Author Archive for Rocket Ryan

On The Road

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Well I just got to Texas after almost two weeks of Turkey hunting in three states! First I took Pete Angle of Under Armour hunting in Montana to kill his Merriams on his quest for a single season grand slam. We got it done despite birds that didnt want to cooperate and Pete being very ill! I then drove my truck to Trev’s house and caught a flight out of Denver to go to Cleburne TX for a PBR. I flew out of Fort Worth at 7 AM Sunday, Met Trev at the Denver airport and we headed east to North Central Kansas to meet up with JT Harden and Jason Irish of Hardcore Hunting TV. JT, Jason and I were going to hunt at David Schotte’s Blue River Whitetails and Trev was to run Camera for me. We had tornado force winds for two days but did manage to get on some birds with Irish killing one and missing two and JT doubling one evening in 45 minutes! I finally managed to crawl to within range of a big Tom strutting for some hens and with JT running camera and calling killed a double bearded Rio. The very next morning we set up on a field where the birds were coming to after the roost and had a great show that ended up with me smoking a giant Eastern as he came to the call. I also killed a coyote while we were set up one morning as he was stalking the same birds we were and I dont like competition! We had a blast on this leg of the hunt, got to spend some time with JT and Irish and laid down some good footage for a future episode of Hardcore Hunting TV! We then took off and headed 70 miles East to Hiawatha KS to be a part of the Kicking Beards event for the Kicking Bear Charity, but you’ll have to read Trev’s blog for the rest of the story!!

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On The Road

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Saturday April 3rd was the opening day of Turkey Season in the part of Texas where I happened to be staying between PBR events. My good friends down there are die hard Turkey hunters and invited me to go along in the morning. As I sat there with a Shotgun in my lap and the decoys out in front of me an hour before light, listening to the intermittent gobbling of roosted birds, I was reminded of the Turkey hunting I did with my Dad when I was young in Upstate New York. Where I was raised Turkey and Deer hunting were the only “big” game we had and we took it pretty serious. But what really came back to me on that crisp Texas morning was how much fun Turkey hunting with a shotgun was. Since moving to Montana 11 or so years ago I had only been hunting birds with my bow, and almost always out of a blind. I realized I missed the old school run and gun style of Turkey hunting and really enjoyed the shotgun!

I recently read an article by an outdoor writer and personality whom I have alot of respect for. However I was bothered by one of the points in his article and it has really caused me some distress since. The author basically stated that a hunter who started out his hunt with archery equipment and then switched to a gun part of the way through the hunt to harvest an animal was “giving up” or “cheating”. I have a real problem with this. This particular author is a pure bowhunter, and a great one. He personally chooses to hunt only with a bow and for HIM picking up a gun would compromise HIS principles. Thats great! I admire him for this, but my problem is that he is pushing his choice of weapon on other hunters and judging them for their choices. Consider this-maybe the hunter that switches to a gun from a bow during a hunt wanted to try to challenge himself by using archery equipment but at the end of the day he is a guy with only two weeks of vacation and he really spread himself thin to pay for this hunt. I’m sure he will get just as much satisfaction out of taking home his trophy with a gun. We are under constant attack in the hunting world by uninformed zealots who would love to make what we love illegal. We need to stick together as HUNTERS to make our sport and heritage show a strong unified front. I dont think now is the time for role models in the hunting industry to form little sub-groups based on weapon preference. I love to hunt with a bow but I am not a bowhunter, I also love to hunt with a rifle or shotgun but I am not a gun hunter….I am a HUNTER. I love to hunt. I love the traditions and camaraderie passed down to me by my father and I love the sights, smells and sounds of the woods and the mountains. These things have absolutely nothing to do with what weapon I may be carrying. So to this author I say, please don’t draw lines in the outdoors my friend, we are all in this together enjoying what God made possible for us. We may all share a campfire together one day and I don’t want to be embarrassed to show a picture of a buck I killed with my rifle or a Turkey I killed with my shotgun. Again these are just my thoughts and I mean no disrespect. This author has done alot for the hunting world and I would even consider him a friend, but our strength is in numbers and we are all in this together. Whichever your weapon or weapons of choice who among isnt a HUNTER?

