Ep 142: Outdoor Media and Getting More People Involved, with Terry Wickstrom
Terry Wickstrom is the host of Terry Wickstrom Outdoors on 104.3 The Fan in Denver and has spent decades in outdoor radio, television, and print media. In this episode, we talk about ice fishing in Colorado, how Terry got started in the outdoor industry, the state of outdoor media, traditional radio vs. modern media, getting young people into the outdoors, and much more.
Terry Wickstrom Outdoors: link
Facebook: /TerryWickstromOutdoors
Youtube: link
Terry’s Music: Wickstrom & Dobroth
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast. Your home for fly fish in the backcountry. This is episode 142 with Terry Wickstrom on outdoor media and getting more people involved. Well, I start every episode by just getting a background on how my guests got introduced to the outdoors. So walk me through how you were introduced to the outdoors and hunting and fishing.
Terry
Well, the outdoors has been a part of my life since before I went to school. Being born and living up till the first part of my adult life in northern Minnesota, it was the culture up there. My families, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my mom and dad all hunt and fished. And a good part of that was my grandparents were depression people. And they felt that hunting and fishing were major life skills. how they fed their families. Now of course they didn't think I'd be doing on TV and radio and magazines and the whole thing like that, but it also in northern Minnesota is just ingrained in the culture. It's almost, it's almost expected that you're going to be an outdoor person. I was on the lake with my dad, mom, and a little 12-14 foot boat with my brother, four of us. All my dad did was untangle lines. For when we were fishing before I went to school, and before I was old enough to go to school, and long after that, my mom was on a deer stand with me when I was 12 years old. So, and then I got really, really the nature of being up there, I got to know a lot of the Native, Native Americans that lived up there, mostly Cherokee and Sioux, and they taught me something called the rhythm of the woods. They really gave me an education on being part of your environment, which has served me so well in all my own hunting and fishing and being outdoors. So it's really been just hunting, fishing, and music have been constants in my life, no matter what else I was doing.
Katie
So it sounds like you had more of a, I guess, holistic family experience than a lot of people who might just have a single parent or a grandparent who takes them out. It sounds like your whole family was out there doing stuff together, if your mom was on your stand with you.
Terry
Yeah. I mean, my uncles and my mom and dad both came from large families. My dad's family was a dairy farmer at a creek ran through, we'd go up there. My mom's family lived out in the rural area but moved closer to us as I was still a younger child. But then my uncles all had cabins on lakes. You gotta remember where I lived, the county I lived in alone had a thousand lakes in it. They say there's 10,000 lakes in Minnesota. And so we were, and we owned a cabin ourselves, part of the time, but we were never more than 10 minutes from a lake and to go to one of the cabins a half hour to an hour and we'd spend time there. They became kind of communal cabins where uncles, aunts, cousins, we were there all the time.
Katie
And what brought you out to Colorado?
Terry
At the time I came to Colorado I also had a career in business that was for a good part of my life and I was transferred for a better job opportunity. I wasn't actually working in the outdoor industry when I came out here. I was involved in it and involved with a lot of people that were mainstays in the industry, but I wasn't actually working making an income in the industry and I got transferred out here for a job a long, long time ago.
Katie
And what was the transition like for, you know, your hobbies? If you're not actively, you know, pursuing a career at that time, I'm sure you were still hunting and fishing as you came out here. Like what, what was that transition like from Minnesota culture and processes and all that to the Colorado system?
Terry
Well, I think the transition really was when I came out here, I had done everything outdoors. I hunted, I fished, I trapped, I camped, I was everywhere. Moving out here and then with new opportunities and other things going on in my life, I really couldn't do it all anymore. So I concentrated more on fishing and doing less hunting.
Katie
And what kind of fishing did you take up out here? Is it trout fishing, fly fishing, bass fishing? What specific pursuit did you really go after?
Terry
Well, my really background when I first got into it professionally, being in the outdoors, was tournament fishing for bass and walleyes. And conventional fishing was really my background. That's what I did the most, although I did get into fly fishing and eventually did a lot of it, especially for my television shows. We can get to that later. I had also been very involved in the ice fishing industry and probably my first dipping my toes in the water as professionally was tournament fishing on the conventional side but then a bunch of us started ice fishing and I would go back to Minnesota and then bring that information out here and myself and Dave Gantz, Greg Clagio, Tony Dean, Al Linder, a bunch of us were considered the pioneers of modern day ice fishing, which means we've been around a long time.
