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RAKS Big Game Supplements Rock Falls Outdoors Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation
Welcome to another episode of White-Tail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and we’re headed to Nebraska and we’re going to talk with Jeremy Shaaf. And Jeremy’s quite a guy out there in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. Jeremy, welcome to the show. RAKS Big Game Supplements Rock Falls Outdoors Nebraska Sportsmen’s
Jeremy: Hi there, Bruce. How’s it going?
Bruce: Well, it’s going real good and I see now you reside in the Southeast corner of the state. Where the heck are you living now?
Jeremy: I’m down here in Lincoln down in the Southeast corner.
Bruce: Oh, the Big Red? Are you at the home of the Big Red?
Jeremy: That’s right. Husker Power.
Bruce: Yes it is. That’s quite a place on game day, I can tell you that. I was fortunate to attend a couple of games there and wow. Yeah, that was fun.
Jeremy: Yes.
Bruce: Well, we’re not here to talk about the Nebraska Corn Huskers, we’re here to talk about white-tails and we’re here to talk about you being the owner of Rocks Falls Outdoors. Let’s just start right off there and tell our listeners something about what that’s all about.
Jeremy Rocks Falls Outdoors, I wanted to get more involved in the hunting industry
Jeremy: Sure. Rocks Falls Outdoors, I wanted to get more involved in the hunting industry and I’ve had my own remodeling business for a lot of years. So just looking for different avenues and I had worked on the side for another rep group so I kind of just, on a whim just went out on my own and started reping for a couple small companies just on the side. And then it wasn’t going too bad but I actually got the opportunity to go work for ScentMaster, the previous owner at that time full-time for him for a while. So my rep group kind of got put on the back burner a little bit and when I fulfilled my time with ScentMaster there I just slowly migrated Rocks Falls Outdoors to more of an outdoor brand, I guess you’d call it. We do a lot of filming on our own and then recently we got partnered up with the Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation and we’re in the process of starting a documentary with them on all the public land locations here in Nebraska.
Bruce: That’s kind of interesting though. If I heard you correctly you said you’re doing a documentary for the Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation. Who runs that? Is it a government agency or a 501c3? Tell us about that.
Jeremy: Yeah. It’s a c3 like you said. Sorry, I got tongue-tied there. And Scott Smathers runs it and then there’s a board and they do a lot of things as far as they do a lot of work with water rights, a lot of conservation work, and a lot of the legal stuff. They’re the ones that’s in front of the government for us, our voice as outdoorsmen and getting things passed or fighting things that are not necessarily in our favor, too.
Bruce: Now, you mentioned or you’ve been kicking around and making Rocks Falls Outdoors…You’re not kicking around, you’re making it work. If one of our listeners or a couple of our listeners were interested in understanding how you did that what would you tell them in three or five things? What would you tell them?
Jeremy: As far as when I was reping?
Bruce: No. As far as how you get that started.
I think success comes out of your passion and I think probably the most success you’re going to get
Jeremy: Honestly, there are a ton of people out there doing this now. I think success comes out of your passion and I think probably the most success you’re going to get is by doing something not for the money but because you love it. So if you have a strong passion and you just start out whether you know anything or nothing at all, nothing at all, everything, whatever, just go do it. And your passion nine times out of 10 will carry you because that’ll stir that hunger to go seek more information and go attach yourself to others that have been doing it longer and learn from them. And I think it’s just… You don’t need a $6,000 camera. Just go get a decent camera and just go do it.
Bruce: Now when somebody’s looking at doing some work, I see that you have done some outside sales for RAKS Big Game Supplements…How did you get those types of engagements?
Jeremy: Yes. Chris, my buddy Chris, I’ve known him for a long time. He owns RAKS and well, it’s a lot of who you know, I guess, to get your foot in a lot of these doors. But that’s how I got tied in with RAKS and when I went to work full-time for ScentMaster and obviously they have new owners now and it’s a totally different deal, but I was actually…When I was reping on my own I stopped in an archery shop down in Kansas and they actually had a ScentMaster sitting there and I’d never even heard of them. And he explained how it worked and I’m huge into scent control, the way that product worked just made sense to me. So on a whim, I never thought anything would come of it to be honest with you, but I located the owner’s number, called him, and told him what I was about and from there it started.
Bruce: We’ve been talking about your background and I’m sure the listeners want to hear about some white-tails, so tell us how you got started in the white-tail hunting. Who was the start of your hunting traditions?
Jeremy: Yeah. Well, coming from the Sand Hills area my dad got me into hunting when I was little. I’ve always hunted small game and fish from a really young age. But, typical story-line. Divorces, families moved, separated, whatever. I didn’t actually start deer hunting with my dad until I think I was 17. So I was getting a little older before I started hunting deer. I’m trying to change that though. My daughter was old enough to get her first permit this last year so now I don’t rifle hunt at all any more, I just bow hunt. And now I guess I’m the guide for rifle seasons for the kids. But I started at a pretty young age with my dad there.
Bruce: Let’s talk about lessons learned. Along the way there have been a lot of people that have told you this, told you that, but sometimes the best lessons are the ones we learn ourselves even though they might be painful at the time. So let’s share a couple of those.
Jeremy: Sure. I think in the white-tail woods there’s two things that stick out in my mind as far as lessons learned that it kind of took me a little while to learn. I didn’t know anybody else that bow hunted when I first started out and just trying to learn everything I could off TV, magazine articles, books, what have you. I’ll go back to this a lot so you might get sick of hearing it, but the scent control, the lessons I learned out in the field is you can trick their eyes and trick their ears but you’re probably never ever going to trick their nose. So playing the wind and doing everything you can to practice mid-quality scent control has been a lesson that I learned and a good tip, as well. And then another lesson, just honestly growing up learning to hunt deer with a rifle, it kind of took me a long time. I’m a slow learner I guess, but it kind of took me a long time to get away from those rifle tactics.
I spent a lot of years hunting trough edges when I first started bow hunting. And you hear people talk about funnels, ridge lines, what have you and it just never clicked. And finally I got myself to get into those woods a little deeper and start figuring things out and learning those different aspects have been an awesome lesson in changing the way I was brought up. Just being able to change and learn new things.
Bruce: Yeah. And every single year, I’ve been off the game for a long time and every single year I get schooled by a mature buck and I go, “Holy cripe, man. Give me a break.”
Jeremy: Yep.
Bruce: “When am I going to be done? When am I going to get this?” And guess what? I never am.
That reminds me I do the same thing over and over for scent control and it’s always worked
Jeremy: Yeah. And that reminds me I do the same thing over and over for scent control and it’s always worked. But when you’re on a four-day trip and there’s no shower and no spray and no ScentMaster is going to help you beat a white-tail’s nose for sure then. And I did. I had a monster to some, maybe some think it is. I probably had a 130 step out in front of me at 35 years and you could tell the exact moment he hit my scent line because he was gone. So it’s definitely, definitely worth taking the extra time to do it the right way and play the wind.