Posted in Bow Hunting, Deer Hunting, On The Road, Outback Outdoors, Ryan's Blog | 1 Comment »

On The Road

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

I am currently down in Texas working a couple PBR events and usually my downtime between shows can be fairly mundane. This is certainly not this case on this trip! The Sunday after my first event down here I got a text from my friend Keith Rand, Marketing Director for Pigman, The Series. Keith knew I was in the area and the text said simply…”bring your Yankee ass down here!” And that’s how it starts! I went down to Groesbeck, TX on Sunday and ended up staying a few days out at Triply Q outfitters ranch with Pigman’s dad Tom “Dapper” Quaca. Pigman, Keith, Dap and some other guys decided they were gonna take this rodeo clown on a true Texas hog hunt, chasing them with dogs. Well we spent the remainder of Sunday hangin out and making some arrangements for the following day. The guys wouldn’t be ready to roll until about 10 AM so Pig and Dap decided I should sit over a feeder and try to kill a hog to butcher and take home since they are such good eaters! I ended up shooting about a 75 pound sow, perfect eating size and had it skinned and in the cooler before breakfast! I love Texas…

After Dap and I went to town and had some coffee and breakfast, we came back to the ranch, filled some feeders, checked a couple trail cameras and I helped him get a few things ready for a group coming in on Wednesday. We finally got a call to meet everyone at the corner store for lunch and we’d be off! We loaded up the four wheelers and cruised up to the store and met up with Pigman, Keith, Herschel “The Hitman” Hoover, Clinton Little and a dude named Willy that showed up to get fuel and decided he was going with us! Now Clinton is a sure enough cowboy and has some great dogs both for Cattle and for Hogs. The dogs are Curs and they are the bay dogs for hog hunting. The way it works is that you turn the bay dogs loose in some likely Pig bedding area or if you see some pigs rooting around. The dogs will then chase and attempt to surround a pig “baying it up”. Once the dogs are bayed we slip in with the Pitbull “catch” dogs on leashes as close as we dare without busting the pig out. At that point we release the catch dogs and they run in and latch onto the pigs head or ears and bear down! This may be a good time to add that this is not a sport for the faint of heart. It is one of the most intense experiences Ive ever had but it is pretty brutal and often bloody. It is necessary and a part of southern culture however and if you saw the incredible amount of damage these hogs do to the land that these farmers and ranchers rely on the feed their families you would understand it. A small group of hogs can irreparably damage an acre of hay field over night…

This sport is also dangerous. These hogs can get aggressive and protective and the big boars have razor sharp cutters. Many a hog hunter has been cut by a charging boar trying to protect a sow in heat. So it is an adrenaline rush as well. You are sprinting through swamps and thickets following the sound of barking dogs and squealing pigs! At one point I was out in the middle of a swamp up to my waist in muck and water trying to get to a dog that had a pig caught on an island! This was a very cool experience and I will be joining in again soon. On a side note we had to ship the Pigman off to the Emergency room. He broke a bone in his knee cap and had to get stitched up after running a beaver cut stump into his leg! We had a great day, caught a few hogs but missed the big boar we chased for hours. We estimated the dogs were on that boar for 8-10 miles over the course of two hours or so and we missed him with the catch dogs twice. One of the pitbulls got her throat cut (just the meat not life threatening) by this boar and I watched Clinton staple her up like a Vet! Ive attached a few pictures but you just cant get a feel for the excitement of something like this until you do it!

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On The Road

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Texas Turkeys, Hogs and the PBR…..I am leaving Montana this weekend to head south. After a stop at Trevon’s house in Ft. Collins to set up and tune our new Hoyt Maxxis’ and give him a hand moving, I will be headed to Texas to do two back to back PBR events.

The great thing about Texas this time of year is hog hunting and an April 3 opener for Rio Grande Turkeys! My next two weeks look like this: Work a PBR in Palestine, TX, spend the week with some friends chasing hogs around with my bow, Work a PBR in Stephenville, TX and then hunt the first 2 or 3 days of Turkey season. Life on the road can be tough, but I sure love it!!

Keep checking back for updates from the place I like to call my second home, TEXAS! Hopefully I’ll put some hogs on the ground with the new Maxxis…

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On The Road

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Well I know Trev has kept you all updated a bit, with my lack of internet while in Mexico. I flew back home last night and wanted to share with you a couple pics and my thoughts from the trip. It is possible that this was the most fun Ive ever had on a hunting trip. I cant thank Keith Rand, of Last Frontier Outfitters and the Sales and Marketing Director for Pigman, The Series, enough. His generosity was what made this trip so special. Kyle Weiter, host of Lone Wolf’s Adrenaline Junkies on the Sportsman Channel, and I met up with Keith and the Pigman himself in Old Mexico and as soon as we arrived the fun was on! We saw so much game, Kyle and I each scoring on a number of Javelinas by both stand hunting and spot and stalk.