Katie
Where, where does one ice fish around here?
Terry
Oh, ice fishing has become incredibly popular in Colorado. In fact, when I moved out here, there were a few thousand hardcore anglers. This is back in the eighties now. And there were a few hardcore ice anglers and, uh, with, there was lots of opportunity though. So I started doing seminars for some of the local tackle stores because of my background. And I had started writing at that time too. So I was doing a lot of my articles on ice fishing and we, uh, we've seen it grow and blossom to well, last time I talked to Parks and Wildlife, the last survey did, they did, there's between 250 and 300,000 anglers that ice fish in Colorado now. And we actually have a longer ice fishing season in Minnesota because our mountain lakes freeze up even before their lakes. And we go later into the spring. And we have year-round seasons here where Minnesota has very strict seasonal regulations. But even the front range. I mean, I live in Fort Collins. And within 10 minutes of my house, one of the coldest months, I can ice fish.
Katie
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask is like, I do see ice fishermen out near me. I'm down in Lakewood. So, you know, similar kind of climate. And we do definitely get ice on the lakes, but it's kind of sporadic. You know, it'll be icy and then it'll be thawed out and it'll be icy again. Do you have to kind of work around the weather when you're staying down in the front range to kind of catch the periods that have ice?
Terry
I think the biggest key is you have to be aware and understanding what... We never call it safe ice. No ice is safe.
Katie
Okay.
Terry
But ice fishing can be extremely safe if you use common sense. And so I think one of the biggest things, and we don't, it's very rare that anybody dies ice fishing. I mean, way more people die skiing and avalanches and drowning in open water. I don't think we've had a death for years, in fact, but if you use common sense, you're not even going to fall through and get miserable. You just have to learn. And that's the hardest thing for people starting ice fishing. You should go with somebody who understands the conditions.
Katie
Do you find yourself going to the mountains more just because there's more of a reliable ice pack up there? Like once it freezes, it's going to stay pretty frozen up there.
Terry
I go there earlier because it freezes first. But then I get lazy and if there's ice near me down here, I don't have to get up so early and drive so far.
Katie
And what do you like to target through the ice? What species?
Terry
Just about anything. It depends on the lake. During ice fishing, you hear people, they want to go after big fish a lot. But through the ice, a lot of people will target more panfish, smaller trout and things, just because the action kind of keeps you more involved in ice fishing. So they have high action. Although Colorado offers everything from panfish like perch and bluegills to stock trout, up to 50-pound lake trout and 30-pound pike. So we have really a variety of fish to target here in this state.
Katie
And you mentioned tournament angling. Is there a big tournament angling scene in Colorado? It's not a state I think of. You know, I think of like the Southeast and stuff, but Colorado doesn't come to mind. Are there a lot of tournaments?
Terry
There’s a lot of tournament anglers here. The tournaments that take place in Colorado and the nearby states are, there's a lot of smaller club type tournaments. The big cash type tournaments, there aren't very many in Colorado, but there's a lot of anglers from here that travel to those and do their, they've learned to fish here and they fish the club tournaments. We've had, I think, two or three, we've had, well one, one junior high school is one, two world championships from Colorado. We've had national championships that have gone on with college scholarships. We've had at least three Bassmaster Classic qualifiers, which was the World series of bass fishing and we've had we've had half a dozen professional walleye anglers come out of Colorado. And then there's a lot of tournaments here but they're usually at a smaller scale.
Katie
So do those tournaments are they used as kind of like a I don't say farm league but you know you do the club tournaments and that is kind of what boosts you up to the the larger scene is that how you get you know found out and are able to compete in the the big leagues if you will?
Terry
Yeah a lot of those people that they that's the a lot of them they just fish club tournaments. They want that level. They want something. But a lot of them, that's how they dip their toe in the water, how they get started, how they get, you know, they get to understand the tournament environment and they hone their skills.
