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Ron Ahrens Keepin’ It in The Ozarks

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon, and we’re going to visit with Ron Ahrens today. Keepin’ It in The Ozarks. Ron, welcome to the show.

Ron: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Bruce: Well, let’s talk about Keepin’ It in The Ozarks, and your team member there. What’s that all about?

Ron: Well, what it was when I retired from the post office I had finally gotten bored with retirement, so I started working at Lowe’s. And one of the employees there at Lowe’s was a team member on a local show and he branched out on his own and encouraged me to buy a camera, and so that’s how I got started. So we got some more team members, and now we’ve probably got, I think, 12 on our team. So everybody hunts and everybody videos. You know it gets kind of boring behind a camera. So we want to give everybody a chance, and then you can have more kills on a show too, so that’s kind of part of it.

Bruce: Well, talk to me about what your productions do, who carries them, and what’s the important part of doing that show?

actually it’s a local show at the Lake of the Ozarks

Ron: Well, right now it’s web-based. It’s on YouTube, and actually it’s a local show at the Lake of the Ozarks. Our local channel at the Lake of the Ozarks contacted Justin and he started it all, Justin Sapp. And they want to start running his YouTube, on their show now. And then next year they want to start, actually putting a formatted show together to run on their channels. Then next to that we’re going to on the Hunt Channel, and it’s on YouTube and Amazon. It’s a new web…I don’t know how they actually…it’s something to do with the internet. It’s like a little…I don’t know for sure what it is. Justin’s got it all…I don’t know how you would say it. You plug it into the TV. It’s a thumb kind of thing and…

Bruce: So anyways, yeah. The production’s going to be on YouTube or other digital channels, not specifically on the Pursuit Channel or the Sportsman Channel or the Outdoor Channel, but your own channel. Is that correct?

Ron: Right, right.

Bruce: Great.

Ron: Yes.

Bruce: Well, let’s talk about your beginning in hunting. Where did your hunting tradition come from?

Ron: Well, I lived on a farm. I was born in Russell, Kansas, and I lived on a farm out in Missoula, Kansas. So I could actually hunt right outside my back door. It was awful nice, and my dad never did really take me hunting a lot, but he never told me, no. He was a farmer, a Kansas farmer so he worked all the time, and so that’s how I got my start. There’s a lot of pheasant and quail in Kansas. When I was young, there wasn’t a lot of whitetail, to tell you the truth. I can remember what I would do is go out to the fields with my dad, when I was just a kid and I’d take a hammer, a pliers and a screwdriver. And when I’d get bored going around and around in the field, dad would just stop and let me off and I’d dig in the dirt.

I remember the first buck I ever saw in my life. It was I got bored, jumped off the tractor and there was a pond close by. So I was playing around the water there in the pond, and I went over to the dam and just looked, and there was a big buck at the bottom, and that was the first whitetail buck, I’d ever seen in my life. So that was pretty exciting to me. So I had to run back and dad went down there, and he wasn’t there anymore, of course. But that’s a memory I’ll never forget.

Bruce: That’s great.

Ron: So then I left the farm and went in the Air Force, and in the Air Force you travel quite a bit. I was in Oklahoma. I did some quail hunting, out in Oklahoma. Then I went back to Kansas, in Wichita, and of course then I got to go home, and hunt some more at home, there. And then I got transferred to Anchorage, Alaska, so we did a little bit of hunting up there in Alaska, and I’ll tell you what. That was probably one of my biggest regrets in my life is that I didn’t go hunting more up there. And then I got out of the Air Force and came back down here to Arkansas, and actually got lucky enough to get into the Post Office.

I went back to Salina, Kansas, and carried mail there for a while. So I transferred back up to Juno, Alaska, and carried mail up there. After that I got into management, and I went to Wasilla from Juno, there. I’ve done a lot of fishing in the waters around Juno. Caught a lot of Silver and Kings, up there, and halibut. That was a lot of fun. And we went hunting a little bit of black bear and Sitka deer at Admiralty Island, up in Juno. That’s the herd up there. Then we did a lot of fishing, when I was transferred to Wasilla. It’s about 35 miles north of Anchorage up in there.

