Social Tour 2011

Sorry for the delay in posts I have had some miserable personal problems getting in the way of doing anything fun which leads to not much to write about. Then along came something to take my mind off of problems for a little while plus something to look forward to.

A couple of months ago I was talking with my friend Rudy on Twitter, about his real life hunting video he shot last year. He traveled around filming average hunters on public or small tracks of private land. Hunters that can’t afford $20,000 high fenced hunts and wouldn’t go on one if they could, girls and guys hunting like the “Pros” want you to think they are. In passing he mentioned hunting with me sometime but since he lives in Colorado and I live in Tennessee I took it as just a friendly comment, little did I know how wrong I was, turns out, he had a plan.

Jump to a couple of weeks ago and he asks when I am going to have time for him to come out and film while I hunt. Since I am the last person wanting to be on camera, had never mentioned wanting to be, plus Rudy is still many miles away I was surprised. My feeling being that the last thing a hunting video needs is another old, fat white guy sitting in a tree. We talked for a bit then he said we would firm up a date later that week. Our next call confirmed a date of November 3-4 which is a short 5 day archery only season between muzzleloader and gun. Now for the big news.

Rudy had a great idea. This year he was going to put on the first “Getting Social With America’s Whitetail Deer Hunters“. A tour of 5000 miles through 12 states with 19 hunters. Hunters who use social media and love the outdoors as it should be, not because we have big name product sponsors, most of us don’t, but because we love what we do. We pay out of our own pocket to hunt these small tracks of land, dealing with all the problems that brings just to enjoy our sport. Putting up with thieves, idiots walking in on us, no place for food plots, limited access. In short, real hunters doing what you do, working hard all year long to hunt those few weeks in fall and winter for that thrill of hearing leaves crunch as a deer heads your way no matter the problems. We aren’t the chosen few of TV channels, we are you.

Two stands in Marshall county less than 150 yards from a subdivision on 30 acres.


Let me give you a list of Twitter names along with their states of the hunters on this year’s tour.

@TeamSST and @Team_mlt, Michigan
@firstlightgear, Michigan
@lukekujacznski, Michigan
@jesseshaver, Michigan
@Bigbrother010, Ohio
@BigBuckPW, Maryland
@TheWillToHunt, Virginia
@Writinghuntress, North Carolina
@hunttrophywife, Georgia
Drop Tine, Georgia
@ghost1066, Tennessee
@MAC71LH, Arkansas
@MKOTZUM, Oklahoma
@Deer_Commander, Oklahoma

From October 16 to November 9 Rudy will be driving from state to state filming as we do what we do. Nothing staged, no guarantees, good or bad, just like you do it. Until then you can keep up with what the hunters are doing to get ready for the tour. Whether it is working out, scouting, practice, whatever, we will be sharing it through social media which is how all this started. Most of us are tagging tweets with #deertour or #deertour2011 so you can search it to see what we are talking about.

Views from my stand in Jump Off Tn 18 acres surrounded by woods for miles.


I hope those of you that can follow along as we go through the pre season and the hunts. Posts will be put up from stands and blinds during hunts along with many posts being put now showing food plots, deer and gear since for us the Tour has started. Passing along information for people to see, comment on and share is what the social part is all about.

If you use Twitter, Facebook or follow the blogs feel free to jump in and talk or leave comments as we go, remember we got invited for being social and sharing online, who knows Rudy may send you a DM next year and surprise you like he did me.