Katie
And how does that translate? How well does that translate to, you know, if you're going out of state to fish a bass tournament, let's say, and you've grown up fishing in these smaller Colorado tournaments, like, do the techniques stay pretty similar or is it kind of jarring to then go to one of these other places and now you're competing against anglers who might have experience in in those like local areas is it you know does it translate well?
Terry
You know not not as well as I mean actually very well but not as well for the local anglers you compete against. One of the biggest mistakes people make whether they're fishing for fun and any kind of fishing whether it's fly fishing, ice fishing, tournament fishing is they fish memories. The fish were here they were doing this last time I was here and And they take a long time to adapt and change their tactics if it isn't working. Western anglers in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, even New Mexico, Utah, these areas, we fish horse tooth reservoirs just a couple miles from my house. I can fish it one day and then next day, the water level is changed by, next week, the water level is changed by 15 feet. The Midwest anglers and Eastern anglers don't ever have to put up with that. The water levels change a foot or two, they have heart attacks, they panic. So I think the Western anglers have learned to assess what's going on at the time and then to make, change their game plan before they get too far into it. And it's made them very competitive.
Katie
Yeah, I'm definitely susceptible to what you're talking about, not in a tournament setting, but just, you know, I go out, I take notes on, you know, what the weather's doing and what the fish are doing and all that. And it's really hard for me to tear myself away from that if I come back the next time and I'm like, well, I caught a fish here last time, it's gotta be the same way again. And in some ways it's helpful because keeping records of how things went, you can use that in the future, but you have to kind of draw a line to not get too attached to that if it's not working the next time, you need to pivot a little bit. And I'm definitely a victim of trusting my memories too much at times.
Terry
I'll give you a tip on that. As a fly angler, How many times have you rigged up your fly where you're still at your vehicle and then walk to the river?
Katie
Oh, I do that all the time. 'Cause I don't care too much about what I catch.
Terry
But then when you get there, if you don't have, and I'll be as guilty of it as anybody, but when you get there and the fish are doing something different, the hatch is different, the flows are different, the water temperature is different, you don't cut that fly off and put a new one on immediately. You fish for a long time with that setup 'cause that's what you had faith in what was going on.
Katie
Sure.
Terry
So don't tie on till you get to the river. When you get to the river, stop and watch.
Katie
You see, I think we talked about this on your show. So I should mention that I was recently on your radio show and we'll get around to that 'cause I do wanna hear about how you got into radio and everything. But a lot of the places I fish because they're so, they're remote, they have a short season. I'm up in the mountains. So a lot of times I feel like I don't fall, I fall victim to the tying on before I've looked, but it often doesn't punish me as much as it should, or as much as it would for some people who are fishing, I think, some of the bigger rivers that have more finicky fish, in particular hatches, because I feel like a lot of the fish I'm fishing for just are not that picky. And that's partially by design. I like to go to places where the fish don't see a lot of flies and they're not usually that picky. But I think I get away with that a lot in a way that a lot of people I don't think would just based on the nature of where I'm going. Because I've definitely fallen victim to it at places that are not like the places I normally fish. And yeah, I can get sucked into fishing the wrong thing for a long time.
Terry
Well, and it's human nature. I'll tell you right now that my favorite time to fly fish is during hopper dropper season or dry fly dropper. And for a lot of reasons, first of all, I don't have to make a delicate cast. the hopper can plop down and it doesn't spook the fish 'cause that's how they land anyway. And I can see that hopper if I got a number 14 or 16 or even a seven or eight hopper, I can see it. And so it's much easier. So a lot of times I'll tie a hopper dropper on even when that's not the best presentation because that's the way I wanna fish.
Katie
That's how I feel too. I'm definitely more of a, I guess I would call it a process angler more than a product angler. Like I wanna catch fish But I also just want to go out there and have the experience I'm looking for. And a lot of times, I will kind of beat my head against a wall to make that happen. And if it doesn't produce the most number of fish I could have caught in a day, I don't really care. I know there's people who go the other route. I hear that a lot from Euro-nymphers, where they're going to catch every fish in the run before they move on, because they can. They're going to pick through every single fish. And I don't really care too much about catching every fish in the run. I'll go through and fish the way I want to fish. if I leave a couple behind you know I'm not too torn up about that I don't need to to get those ones to come up for my fly. What do you like to fish you know what are you more of a process or a product angler?