So we did a lot of fishing up in there. Then I got transferred back to Dodge City, Kansas, and there I got back into hunting a little bit. But working in the post office, and by that time, I was in management. It didn’t afford me a lot of time to get into the hunting. So then I was getting closer to retirement, and my wife and I, she likes the four seasons, and I like the two seasons. So we decided we better look for a place. We’re retiring. And we started looking and we both liked the water, so we ended up buying a house at the Lake of the Ozarks, down here in Missouri.

And we just tried to get…I transferred to Elmwood, Kansas, the postman passed there, and then I transferred to Leestown, Missouri, and I was a station manager, and then I got here to Rolla, and Rolla’s where I retired. So that’s where then I could back into the hunting a lot. And what’s ironic about it, though, is that I really don’t like to fish that well. I’ve got crappy beds off my dock there at the Lake of Ozarks. My friends come, and they take Christmas trees, and drop them off the edge there. Weighted Christmas trees for the crappy beds and everything, but I let them go ahead and do it, and they give me some fish, but I really don’t like to fish. But I love to hunt that whitetail.

Bruce: Hey, let’s talk about…you mentioned to me, sometimes all hunters look at the expense of getting into hunting, and you shared with me in the warm up that you were a master at eBay in getting the type of gear you needed. Let’s talk about that and share with the listeners, really what they can get and then put together with an affordable budget.

Ron: Yeah, sure. The thing about it is when I retired, and got into hunting kind of full-time, I mean I hunted turkey and whitetail. I didn’t even have camo. I didn’t know nothing. I didn’t even know scent blocker, all that camo stuff, anything. I just didn’t have anything. So it’s great [inaudible 00:09:16], so I started buying my stuff. I’d watch the Sportsman Channel, and I’d watch Pursuit, and see what was advertised, and what some of the guys…some of them are my favorite shows.

Then when you watch enough, that’s how I learned how to hunt. You talk to the people, your neighbors, but as far as learning how to hunt, I basically learned how to hunt the modern way I guess you’d say from TV. And so I’ve seen what they used, and what they wore, the kind of deodorant, the kind of shoes, just the scent, and all that, the scent blocker and all that. So what I did was I couldn’t afford it, being on a retired income. I couldn’t afford all that expensive stuff.

So I went on eBay and I bought the secondhand stuff, and it’s worked out good for me. The thing that I mentioned, especially on Keepin’ It in the Ozarks too, is how you don’t have to spend a lot of money to go out, and enjoy the outdoors. You can still hunt, just like the professional guys, and you can use their last season’s clothes that they had. Because they’ll probably get new stuff and sell the old stuff, and you can buy that stuff on eBay. You can afford to hunt. Everybody can afford to hunt if they just want to do it.

Bruce: Thanks for that insight. And talking about people that you learned from, you mentioned Bill Winke. Let’s talk about what you’ve learned from Bill.

Ron: Bill, I’ll tell you what. He’s a show that I record it on my DVR, even. I listen from the opening to the very closing, and that guy has taught me so much about it. Just the other day he was on about a small, I think he called it a poor boy plot where it’s just little plots that they rake in the middle of the woods, and they put some Throw and Gro or whatever on there. you know that. Then stand placements, where to put stands, play in the wind. For somebody like me, I’ve got a guy out south of Rolla here that teaches me a lot, and teaches me more about turkeys than deer. But I’ve learned a whole lot from Bill, just listening to Bill, and putting some of his ideas and some of what he does, into my everyday hunting.

Bruce: Well, thanks for that. Anybody else you’d like to give a shout out to, that you’ve learned from?

Ron: I tell you what, and I tell Justin this a lot. I said, “Those two, major league doe hunters” and I tell you what. Those guys, I like what they say at the very beginning of the show. “Our way is not the only way.” It’s what they know. It’s what they do. So they realize that there’s other ways to hunt and especially it’s different. I’ve hunted in Kansas. I’ve hunted in Missouri. It’s different everywhere you go. What I like about them is they understand that and they stop and they explain things during the show when they’re in Kansas or when they’re in Oklahoma. They like to hunt in Oklahoma, and they hunt in, I believe it’s Texas, and I can’t remember Duff is from. But I think Mississippi down there. But every show that they have, they stop and explain what the best way to hunt for that locality is, and I’ve learned a lot from them, just by doing that.

