Zack Doyle

You know, to be quite honest, there are only a handful of hunting shows I will go out of my way to watch. I'm an archery and whitetail fanatic, as you know, and shows like Midwest Whitetail, and Whitetail Properties, and Heartland Bowhunter are my favorites. They don't necessarily always shoot something, but they hunt big mature animals in the midwest, they scout hard, and hunt hard, and I can relate to that. Big names mean nothing to me, but I personally don't really enjoy watching someone shoot something I wouldn't shoot, unless of course it is a youth hunter. That's my personal opinion. I want to see big whitetails hit the dirt with archery equipment. Those are the scenes I see in my dreams, and it gets my blood boiling.

Matt Hoffpauir

I enjoy watching back country hunts on large tracts of land, and I'd rather see them go home empty handed than to see someone rack up a lot of kills from a canned hunt. Currently I'm really into the hunting shows that Tom Miranda and Steven Rinella are doing in particular.

Hunt Man

I think I would learn more watching free range hunts since it's also what I hunt.

Mike Richardson

I like the Drury guys and The Crush. I do have a crush on Gina Brunson of Addicted to the Outoors. I want to see a show called "Public Land Pursuit" or something where are deer are harvested off of public land or land that shows the hunter working for land owners to gain permission. NO LEASES AND NO OUTFITTERS. Show the hunter scouting areas from topopgraphic maps, gaining permission, show REAL HUNTING. I know that this show wouldn't last long but watching an everyday hunter go through an entire season of scouting on the same land most of us can hunt would be worth watching.

The Eastmans did this however it focused on the wes and they hiked an packed in. I want to see a guy hunt an are with 13 guys around him on the first day of buck and still kill the wall hanger. I have no problems with leases but i want this show to be for everyday guys. I will be filming a lot this year and hopfully get some footage of PA hunting in its truest form equiped with quad riders, guys cutting down trees withing 80 yards of your stand, guy walking right through your set up in early November. Extremly spooky deer, I want to get some on camera interview and shots of the guys i get to "see/deal with" while hunting on public land.

John Jackson

Everyone loves to watch these dream hunts where celebrity hunters bag and tag celebrity type game. I enjoy the every-day Joe and Josie out fishing, hunting, etc. I can relate to them much more and feel that the "common" hunter is better represented. I have two friends who have their own shows and they are successful but a show that I love, just because it reaches out to all audiences is Tennessee's Wild Side. This show is aired on PBS and you can see information and video at tnwildside.org. We've won Emmy Awards regularly since the show was first produced. It's magazine format and looks at all varieties of outdoor interests. Check it out! Nothing is staged and nothing is canned. What you see is real 100%.

Scott Hall

I always prefer watching shows where regular joes are out there hunting under fair chase conditions in normal places just like the average blue collar hunter hunts instead of the high fence or mega-bucks ranches where only the rich or the well connected will ever have the opportunity to hunt.

Battle Scraps

Okay I'm back. Zack you make a good point for a certain breed of person who's literally "buck crazy". The shows you mentioned are really well produced and I do watch them, the first two more than HB. I almost got started filming with MW when they first started, guess I should have. But one thing in common with all three of those shows (for the most part on HB I think) is that they're not using outfitters to do everything for them and they just release an arrow. Even though much is private property, they do the work themselves.

As others eluded to in this thread, I just absolutely get sick and tired of "BIG CELEBRITIES" and wanna be "PRO STAFFERS" that constantly go on outfitted hunts stuffing their sponsors down our throat the whole way and act like they did something amazing by pulling the trigger on a big buck. I like big bucks, its what I strive to shoot myself, but unlike Zack and don't need to watch endless footage of big bucks hitting the ground. (I'm not saying you need to Zack, just meant its what you like to see). For me its the story and the experience. If someone captures awesome footage of two 3 years old bucks having it out, making scraps and chasing does, say one even breeds a doe on camera, then gets to shoots that buck, and takes us on a "actual blood trail" to a deers thats not "camera perfect" in all regards... to me thats WAY more fun to watch than Lee and Tiffany. And I even like Lee and Tiff, though they've gotten way too big for anything realistic for most of us. Lee, his bus, and his 10 acre "food plot" of corn. Tell that one to the farmer who needs to make ends meet. Drurys are good, used to watch a lot of them, but now they are just too big and fancy. Dream Season used to be awesome, but its just not your "everyone has a chance to make it" kind of show anymore. Drurys own your footage (and life for that matter), you need super expensive equipment, and they even end up at outfitters. Not my kind of dream.

Meat Eater is a great new show, and there certainly are others. Tom Miranda is little too big for my tastes but some of his hunts are definitely cool, like you say Matt, the adventure stuff. I actually just watched Tom in one of his episodes talking about Whitetails and his stuff was again just kinda a joke. Like his deer ran into the woods but was recovered in a field? How and why, but more like he drug him out there and cleaned him up for the camera. fitters. Talking about how he likes use a red head lamp to walking in the woods because its low impact while a big camera light illuminates the whole woods around him. I mean really?

As a hunter and a producer, I hate that fake stuff, the recreations, the unenthusiastic response when you get to your animal since you've probably walked up on it once or twice already. And just because you're a "BIG SHOT" (I believe VERY FEW actually deserve this kind of recognition) with a high end production crew and equipment doesn't mean you can't show the real stuff as it happens.

Man I get fired up thinking about this stuff. I try not to watch too much but as a content producer I like to see what's actually considered television worthy. Like Zack I rarely try to keep up on any specific show, I just turn the tube on and see what sucks me in. However I love me some Jimmy Big Time, its so good at showing what's so wrong about the outdoor industry.

But if I took a tally from this thread(not including me), it looks like 5-1 in favor of some type of average hunter experience type of show (which doesn't mean big deer aren't getting shot). Nobody's wrong or right, we all have different tastes, but I personally believe more people would rather watch a show that hits closer to home than watch the "pros" travel from outfitter to outfitter shooting big animals someone else did all the work for. But thats what I'm trying to find out for sure, so thanks for giving your feedback.

I'm definitely going to keep the dialogue going in more conversations on HD. Thanks everyone so far!
Peter

Corey Becker

One of the best shows out there now for the average hunter is On Your Own Adventer with Randy Newberg. Everything he does is fair chase and on public land. He does not alway get an animal but that is true for everyone. Too me, that is hunting the way it should shown.