Terry
Well explain it this way I think the reason I left tournament fishing and I was did fairly well I actually cashed checks at the professional level in both bass and walleye which I don't think that I think there's one or two other people in the country that have done that. But I, when I was tournament fishing, I had to find the best tactic and use it. I had to fish for that species of fish, because that's what the tournament was about. And I realized, I think, even though I was successful, intuitive ways that I really like to fish how I like to fish. And for what I want to fish for that, that time, if something else is active and I can have more fun going after that. And then I also realized, and along the process it started while I was still tournament fishing, that I really like to share the knowledge and see other people catch fish. So I think, yeah, I'm more of a, I'd rather, I could be up in Rocky Mountain National Park catching a few little cutthroats like that with an elk bugling over here and be just as happy as if I'm on the Colorado with a 20-inch brown.
Katie
Sure. That's, yeah, I think we're on the same page with that. That's, that's my idea of a good day too. So let's go back. Tell me how you got into what you're doing now with the radio and TV. I don't know if these are intertwined or if one came after the other but you know tell me how you got into the media world.
Terry
Well while I was still tournament fishing I would write some articles for some major publications. I had the recognition, the street creds so to say that you know because I had done well as a successful angler and I started appearing places, doing seminars. My sponsors actually would put in my contracts that I had to do so many personal appearances every so often. A tip for anybody that wants to get into the media or the professional fishing world is they don't really pay you for how many fish they catch, they pay you for how many fishermen you catch. And they're really interested in how you present their products and represent them as an ambassador. But I realized, I think not too far into it, that tournament fishing wasn't going to be the end game for me, that I wanted to share knowledge and interact with people. So I started writing and I was fortunate because I had some name recognition to write for some of the most popular and incredible magazines in the conventional side of fishing, like Fishing Facts Magazine, In Fisherman, Walleye Insider, Fishing and Hunting News. I wrote a column for the Denver Post for five years. I wrote a column for Mile High Sports Magazine. All these, not all at once, these things progressed over the years. But then after I started, when I left tournament fishing in the mid 90s, I still wanted to stay involved, so I I was making appearances and things. And some of my sponsors, who I still had involvement with, said, you know, at the time, there's really nothing about fishing in the West on television. You know, everybody dreams, they wanna be on TV, they wanna do the things I've did. I kinda had a thrust on me. I was, I'm very blessed in my life. And they said, why don't you see if you can do something? So we went out, Brad Peterson ran the camera boat, we hired some guy from some video company, 'cause back then TV equipment was hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we went out and made a pilot. And it was a disaster what happened on the water. We caught a lot of fish, but this guy had no clue what we were doing. We made a pilot anyway, threw it in a corner of a closet. About a year later, I was appearing at a sports show in Denver down at the convention center. And these guys from a television station came by and they said, "You know," they were just talking, I said, we're looking for some outdoor programming. I said, well, I've got a pilot. You want to take a look at it? They said, yeah. Next thing I know, I'm doing 13 episodes a year. I'm syndicated on a bunch of channels and a lot of my sponsors were with me, stepped up. And about a year, year and a half into that, the fan had come to town, 104. What was 95, the fan then? It was, where is it, 950, the fan. I had to look up, it's been so many years. But they came to town, and after they were here a couple years, they approached Charlie Myers, who had been a mentor of mine in writing, about doing an outdoor radio show on the fan. And Charlie started it, but he soon realized that doing live radio wasn't his thing. He's a writer at heart, And he likes to mull his answers and his thoughts before he comes forward with them. Well, on radio, you can't have three minutes of dead air while you're doing that. Charlie's one of the greatest writers and one of the greatest people in the outdoor media. He's passed away now, but he was a great friend and a mentor when I was writing. He helped me a lot. So they approached me and they said, well, Charlie doesn't wanna do it. Will you do the show? 'Cause one of the people that worked in the TV industry a salesperson, had gone to the fan to be a salesperson. I said, "I'll only do it if Charlie can do a segment on the show with me." Here I am. This is the 27th year of doing radio. The television shows went from being syndicated to doing one show to doing two shows, one called Mountain States Fishing, one called Angling Adventures. Mountain States fishing was centered on being within a day's drive of Colorado or in Colorado. Angling adventures, we would go from the equator to the Arctic circle almost every year and fish a different, and all types of fishing, fly fishing, deep water fishing, saltwater fishing, ice fishing, walleye fishing, everything around the country. And so we did 22 seasons and about 300 episodes of television. We retired the TV a few years ago and people always ask me, why would you quit fishing on TV and keep doing radio? That's because I catch more fish on radio.