Bruce: Another thing you’ve mentioned and I think it’s important for us all, no matter what our ages, keep active. Do you want spend a couple of minutes, and talk to our listeners, about keeping active?

Ron: Yeah, I retired from the post office, I was 56 years old and I retired in 2010. Right now I’m 62. I just turned 62. I run three miles a day. My partner on Keepin’ It in the Ozarks is 19 years old. So I mean I’ve got to keep active. I’ve got to be active, even to keep up with him and I love to hunt. I can’t envision the day that…it kind of scares me sometimes, to think that that could be right around the corner, and so I do as much as I can to keep active. To keep my body functioning, so I can prolong my hunting career. I think that’s very, very important. There’s guys, some of my classmates, they’re heavier and they’re not as active, and to me, it’s kind of sad. That they’ve gone down like that, and now they can’t be as active, as probably they want to be.

Bruce: And thanks for that. And listeners, no matter again whatever your age, just take a walk everyday. Just walk. If you can’t walk a mile, walk a quarter mile, but every single day do something. You’d be amazed what that does for you.

Ron: You’re exactly right, Bruce. You’re exactly right, and that’s what I tell people, too. I say, “You know you don’t have to run a marathon, the first day. You work up to it.” It’s amazing. If I take a week off. Like, I go up to Kansas. I was just out of Kansas and I didn’t have time to run. And it’s amazing, at 62 years old, how far your body will just…you’ve got to keep active just about every day because your body …you can feel it. If you haven’t run for four or five days, you can feel it first couple of days when you get back into it.

You’ve been hunting whitetails, hot and heavy for a while, in different states

Bruce: Hey, let’s switch it up and talk about lessons learned. You’ve been hunting whitetails, hot and heavy for a while, in different states. Share with us two or three lessons that you’ve learned, that you’re going to implement this coming season.

Ron: I didn’t get that, Bruce.

Bruce: Yeah, what type of lessons learned have you learned hunting whitetails, that you want to share with our listeners? Just two or three key things that you say, “Hey, I learned this the hard way” or “I learned this because I watched a TV show and I want to share it with the listeners.”

Ron: Okay, the main thing that I tell people, especially out in Kansas, is play the wind. The wind is so important. You can spend lots of money on clothes, and shampoos, and deodorants, and all that stuff, but you’ve got to play the wind. That’s the number one thing is playing the wind. The big bucks, the older bucks are there because they weren’t stupid and a whitetail uses their nose. And so that’s my number one lesson that I’ve learned.

I’ve had a nice buck, that I went in with the wrong wind in the stand, and he busted me, and I’ve never seen him again. So that’s my number one. My number two is, especially when I go to Kansas, I just come back, and I was successful in Kansas. I got a buck back there in muzzle season, and I got the camera hooked up with this buck. I caught him on camera. But I talk to the local farmers out there. It’s my hometown. And actually I still go back to the farm that I hunted on when I was a child.

My family doesn’t own it anymore, but my neighbors that I grew up with do, so he let’s me hunt it. But I have other friends; it was closer to Natoma the field that I killed my buck on, and I talked to my friend back there. And he said, “Yeah, I saw him back there several days ago,” and so we knew he was close. And so that’s probably my number two. Talk to the farmers out there. If you don’t live out there, they know what’s going on out there. They see what’s going on out there everyday. So that’s a lesson that I’ll always follow.

The number three is, just being older now and the young guys, it doesn’t matter to them, but I tell you what, use that safety rope going out to the stand. Alan, I guy I worked with the other day he was talking about he put a brand new stand up just last weekend. It’s a ladder stand. Put the bar from the ladder to the tree and somehow it slipped off. He said he slipped down a couple feet down the tree when he was sitting in his stand.

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