New (and very different) Hunting Show coming July 3rd

On Your Own Adventures – What’s in a name?
www.onyourownadventures.com

A lot of people have asked, “How did you arrive at the name On Your Own Adventures?”

Well, the easy answer is that On Your Own, is how I hunt. It is also how most of you hunt. In fact, the most recent study shows that 97% of big game hunters in the United States are On Your Own hunters.

Whether it is on public land or private land, most hunters go non-guided. For whatever reasons, whether it is the sense of personal accomplishment, cost, available opportunity, or a host of many other reasons, non-guided hunting is the way most of us hunt.

I have been on guided hunts and have had some great times. In spite of meeting some great people on these hunts, having a guide do all the research, all the scouting, the planning, and taking care of all the logistics, I never got the same feeling from a guided hunt as I have from my On Your Own hunts.

Most of the hunts you will see us doing are on accessible lands. That is merely for the purpose of transparency for the audience. Most hunting in the US occurs on private land. I have access to some great private land and when I do get a chance to hunt those lands, it is always On Your Own hunting, the same as it is for most other guys hunting private lands.

I am blessed to live in the West, where we have millions of acres of public lands for On Your Own hunting. As such, you will see most of our hunts occurring on these lands, as a big part of our mission is to show people that On Your Own hunting is available and accessible to all Americans, for a fraction of the cost of most guided hunts.

In doing these hunts on public land, or accessible private lands, many people get the impression we are promoting only public land hunting. Not the case. We are promoting On Your Own hunting, whether it is on public land out West, or in your family’s 80-acre whitetail grounds.

Why has the On Your Own hunter been ignored by popular hunting TV shows? Well, non-guided hunting is hard. You know that better than anyone.

Hunting on accessible lands with competition from other hunters is even harder. And, hunting with camera guys following you along, is extremely difficult. Add all three of these elements into one show concept, and you are talking about what many in the industry have called “the impossible show.”

I spent three years filming my own hunts, and those of family and friends, before a production company saw the concept and asked me to start a TV show around the idea of On Your Own hunting. We knew it would be hard. In fact, it is much more difficult than I had ever expected. If we were willing to compromise our production quality and cut other corners, it would be easier, but there is enough low-budget footage on the outdoor networks. Though our concept is not impossible, it is extremely difficult. And that difficulty and much higher cost is why no other shows have made On Your Own hunting their exclusive concept.

In spite of the difficulties, it is a project worth pursuing. Why?

Because there are over 350 hunting shows on the outdoor TV networks, and not one of them are exclusively dedicated the hunting as it occurs for the average guy - On Your Own hunting. Some shows will have some episodes as non-guided hunts, or a few episodes on accessible lands, but none dedicate their entire concept to On Your Own hunting on lands the average guy can hunt.

Our goal is to be different. Different in terms of our concept, our focus on the hard core hunting audience, and our extremely high level of production quality. I hope we have succeeded.

You will see all types of hunts for many different species. Elk, muleys, whitetails, antelope, bear, turkeys, with bow or rifle, on both private and public land. Over the course of time, we hope to show hunts on limited entry tags, over-the-counter tags, and in some instances, landowner tags where the landowner will let us hunt On Your Own. All of these represent affordable options available to the non-guided hunter.

We will get some comments by those who are offended that we promote non-guided hunting, outside of high fences, and without the benefit of private estates. There is already enough of that on TV.

For those who find it offensive that we would talk about not using high fences or the benefit of outfitters, I hope you see that we are promoting another style of hunting. Is our promotion of On Your Own hunting any different than the guy show stands in front of the camera and shamelessly goes on and on about XYZ outfitter or ACME deer preserve? I don’t think so.

I do know this. The feedback we have received as we have tried to tell the story of hunting as it occurs for most Americans has been resounding, and overwhelmingly favorable. We will have our struggles where we don’t find the big buck, or maybe we don’t find one at all. We will miss some shots. Maybe make a bad shot, and all the other things that are hunting reality for our viewers. Why should our hunting be any different than yours?

And, we will do all we can to tell the most important conservation story in the world – the story of the On Your Own hunter in America – your story.

Thanks for watching.

Click www.onyourownadventures.com to see some clips

The Outdoor Channel and will start airing on July 3^rd. The airtimes (Eastern time) are Fridays at 1:30 PM and Midnight, and Sundays at 5:00 PM. Those will be the airtimes every week, until the end of the year.

Note: Randy is a board member of Orion-The Hunter's Institute and lives in Montana.