Katie
I do wanna hear more about radio, not because TV is not interesting, but because I've talked to several people who've done TV before, and I don't know if I've ever actually talked to somebody who does live radio. I've talked to a lot of podcasters And I just feel like radio is one of those things that, in some ways, is kind of a dying art. But obviously, it's still going strong for many people. There's still people listening to your show. So I kind of just want to hear what live radio is like. What is it like to host a show that people are listening to right now? I have the benefit of being able to edit things. And if I need to go to the bathroom, I can pause and go do that. But live radio sounds, to me, very stressful. But in some ways, I could see it being very fun, too, getting to talk to people live on the air. So I don't know, just kind of walk me through what it's like to do live radio. Maybe I'll think of some specific things I want to ask along the way.
Terry
Let's start by going why my show is still successful after all these years. You know, I wrote print media for decades and I still could write print media, but there's virtually no money except for a select few in print media. I mean, there's some successful niche print media, but for the most part, mass print media is, you know, the internet and what's going on is that's gone away. Television is a lot of work, but like doing the podcast, you can edit it, but TV has splintered their audience now. So finding a way to concentrate your audience on television, everybody doesn't have the same streaming service. They don't have the same access to the programming, so to capture a demographic is very difficult in the TV world now. And it's become more of a YouTube type thing for the outdoor people anyway. Radio, especially talk radio, sports talk and news talk, but outdoor talk is a little rare. There aren't as many of me as there are the others. We've kept our audience. We've been the most stable of the traditional media because people aren't supposed to have a screen when they're in their car. At least they're not supposed to be looking at it. So they listen to the radio. And music has suffered at times because you can stream your music. But talk radio, especially if you keep fresh, new information, timely information, they listen and they get hooked. They understand, they like what you do. So now they listen at home and they listen on their phone 'cause we stream everything too. And now you get your, build your audience and you build it. We also podcast everything we do, both by the hour and by the interview. And we get thousands of people listen to our podcasts, but the live radio, so live radio has prospered yet because of that. Doing live radio, when I first started out, I was terrible 'cause I was used to doing television. We could edit it, we could say, timeout, let's retake that, you know, let's cut, or when we put it together, we have a saying in TV that my wife hates, my wife, by the way, she runs our production company, both radio and television and she's actually my boss, but that's another story how that happened. It didn't start out that way, but we used to have a saying when we didn't quite get it right when we're filming it, we'd say, "We'll fix it in post," which meant we'll let the editors take care of it, which was her, and they can find a way to make it work 'cause it wasn't live, right? Radio were live. First of all, when you first start out, you worry about making every mistake. Then after you do it for a while, you realize that everybody who does live radio makes mistakes. Things go wrong. And most of it's transparent to the public. They don't know. But the little that isn't, they're so used to it if they listen to talk radio, you just laugh with them about it. And they're okay. But the one thing, you have to have energy, and you can't have dead air. So my show is two hours long. So from nine to 11, every Saturday morning, I have to get a little hyped up. Now, after 17 years, I don't think I get nervous, 27 years, I don't get nervous, but I get an energy. I always used to tell people, after the show, I have to have a cup of coffee to calm down. But, and I think it's a little harder. I think one of the things that's kept me in radio, the biggest, obviously I have to have knowledge and be able to ability to talk about things we talk about. And I can't do that with every subject. I have to get knowledgeable people on that can talk about other subjects. But I have to keep the conversation flowing. And my biggest talent probably in doing talk radio has been my ability to keep the conversation going, to lead people to where they're comfortable. And by -- I usually pre-interview them a little bit, not -- we don't script it, but so I kind of know what the message they're trying to get is so I can keep them on task and on message.
