A Little Something. 9 things wrong with hunting shows
 

Oh how true this is.
(Excerpts from Deer & Deer Hunting)

1) The music is much louder than before. How do you keep the deer from hearing it? What does Rap, Trance and Heavy Metal have to do with deer hunting?
2) How is it that the camera guy always seems to get to the carcass ahead of everyone else and yet the hunter and his buddy always are surprised to find it? If it were me, I'd just stay behind the camera guy and follow him to the kill-- he's like a bloodhound.
3) Has the whole world thrown away their lever-action and bolt-action rifles and adopted TC single shots?
4) Since when did deer hunting become a team sport? Frankly I would not hunt with guys who wanted to compete at deer hunting. This isn't a fish derby.
5) If they would just shut everybody up and stop all the dang whispering, they'd probably not need all that super-duper camo and all those gadgets.
6) Somebody needs to get the editors of these half-hour masterpieces to a doctor and get them diagnosed with Adult ADD and get them on some Ritalin.
7) Somebody needs to tell the executive producers that the The Kay-Fabe lines they're using were stale in the WWF before Andre the Giant took his big dive. They need to hire writers that never worked for Vince McMahon.
8) Why is it that guys on TV always have to hop on the back of the animal grab it by the antlers and work the neck. It sort of reminds me of those horsey rides at Woolworth's. Put a kid on one, put in a nickel and they pull on those reins like the darn thing is really going to get up and go trotting around the store.
9) It used to be I could keep the kids quiet on Sunday morning by plunking them down with a pile of pancakes and putting on a deer or turkey DVD. Now even the youngest is getting bored and walking off.

One word can answer all those questions.... "Marketing"

For many of the reasons listed above I've grown very picky as to which hunting shows I watch. One of my pet peeves is when they find the deer, act shocked ("holy cow! there he is!" *yelling screaming, high fives*) and then when they get up to the deer there isn't a drop of blood on it and the tongue isn't hanging out - so clearly they found the deer, cleaning it up to make it more tv worthy (which isn't a bad idea per se) and then acted like they were shocked to find it.

I also agree that pushing the products goes a little overboard at times, but i understand that it is a business. It just seems to me they could push the products during the commercials and leave the show focused more on the actual hunting aspect.

Overall I think the Primos guys are far and away the best in the business, although I've watched the first two episodes of this season's Heartland Bowhunter and have been very impressed. Most of the other shows are hit or miss

I quite agree! I can't stand most shows for all of the reasons you listed. One thing that I can't stand is what I call the time warp affect. The hunter gets to the deer and makes hardly a mention that he has been hunting this property for seven days in a row. When was the last time you had a good seven days in a row to hunt a prime piece of property. They barely mention this and act like it was so easy to kill such a large deer.

I digress, the show that I like the most is Deer and Deer Hunting. I like their magazine and I like the information they dispense on the show. They look at all aspects of the hunt, not just the kill. They have even shown youth hunts, which I love to see a kid get excited about taking a forkhorn.

You are absolutely right about every one! Once I would love to hear a guy say " We are hunting a 10,000 acre highly managed piece of property that you would have to $37,000 to hunt on. These deer have hardly seen a person in their lives, so this is really nothing like the hunting you do, in fact its barely hunting its more like a 30 minute commerical. "

I do like Fred Eichler a lot because he doesnt care if you smokes a fork horn or a pope and young, you can tell he loves hunting.

He's said many times that he's a meat hunter, and I truly believe that his excitement is genuine. I like his show a lot.

then teach your kids to be meat hunters instead of trophy hunters. if there were more meat hunters these days we would have to many deer in some areas. i like the guys at primos at least they seem to really enjoy the hunt.

I whole heartly agree with item 9 of the OP.
The marketing is so overboard on most shows that I've stopped watching them except for when I'm really bored.

I might be showing my age a bit but 15 or 20 years ago most hunting shows where actually about hunting. Sure there would be a brief mention to thank the outfitter, promote a gun/bow or a scent and grunt call but most of the show was about the hunt and tips on what made the hunt succesful.

Now, they are more info-mmercial than hunting show. They spend 10 minutes raving about how great the outfitter is, 8 minutes about how great the sponsers are and 2 minutes or less of actual hunting footage. Add to that the normal commercials and it's just entirely too much. I actually timed the amount of hunting footage on 1 show a few months ago..... 1 minute and 15 seconds!!

I'm pretty certain the more solid hunting shows happen to be the more popular and the "others" are just fighting for market share.

And to think I was the only one who thought this. I have to say that imo the best shows are the primos guys, Mike Wadell and the Bone Collectors, and one of my all time favorites is Dan and Guy Fitzgerald. Dan and Guy both hunt instinctively and it don't matter to them what or how big the animal is they take. My hats off to them.