Unguided Sportsman Show Concept

“Celebrating the trials and triumphs of the do-it-yourself hunter and angler” 

The vast majority of sportsmen pursue their interests ‘unguided'; yet this pursuit has been largely neglected by current outdoor programming. We feel that people want to see the work and processes that go into making a successful do-it-yourself hunting or fishing trip

The future of hunting and fishing lies not with trophy hunters and fishers at the elbows of guides on private leases, but rather with access and opportunities for everyone. The future of fishing is more secure, as most waters are public with adequate access. Hunting, however, has seen a decrease in both numbers of hunters and opportunities available. Young people especially, without the resources to lease land or buy a guided hunt, will not continue the tradition.

To this end, one of our main themes in our hunting shows will be to document how we came to be on the land. We plan on working closely with the states we visit to highlight their opportunities. Some states have made great strides with block management programs that unite goals of landowners, state resource managers, and the unguided sportsman, and we will feature these. Many times, finding land to hunt is simply driving, legwork, and knocking on farmers' doors, and we will do this too.

Our theme should not be viewed as derisive of either lodges or guides, nor the people who use their services. We fully understand and appreciate the need for such services, especially for certain species and locales. For many sportsmen, this is their safest, best, or only opportunity to experience the outdoors. We simply want to document the experience that the rest of us go through; the frustration of seeing flocks of pheasants behind “no trespassing” or “leased land” signs, the satisfaction of a downed buck on state land wearing an over the counter tag, or finding a big flock of undisturbed turkeys and having the landowner say “yes”.

When a sportsman spends big money at a lodge or with a guide, his definition of “success” can alter. Too often, success is narrowly defined by Boone and Crockett scores or numbers on a scale. Our measure of success will be in the quality of the experience and the knowledge obtained. Of course, most sportsmen have a local piece of nearly fishless water or public hunting ground bereft of game where they can go for a day “just to be outdoors”. This experience is well known and doesn't need to be documented on TV. We plan on delivering action, be it fish on or game down, and we know that this will require more days in the field or on the stream. If a shoot provides inadequate success for a quality show, then we will demote it to a segment only, where we then document how we got smarter and more successful on a later shoot.

We feel strongly that our theme will resonate with viewers. Furthermore, we believe that sponsors will not pass on the chance to reach the “Unguided Sportsman”, who demands quality trucks to reach his destination, sets up his own camp, outfits himself in all manner of outdoor clothing, provides his own guns, rods, boats, and so forth.

Activities We plan on a fairly even split between fishing and hunting. The first year, fishing shows will betray our bias for salmon, trout, and steelhead. These will mostly be float trips, often with camping involved. Realizing that trying something or somewhere new is part of our theme, we will be expanding our fishing interests east and south. Hunting will include waterfowl, turkeys, upland birds (pheasant, quail, Hungarian and chukar partridge – with both flushing and pointing dogs), and big game (caribou, deer, elk).

Many people will identify with our concept because they fall into the category of having more time than money, more will relate to the increased satisfaction known only to the “Unguided Sportsman”.

Equipment and Strategies At appropriate times during the show, we'll deliver useful technical information on the weekly activity. This could include gear that we found indispensable, strategies that paid off or were discarded, or simply sources of information that put us in the proper position. The ability of the viewer to see and understand what we do is central to our theme, and we will always have in mind the viewer's desire to not only watch our show, but to duplicate our success.

Destinations
During our first season, we'll be visiting locales in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Canada. Researching and visiting new locales lends itself directly to our theme, and we plan to explore more of the country in future seasons .

Weekly Feature Each show will have a feature where we highlight a unique aspect of that week's show. Our main emphasis will be hunter/fisherman access and opportunities. This feature could include: state programs such as Idaho's Access Yes! or Montana's Block Management, conservation and access involvement of affiliated organizations such as NWTF, Ducks unlimited, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, etc. “Technical tips” will be featured, but only when critical to our success that week.