Katie
Now how do you find people to come on? I know for me it was like another person connected us but to do it every week, you've got to have a steady stream of people especially since it's multiple segments over the course of two hours. Where do all these people come from?
Terry
We have a handful of regular contributors. They're on either every week or every other week and then we fill in the rest with, I contacts all over, well all over Colorado and all over the world really, that I can call on depending on the time of the year, what's going on, what's pertinent, and then I call on those people to come in. Like we just had Ed Gorman from Parks and Wildlife on last Saturday. He's the biologist in Colorado that manages our upland game. So I had him on to talk about what the pheasant population in Colorado looks like this year. And so, and then I'm actually having pheasants forever on this Saturday to talk some more about that. Um, or during Turkey season, uh, we have some, some of our contributors cover both hunting and fishing. And there's no way that I can be expert enough and all the things we talk about. To, I not only want to pretend that I am. So a lot of times I just have to get people that bring that knowledge base. They're going to be on water I wasn't on. They're going to be hunting in a place I wasn't at. They're going to be experts in a certain aspect of the outdoors that I may or may not have done, but I may not be an expert in. But I have to know enough about those aspects to at least drive the conversation the right way.
Katie
Yeah. I feel like doing this for so long and having it be, you know, a diverse enough show, um, with different, different, you know, with all of hunting and all of fishing, you could talk forever. You must have become kind of knowledgeable about almost everything, at least a surface-level knowledge about nearly everything at this point with so many different topics coming on.
Terry
Yeah, I think I was very fortunate that I was so ingrained in the outdoors myself, doing a lot of fishing, hunting, camping, spending time in the outdoors, that I had enough background to quickly grasp, even if it was something I didn't do or hadn't done, I could grasp the concepts quickly enough to really understand and relate, and then let them bring the nuances out. Another thing we cover a lot, too, that we didn't talk about is survival. And being backcountry, we talk about misconceptions and what people do wrong when they're outdoors. So we cover fishing, hunting, camping, survival, hiking, even mountain biking at times. We have a really diverse, the main thrust of the show though is fishing, hunting, and camping.
Katie
I don't know how able you are to kind of pick apart the segments of like the people who are listening to you, but do you get the impression that the people who are listening to your show are all hunters and anglers or being part of a larger network, the fan, like do you get the impression that there is more of a general audience who might be getting introduced to hunting and fishing in some way through your show? And what's it like to talk to a more general audience if that's the case?
Terry
Well, I think one of the things, one of the concepts of the show has been, our goal has never been to make it sound difficult or chastise people who do it where we don't think is the right way. Our goal has always been to give the information that people, whether they're starting out or experts, that we give them places, information, and tools to improve what they do and have more fun. Now along with that, we will talk about outdoor issues, which lately has probably been a little more than I like with some of the political things going on. So being on 104.3 The Fan, it's the number one sports station in the United States.
Katie
Oh, really? Okay.
Terry
So we get a huge following. got out of their car Friday night, they were on the fan, turned the car up, but they didn't change the station on the radio. So they get in the car on Saturday and they hear me. And I don't know how many times people approach us on our social media and they go, "I don't even like the outdoors, but that was so much fun listening. It was so interesting." Or "I'm going to go fishing." Or we just hear this all the time. And then we really try to promote things through our sponsors and through activities to get people into the outdoors. We're evangelistic about getting youth into the outdoors because I don't think there's anything in the world that brings more value and more rewarding experiences to your life than the outdoors.
Katie
Now, what ways do you think young people are getting into the outdoors these days? Obviously, if there's a kid who has a parent who goes outside, that's going to be probably way to get a child interested in the outdoors. But you know with with more and more young people spending time inside and on screens and things like that, like what what ways are you seeing that kids are getting introduced to the outdoors these days?