I was having some bow tuning issues that ended up costing me a great Pope and Young Whitetail but Kyle more than made up for it with his shooting prowess! That boy can shoot!! We helped Keith out with a little herd management by taking three does as well. When a man says we have too many does can you help me out? Kyle and I will answer YES SIR! All in all we had a blast, ate good, made some new friends and laid down some entertaining footage.

Look for it on a future OO webisode as well as Kyle’s and Pigman’s show. Hopefully Kyle and I will return to Mexico next winter for some more fun. The plan is for Pigman and I to hunt Illinois Whitetails with Kyle this fall and for them to hunt Montana Antelope with me. Cross promotion with other good shows and creative like minded people has always been important to me and I think I found a great fit.

Posted in Deer Hunting, On The Road, Outback Outdoors, Ryan's Blog | 1 Comment »

On The Road

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Well I am shooting the Hoyt and packing up my Badlands Terraglide and heading south next week. I will be joining Kyle Weiter, my good friend and host of Lone Wolf’s Adrenaline Junkies on the Sportsman Channel in Old Mexico to hunt Whitetails and Javalinas.

We will be joining Brian “Pigman” Quaca and Keith Rand from Pigman, The Series, a hit new show on the Sportsman Channel produced by our friends at Rack Focus Outdoor Multimedia. Kyle and I have been trying to do a hunt together and this opportunity came up. Brian and Keith not only have a great show but outfit on some game rich properties in Texas and Mexico and were very gracious to invite Kyle and I down for a week. Keep on the lookout for this hunt on our webisode, Kyle’s show and Pigman’s show soon! This is what I preach about. People in the industry working together to cross promote and have some fun!

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On The Road

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

This will be my first installment of my blog I’ll call “On The Road” with Rocket Ryan! My life is all about the road. I am away from home for more than 200 days a year. In the Winter, Spring and Summer I am traveling all over the country, by combination of planes and my truck and trailer, entertaining Rodeo and PBR fans. During the fall, well you all know what I’m doing! I fly out in the morning to go to Saginaw, Michigan for a PBR. The cool thing is that the Rack Focus Outdoor Multimedia studios are close to Saginaw. Jason Brown and his crew are producing some outstanding outdoor television. With several shows on the Sportsman Channel, they are really doing well. Jason is a good guy and has invited me to come in and visit with them while I’m in Saginaw and then he is planning to make it out to the PBR this weekend. I’ll post a video blog from the road after the event so be on the lookout for that and more updates to come….so join me, “On The Road”

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The Archery Trade Show and the Trip Home

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

The Archery Trade Show each year is one of my favorite trips. Much like my trip to Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo, it is the one time each year that we in the industry get to see one another, catch up, tell stories and generally just hang out. There is alot of competition in the outdoor industry and competition is good to a point. My feeling has always been that friendly competition keeps everyone on their toes and hopefully keeps everyone cranking out a good product, however, sometimes what gets lost in the competition is that we are all in this together. We are all working together to share our stories and hopefully promote this great sport and lifestyle. I got into this industry, like most people, because I truly love to hunt. Period. Let’s not lose sight of this. We in the hunting industry need to remember that we are lucky. Sponsorships, airtime costs, editing deadlines; all this aside, at the end of the day we are hunting and we are sharing this with alot of people who can’t do what we do and appreciate that we put the effort into this. I have friends in this industry and I enjoy seeing them every year and telling hunting stories because thats what brought us together in the first place. I’m sorry I am rambling, I am waiting for my flight home and I tend to get insightful in Airports! What are your thoughts?

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Archery Trade Show kicks off for team Outback Outdoors

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Archery Trade Show in Columbus, OH opened up Wednesday January 13th. The Outback Outdoors team flew in and hit the ground running. As we waited for our luggage with Cameron Hanes and Roy Roth, we were entertained with stories of Alaskan adventure from Roy.

The Archery Trade Show is a great chance each year to reconnect with industry professionals, outdoor celebrities and our sponsors. With day one in the books we enjoyed visiting with Bill and Isaac of Badlands Packs and look at some of their new and exciting products to hit the market in 2010. The other great advantage of the Archery Trade Show is that each of the companies in the Archery Industry introduces their new products for the year. Its very exciting to not only see these products but also to talk to the men and women responsible for them.

With the launch of our re-designed website this week, We have alot to talk to our sponsors about and spent the first day in meetings with Hoyt, Lone Wolf Treestands and Muzzy with more meetings scheduled for tomorrow. Exciting things are on tap for Team Outback Outdoors and we are ready to rock in 2010!

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