LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Chris Edwards RAKS™ Big Game Supplements for whitetails

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is Bruce Hutcheon your host. We’re going to travel to Nebraska today to a pretty interesting guy. His name’s Chris Edwards, and he’s the owner of Chris Edwards RAKS™ Big Game Supplements for whitetails and also Big Red Outdoors, but to show you the type of guy that Chris is, he’s also chairman of the Board of Directors of Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation. This man is putting in his time investing in the hunting tradition in Nebraska. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris: Thank you for having me, Bruce.

Bruce: Let’s just jump right on. Let’s talk to our listeners about you’re also president of Big Game Conservation Association, and you’re involved not only just making a buck or two with your company, but you’re involved in making sure hunting tradition stays in Nebraska and stays in North America. So let’s talk about that.

Chris: I grew up, a lot of different factors. Just growing up listening to people through hunting season always talking about no place to hunt, talking about the guy showing up at the check station with the little buck and complaining that there’s no big bucks in the country. Just a handful of things.

People are getting more and more detached from the land. Absentee landowners trying to find places to hunt. Nebraska is 98% privately owned, so we don’t have a lot of public ground. I just wanted to get involved, try and make those things better.
If we don’t keep moving forward and get the legislation, get the folks involved with habitat management, educating landowners, then the sport we all love’s going to die.

We need to pass it on to the future generations, get new youth involved that maybe their parents don’t hunt or they don’t fish, they’re not part of the outdoors. We need to make that happen. We need to encourage landowners to get into public access programs. It’s just a multitude of things, and I could go on forever about that.

Bruce: You’re in leadership position. What advice would you give to our listeners to say, “Hey, I really care about the hunting tradition. I care about my state,” whatever state it is? There’s about 37 whitetail states. What advice would you give them to say, “Hey, I want to get involved? I want to raise my hand?” Share some of the drivers and the motivators that helped you go through the chairs, if you will, and be a leader, be the chairman of organizations.

If you want to make a difference, you have to be involved. You can’t just sit around and complain about it all the time. That’s what drove me to get involved.

Chris: I was getting excited about it, and there’s a gentleman that’s the executive director of the Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation, Scott Smathers. He kind of ignited something in me. I was starting to get started, and I met with him, and he just had a fire that lit me up. I talked to my wife and I said, “It’s easy to complain about everything. You need to get involved.” If you want to make a difference, you have to be involved. You can’t just sit around and complain about it all the time. That’s what drove me to get involved.

Bruce: Specifically, did you call somebody? Did you look it up on Google? How did you find the organizations you wanted to get involved in?

Chris: Originally, because it was that, I wanted to learn management, start my hunting club, Big Red Outdoors. I wanted to learn more about the management of whitetail, because I grew up in mule deer country. That’s the ground I had access to growing up, so I never hunted a whitetail until 2009. It’s not the type of hunting I grew up. I grew up mule deer hunting, so I wanted to learn how to manage them, which led me to thinking, “Hey, Quality Deer Management Association. What better place to approach?”

Long story short, the chapter here, it kind of died. I got a hold of the regional. We got it going again. Great organization, but not a lot of presence in Nebraska. Several of the other folks that I got involved, which were members of my hunting club Big Red Outdoors, I got them involved in QDMA when we were part of it with the branch. Then one night we were sitting around, and when we sent a lot of the money that we made somewhere else, we weren’t able to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, so we brainstormed one night and we decided to start our own association within Nebraska, and that’s when the Big Game Conservation Association was born.

The other folks involved said, “Why don’t you be the president?” So I took the helm there, and I encouraged others to get involved. Contact those people. There’s all kinds of resources on the internet. You can get involved in Ducks Unlimited, PF, there’s the Mule Deer Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. There’s so many organizations out there that a simple Google search, and you can find out who the reps are in your area.

Call them, e-mail them. Don’t be shy. Pick up the phone. You’re going to get more of a response picking up the phone then e-mailing somebody. Get involved. They’re always looking for more volunteers.

It seems like the unfortunate thing is you find the same people that are involved with everything, and they spread their time so thin that a lot of the local chapters don’t get the attention they deserve to accomplish the things they want to accomplish. I’ve been asked to be a part of a lot of other things, and I limit it to the two, the Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation and the Big Game Conservation Association, because I don’t want to be pulled in too many directions where I can’t give it my all to the ones I am a part of.

Bruce: I salute you. If you read the background bio, I spent a lot of years investing time, and sometime people think, “Well gee, you got to have a couple of bucks to throw into the pot.” Your presence is priceless for an organization. Just your willingness to show up, lend a hand and make a difference. That’s what it takes, and it doesn’t take a lot of money to do that, and I think you would echo that.

Chris: Exactly. That’s why you don’t get involved in too much, because you do have the fundraisers to make that money that you want. The banquets, maybe having a shoot, whatever it is you might have. That’s how you make your money to achieve your mission. You need the volunteers to help get things donated, to help work the events, to hopefully bring some corporate sponsors in, to make contacts for you for people that you may not know so you can get that funding and do the projects you want to do set up with those relationships with your DNR, Game and Parks, whatever it might be called in your area, with your NRCSs, your NRDs. Anybody you can. Meet landowners. There’s a lot involved with it.

Biggest thing is balancing your time. It’s work, family, God, volunteering

Biggest thing is balancing your time. It’s work, family, God, volunteering. You got to be able to balance it all. If you’re putting too much time into your volunteer stuff, your family life’s going to suffer, and you want your family’s support. Best thing to do, get your family involved with what you’re doing. Show them why you love it, why you want to do it, and they’re going to get excited about it. Bring your kids. Get them excited about it.

Bruce: Listeners, take to heart what Chris just shared with us. Really, give back to your community and give back to your passion of the outdoors, or you wouldn’t be listening to this show. So give back, find a way. Even if it’s an hour a month, that’s 12 hours a year that you are giving back. Chris, thank you for your leadership.

Let’s roll right into RAKS Big Game Supplement

Let’s roll right into RAKS Big Game Supplement. Now, I know food plots and I know we got all sorts of blocks with minerals and everything. Help us understand how important supplements are for growing and managing a deer herd.