you share any of those with us?
I have three boys, one that has taken onto hunting. I have got him involved and introduced him to hunting. That tradition will pass on through him and his children. I take my nephews and nieces, not all of them but some of them are fishing. I’ve asked some of them if they ever want to go hunting and introduced them to the outdoors, camping. A couple of my brothers-in-law have hunted in the past but no longer do. I tried to introduce it to my nieces, nephews. I’m going to hopefully pass it on through one of them as well as my youngest son. I have a middle son that enjoys fishing. Those outdoor type activities, whether it be camping, fishing, hunting, I hope will be passed on through them and carried on.
Share with us a couple of a-ha moments when you’ve been hunting whitetails that you said, “I wish I had thought about that a while ago,” or “I’m sure glad I figured that out.” Do you have a couple of those to share?
Don’t we all, especially with whitetails? I don’t know if there are more a-ha moments or more, “I’m embarrassed,” moments. The first time I went hunting was back in 2008. I was sitting in there in my blind by myself. The sun was coming up. It was beautiful out. I was up north. I saw a deer jump over the back 40 fence and coming towards me. It was a good-sized deer. It wasn’t a trophy. I haven’t had the opportunity to hunt trophy deer, but it was a nice sized six-point. It walked within 8 yards of me, went broadside, and I had put something in the tree that attracted it. They had been coming there. I wanted to draw back but the deer kept watching me. I learned so much from sitting there watching that deer.
Everything everybody had told me about how well they sense your presence, how they keep a good eye on you, and I got so mesmerized by that deer and watching him. I put the bow down and watched him, and thought, “He’ll be back later.” He never came back. It’s those moments that I take in that the deer come in so close, and that’s what I like about bow hunting. The deer come in and they are 8 feet away. They are 8 or 15 yards away, and I get so mesmerized watching them. It’s sitting, watching and learning, and then you have to, at some point, realize why you’re out there and draw back. That deer becomes food for your family and you’ve got the sense of accomplishment of doing that.
Thank you for those insights. Let’s go back to what you’re doing on your blog and on your Facebook page. If somebody wanted to do a similar type of posting and reviews, what recommendations would you give them?
It’s funny you ask that. I had a young lady on Facebook that asked me what she needed to do to start doing this and began a list of all the things she wanted. They were quite large items. Instead of saying something outright on the blog, I IM’d her, friended her, and explained to her that if someone wants to do this, believe me, I have not reinvented the wheel here. It’s something that I started doing and I started small, as I told her. Whether it be items you own in your house and you use, start a small blog. Write about those items. I’ve got a son that has a journalism degree and there’s sometimes that, when something is important, I have him grade it. Sometimes he can be ruthless, but it’s worthwhile to make sure that what you write looks good.
Start small. Start the blog. Create a link. Start contacting companies for small items. The biggest thing that I was told a long time ago about what I do is that companies hand out an awful lot of products to guys, women and people that say they want to write about it or review it. Few of them are followed through. That’s one of the things I’ve built my reputation on is the fact that, when I’ve been given a product, I use it. I give it to someone to use it if they have more knowledge with that product and we review it. We write about it. We photograph it. We’re getting into video. That’s one big thing. We send it for a draft look and companies like that.
When I first started, I dealt directly with certain people at different companies. I dealt with the owners for a brief time. The industry has changed and it went to marketing firms. You contact the rep or the marketing company and you work directly with them. Some companies are starting to get away from marketing as far as that aspect and dealing directly with you. Follow through, honest reviews, and make them informative. Inform the reader, be honest about it, supply video, supply pictures, and you could do well.
Let’s talk about one of these reviews. You put something up on ScentBlocker or was it ScentLok?
I’ve never done anything on ScentLok as far as the actual brand. I’ve done a review with some of the new Red Head stuff coming out or that had come out.
Everybody needs to get out and join the outdoors, whether it’s fishing, camping, or hunting. Share on XI’m looking at your site. DUI? You had something on ScentBlocker introduces DUI and it came off The Outdoor Wire.
A lot of times, on my blog, what I do is I subscribe to The Outdoor News, Outdoor Wire, a bunch of different outdoor news blogs. What I try to do is I also, in turn, take that and share that information on my blog along with a lot of my reviews as they become live. That might have been an article that was on Outdoor Wire.
It was.
Those aren’t ones that I have written, but that’s some of the stuff off the news wire that I like to share with some of the readers that go to the blog.
It’s so everybody knows since I brought it up, ScentBlocker introduces DUI, a new habit-forming hunting product that attracts, calms and relaxes game. It’s a scent control for hunters. It announces a product name change. The name Scenting Product came out in an ATA show, Deer Under the Influence. I like that. That’s cool.
It is neat what some of the industry is doing. I find some of that stuff to be some of the hardest stuff to review. I have learned a few lessons along the way about what to review and what not to review. There are some things out there with technology and science. They’re beginning to find out more about whitetail and some of the things that either attract them or keep them away, or the way that they see things during the day, night, or even in the evening or early morning when they can see the best.
