What Started It All Hunting Shows of the Past / Television / Now YouTube

[Greg Massey]

Mutual Omaha " Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins " premiered on TV in 1963 with hoist Merlin Perkins, Jim Fowler and Peter Gros. This show took us places we could only dream about seeing with wild animals in their natural habitats. The show ran from 1963 - 1988. Back in those early days / years it was just exciting to see something of this magnitude on television. Then we had " The American Sportsman " with Curt Gowdy, Joe Foss and Bing Crosby. This show took us to locations all around the world USA, Canada and Africa just to name a few locations. It was the FIRST hunting and fishing show with celebrity participants. These two shows took us all back in those days where we could only dream about seeing much less getting to hunt or fishing in some of these locations. Back in my early years these shows were just as important as going to the local barbershop for a haircut and getting to see the latest issue of Field Stream magazine or Outdoor Life. Another thing i will always remember at the barbershop was after you got your haircut, the barber would always give us 2 pieces of Dubble Bubble chewing gum. So i guess you could say we looked forward to these type of shows and things we remember growing up from kids to men. Now we YouTube, Internet / Forums and Outdoor Channel and Sportsman Channel on TV so i guess we could say the kids and younger generation has a completely different understanding of what the Outdoors is all about now in the year 2023. So regardless of what we think from the old generation to the new hunting / fishing generation there is no turning back to the good old days.  So do we blame these first generation of TV Shows or Magazines for what has sparked a interest in the Outdoors or do we now blame YouTube and the Internet for how hunting and fishing has become so commercialized in selling a brand with today's Outdoors. I could go on, but just wanted to share some thoughts about the past / present and now how we think about what has happened to hunting / fishing and the use of public hunting and fishing locations. So Who Do We Blame or Who's at Fault, I really don't think we will ever agree on Who's at Fault ... Old Past TV Shows that started it all or NOW the internet / YouTube hunting / fishing Shows that are mostly self film.  I myself enjoy both the days of the past and the new generation of shows and the Internet.  But the days of the old Barbershop and free Dubble Bubble chewing gum are long gone. So enclosing, just watch for what you wish for in the future because as we all know generations are changing from the past to now the present.

[Dtrkyman]

I didn't bother reading all that, but not too long ago all the talk on most forums was how the TV guys could never do what they did on public land like the common folk!

So yeah be careful what you wish for.

[Notsoyoungturk]

Marlin - While Jim holds the head of the Anaconda and wrestles the alligator, I'm going to have another Martini and get my nails done.

I think it is like all great things in life; it is hard to keep a good thing to yourself.  You share that great restaurant with a friend.  They share it with two and off it goes.  Pretty soon, you can't get a table.

I watched it happen to duck hunting.  As a kid, we would launch an aluminum boat in the Cache River in Ark.  We would find the ducks, jump the levee and hunt.  Nobody cared. Dad would take friends to share his passion.  Soon, it was overrun.  Now, that place is now a million dollar duck club. 

The next step is everyone wanting to make a living off the thing they love.  Shows, gear,gimmicks, etc.  Many stay true to their values; others feel they need to keep coming up with bigger and better. "Pushing the edge of the envelope".  Sometimes it's good for the sport and the hunters.  Other times, ......

[g8rvet]

I think, like in almost all things (duck hunting, redfish fishing, bass fishing, college football, college basketball, etc etc) when you monetize avocations (past times) they turn into vocations (jobs) and when someone figures how to make a buck or two off of it, it is sure to be ruined. I have always maintained that the way to ruin a dog breed is for them to get popular and people start charging stupid amounts of money for purebreds or puremutts.  Breeds damaged in my career?  Dobe, Rottie, Labrador, Labra/Golden Doodles, Frenchies are the current breed getting bred into ruin.  Duck Commander made duck hunting popular and companies were quick to notice.  As the pressure to succeed with motion decoys, hyper-realistic decoys, etc. so they could be "experts" and sell their junk to the masses idiots like Jeff Foiles succumbed to the pressure and went beyond legal to keep up the image and therefore the sales.  Same is happening turkey hunting with motion decoys, reaping, YouTube channels monetizing hunting, etc.  When I first started hunting MS, if you wanted to hunt, you knocked on a door and had about a 25% chance of hearing "go ahead, have fun".  Now the farmers are being offered good money to lock up sheetwater to leases and guides (I blame no one, it is money at fault).  The farmer's job is making money off the land and if someone is paying them to use idle property, that helps them survive, I do not blame them one bit. 

