RE: Television show: Beyond the hunt?
HEY GBROWNLEE:
I think you are really barking up the wrong tree there bud. I believe your being bothered by an emotional person on TV is far more rediculous than someone showing how they feel (AS LONG AS IT'S GENUINE). You also have to realize that Julie is not a well seasoned hunter like you seem to feel you are. She is still a budding professional and these things are still very high up her desire list. Desire and passion produce emotion. Give her a few years and a few dozen monster bucks, bulls and boars and she will probably become as mundane as the rest of the "Been there done that" kind of TV personalities. I think it is refreshing to see some honesty on TV. I shot my first buck about 40 years ago and really have been there done that. I have been a guide and outfitter for many years and I can tell you honestly, I cried a couple years ago when I shot my brown bear. I spent forty years dreaming of one. True for me it was a bit embarassing to cry in front of an Alaskan guide. However it was real emotion and it was genuine. I didn't do it for effect on a TV show.
Besides, I have met Julie and Rick. They are absolutely top notch folks and are as real and genuine as it gets. She is a little bitty gal with some backbone and desire to share the outdoors with her husband and is also willing to take the TV viewers along. I film for TV and try to film my family. My wife absolutely shut me down with the camera early on in her hunting career. She now regrets it of course. Her reasoning was she didn't want me to film her missing and crying. After I insisted on the camera at all times she now realizes what she threw away. And yes When she shot her first bull elk at 442 yards after 8 days in temperatures mostly minus 10 to minus 25 degrees, she cried too. It is all on tape and it is priceless and genuine.
Showing the passion, desire, hardship, rewards and yes EMOTION, is absolutely reality TV. I believe this is far more likely to invite the non-hunting women and kids into our sport. True and genuine emotion absolutely belongs in outdoor programing. But I do agree with false emotion being a distraction. However, I have not met Stan Potts. Until I meet him and spend time in the hunting world with him I am not going to judge. One thing I will say, if you have no emotion when you take a nice animal or miss one, then you do not belong in the hunting woods any more. Then its just killing to keep score. That is just disrespectful to the resource and the sport.