Do you rifle hunt and archery hunt?
I only archery hunt.
Let’s share how you gear up. What stand do you use? What bow? What scent control do you use?
I try to use some carbon scent control. I use Zeolite. It’s one of the newer scent control that they are putting in clothing. ScentLok and Under Armour uses it. At present, they do a little bit of a mix. Red Head came out with it. You want to build off your base layer and make sure that you’ve got something that, if you’re walking out, you want to stay light unless it’s freezing outside. Stay light so you don’t build up a sweat. You want a layer that’s going to absorb that and allow you to dry out. I try to keep a carbon layer on.
I’ve hunted a few times from a stand and I have one. I’m getting too old and too lazy to put a regular treestand up, so I use a ladder stand on occasion. I like to hunt from the ground and from a ground blind. It’s harder to do besides being outside behind a tree or something, trying to stay as scent-free as possible. It’s because you’re right there, you’re at ground level. Deer are going to figure you out eventually, but it makes it that much tougher. I use a ground blind and hunt that way primarily. As far as a bow, I have gone with different bows, but as an archery dealer, primarily Xpedition. I do use an Xpedition bow or will be this coming season after my shoulder surgery. In the past, I have used Obsession, PSE, Ross bows.
What types of broadheads do you like?
I like fixed blade only because of the less moving parts, the less something can happen. I’ve used a mechanical before and I had an issue with it, so I went back to a fixed blade, Muzzy. One of the newer ones that I came across, we had a grand opening at Field & Stream here in Michigan. One of the outdoor celebrities that came through was Mike Stroff. He was sponsored by Wac’Em. It ends up that he’s part owner, him and David Langston. I got talking to him about the new Wac’Ems. They’re a three and four-blade fixed blade and I’ve started reviewing them. I had my son shoot some arrows sighting his bow in for turkey season. We got the Wac’Ems in at the last minute. He took the field tip-off. He screwed a three-blade Wac’Em on and his words were, “It hit right where my field tip did,” and it continues to do that. I’m looking forward to using Wac’Ems. With the technology we’re getting those fixed blades to fly as close to outfield tips.
I hope the audience is taking notes as I am because when we get somebody like Gary on the show, he’s taken time to take this equipment apart. What can it do? What can’t it do? Why should people be interested in a product? Thanks a lot for that, Gary.
No problem. That’s one I know that is working and there are a lot of good broadheads out there. Don’t get me wrong. A long time ago, I did a video review on broadheads. I set up something to shoot at to determine how much of a punch they had, how well they held up, and I learned a great lesson. I had Rich Walton, the owner of Bowhunting.net, let me know that after he had watched all of my videos and my reviews that his company would probably call me back and these other three wouldn’t. I didn’t quite understand at the time what he was saying and I’ve learned over time what that’s all about. Broadheads and arrows are the two hardest things, in my mind, to review. Unless you’ve got a controlled area and a robotic arm, a lot of people will question everything you’ve done about a broadhead or an arrow, so I stay away from those two things. I do have to say the Wac’Em has worked as I said it did.
Gary, can you talk about Garys Outdoor News and Reviews? You can talk about specific products. You can talk about your family. Whatever you want to talk about, here’s your open mic, so go for it.
Thanks, Bruce. It’s hard to think about what to say, but if anyone is out there reading, I’d like to invite you to Facebook and tune into Garys Outdoor News and Reviews. If you’d like to contribute, send me information. Shoot me an IM, it would be awesome. I’m always looking for new stuff and people’s point of view on different products. Everybody needs to get out and join the outdoors, whether it’s through fishing, camping, hunting. Whether it’s with a bow, with a rifle or with both, or with a fishing rod, there’s something out there for everyone. We need to pass it on. We need to start watching what’s going on with our government, and the way that we’re moving forward with the outdoors, and be good examples.
It’s easy for some of these groups to take something bad and put it out on social media and make a lot of us look bad. The whole group, what I have found if I could say this in closing. One thing that I have discovered doing the reviews and being involved with the outdoor people is that although it seems like a large group of people, companies and stuff, it’s a small group. It’s tight-knit. It’s a blessing to be a part of it and knowing that it’s almost like a family in some ways. You’re at a different part of the family or from there. Bruce, thank you very much for this opportunity. I do appreciate it. Thank you to your audience.
Thank you so much, Gary Elliot, with Outdoor News and Reviews for being a guest on the show.
Important Links:
- Garys Outdoor News and Reviews
- Bowhunting.net
- Bowhunting.com
- DeerLab.com
- Jon Livingston – past episode
- Xpedition bow
- Wac’Em
About Gary Elliot
Gary’s Outdoor News & Reviews Facebook Blog is dedicated to honest and informative reviews that relate to the kayak angler, hunter, bowhunter, camper. Reviews are written with honesty and made to be informative same with our video reviews.
You will find videos and news as it relates to the outdoors. Check us out and give us a like at www.Facebook.com/garysoutdoornewsandreviews.