But once money enters the equations from any angle, it changes everything.  Right across from Yorkwood Plantation was Federal land that held ducks when the water was high-like right across the levee from the Cox Communication owner's gazillion dollar plantation and I know it burned him to have the unwashed masses shooting "his ducks".  So he did a land swap with the Feds who got some other worthless bottomland that had 0 ducks on it and James Kennedy got to keep those ducks to himself and stop access to the public land all while getting YOUR hard earned dollars donated through Ducks Unlimited to enrich his duck plantation. 

I can name a dozen other examples in both duck and turkey hunting of similar situations. When searching for the problem, it is always money at the root of it.  The old days of selling calls and clothes is giving way to clicks and likes, but at the core, as usual is money. 

[Happy]

I remember watching wild America with Marty Stauffer as a kid. Turns out he was cheating and getting his amazing footage on preserves.

[Tom007]

As a very young boy, I loved the TV series called "The American Sportsman". Curt Gowdy I believe hosted it. These were real life hunts with celebrities, athletes etc. I remember William Conrad "Frank Cannon" hunting grizzly bears. I dreamed one day of being able to hunt like these guys. These shows are etched in my mind. Yes they were a big influence, driving factor in getting me involved in hunting and fishing. I look back and realize this series was instrumental in my love of the great outdoors........

[Turkeybutt]

If I remember correctly that Anaconda almost killed old Jim Fowler and Marlin!

[OJR]

I can remember Curt Gowdy, Bing Crosby and Phil Harris fly fishing and then sitting around the fire with, I'm sure a few adult beverages under their belts. Singing and teasing one another. Brings back great memories. Hard to believe I'm that old...

[2eagles]

I own a LP record of Curt Gowdy and the father of modern archery, Fred Bear sitting around a fire, Fred telling hunting stories.  Crickets in the background and the fire crackling. I listened to it over and over when I was a kid. I'm 70 now and the record is still playable. Has to be from the early 60's. Maybe I'll play soon for nostalgia. Polar bears covering their black nose with a paw to sneak up on a resting seal story was so neat to this kid.

[firedup]

This post brings back good, good memories.  My small town barbershop had Outdoor Life / Field and Stream out front. Playboy in the back!

[Sir-diealot]

Loved Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, watched every episode. I remember getting suckers at the barber as well as at the eye doctors.

[El Pavo Grande]

No matter what avenue, the commercialization of hunting to profit in $$ or other self interests is to blame.   It's just ten fold now, as unlimited information is in the palm of our hands with social media platforms.  It transcends above magazines, dvds, or even outdoor television.  It's on a different level completely, considering access.  And it allows for unregulated information sharing.  One simple click... no subscriptions needed.  Consider that one rotten apple out of a million can wreak havoc.  Just one.  It should be concerning, but most choose to turn a blind eye or choose to be entertained above all else. 

[Tom007]

Great post Greg. I've been watching a few Old American Sportsman Episodes. Grainy video, but great commentary and content.....good stuff

[joey46]

I started with American Sportsman also.   Evolved into others most likely the Knight and Hale series on both TV and vcr tapes.  It isn't going to matter how many scream and kick their feet the YouTube and other "spot burners" are here to stay.  Live with it, ban everything you can possibly think of, or adapt.  Almost tired of arguing it.   It is a useless flight of fantasy to think that turkey hunting will ever return to the glory days.  I lived through the glory days.  Fun stuff to legally take multiple turkey in multiple states.  Now the one and two bird limits are just fine.  Maybe those one or two birds are a little more special.  Maybe "Whiner on Board" can be the bumper sticker for this new millennium crew of turkey hunters.  Pfft!

[GobbleNut]

Agree.  Grew up watching those initial programs...and witnessed the evolution from those initial entries on the three major broadcast networks, to the advent of cable TV and the gradual proliferation of hunting and fishing shows, to entire channels dedicated to those pursuits and the outdoor-products companies that phenomenon generated.  Then came the internet, personal TV channels, and social media and voila....here we are...

As this relates to turkey hunting from a personal perspective, hunters I know often ask me why I am so enamored with spring gobbler hunting.  One of the reasons on the long list is simply that, here in the region that I live, it is one of the last species we can hunt by buying an over-the-counter permit.  Every other significant game species has gone to a drawing, and with the odds of success in those drawings diminishing on a yearly basis...and diminishing to a point where we can realistically only expect to hunt certain species "once in a blue moon", if at all (and we have a LOT of game species here that a person can apply for).

There is no doubt in my mind that there are lots of folks around here that have that same mind-set and have taken up turkey hunting just because it is one species that they can readily hunt every year.  There is also no doubt in my mind that they are drawn to it initially by the fact that they are inundated with turkey hunting programs on outdoor TV stations and YouTube channels.  To me, the line from point A to point B is pretty straight.  ...And things are destined to get worse...