Terry
Well a lot of clinics and outdoor activities. We work with different organizations to give away tons of fishing rods and tackle. At the The International Sportsman's Exposition last year, we gave out 60 free fishing rods and another 50 tackle boxes to youth. But there has to be a tertiary interest for them to even want that. Our motto is give them a tackle box, not an Xbox. But studies show that if you don't get people into fishing before they're in their mid to late teens, they almost never take it up later in life. Fly fishing is the one exception that people will... it's looked at differently than just fishing internally and from the sport. So people look at it a little more esoterically, they look at a little bit more like it's an art form, they look at it a little differently. So you will get that, but fly fishing is... even in Colorado it's only about 20 to 25% of our anglers. And probably a little more than that that do a combination of both, but people that just fly fish is probably about 20%. So you've got to find ways to get to them when they're young and introduce them to it. At least let them see if they like it. So there's been a, you mentioned before I had the benefit of a family and an extended family that was into it. A lot of kids today don't even have the benefit of a two-parent family. And so you have to find ways to get that single parent to get involved. And women are the fastest growing segment of the outdoor industry because after years of giving lip service to bringing women into the industry, making them wear men's gear and use equipment that was designed for men, they finally over the last 10 years have recognized that there are physical differences and we need to make gear for them and approach them. And there's psychological differences between men and women. We approach things differently. Not one better than the other. So women a lot of times learn better from other women. And sometimes women don't like learning from a male, especially their husband, which is I will never, if my wife wants to learn something, I'll hire somebody. First of all, she's probably going to end up being better at it than I am anyway. And second of all, it doesn't go well sometimes. For the most part it does though. But the industry is finally recognizing and bringing women in. So I think we always support as many activities as we can that are family-oriented, that get the youth involved. Anytime there's a clinic or an activity that's a kids fishing clinic or an activity, we do everything we can to promote it. My wife used to do a segment on the radio show called Women in the Outdoors and tried to really promote there's a lot of very capable women. Some men, I think that they get a little bit intimidated. Sometimes I think men get more intimidated by women who are really good at some of these things than the women do. I know Nate Zielinski, who's one of our longest running contributors, he covers both hunting and fishing for us. We talk about shooting. Both of our wives are a million times better shot than we are. So we have to be humbled by that every time we talk about shooting. My wife has master angler awards from multiple countries and she's caught fish all over the world. So, but I guess I'm digressing a little bit. We just need to get those, we need pathways for those single parents to get involved.
Katie
Yeah, I've heard, and I don't know where I've heard this. I've heard it several times, so don't quote me on it, but I've heard stats that when women do some outdoor activity, the kids are much more likely to join in and do it, unless a dad might be going specifically of his way to get his child into something he's into. But just the act of him doing it might not encourage the whole family to go unless he really asks them to come. But when mom does something, it kind of makes the whole family come along. Mom's going to just drag the whole family out with her, and they're all going to do the thing together. And so I've heard stats that if mom is into something, then it's very likely that the kids are going to get into it as well, just by the nature of moms and young kids tend to have a very close bond, and they do a lot of things together. So, you know, one avenue of getting kids into things is getting their moms into it because then that's going to force the kids to go along too. Whereas dad might want to just get away and, you know, have some time away from the family. Not everybody, of course. This is a generalization. But that's one thing I've heard as an avenue to get kids more involved in things.
Terry
Well, yeah, I think the stereotypes of the outdoors being, you know, the outdoorsman, you know, has really been a disservice to women over the years because some of the best anglers and best hunters and best outdoor people I know are women, a lot of them much more accomplished than I am, and they don't get maybe the same recognition sometimes. But there's more women wanting to get in the outdoors, and that's going to take people with them. And I'll come back again, too, I don't want to dwell on it, but we have so many single families. And I think the outdoors, maybe if you get into the outdoors before you become a single family, you might end up being a two-parent family.
Katie
Yeah, if you meet through a mutual interest like that. But I think you're right, I think it's hard because a lot of these pursuits are, they take time to get into. If you've grown up doing it, it's just something you do. But if you decide you want to pick up hunting tomorrow, that's a big endeavor. And if you're trying to raise a kid by yourself and you work a job or two to put food on the table, there's not a lot of time to decide you want to go to Hunter's Ed and learn to shoot a rifle or a bow and then find time to get out and do this. Like who's gonna watch your child? So I think that's a good point that resources for these folks might be helpful just because to do it oneself is is a big undertaking if you didn't kind of bring that into the situation to begin with.
Terry
The biggest hindrance to people getting outdoors and fishing, hunting, camping is number one lack of knowledge. They don't understand how to get started. So hopefully you and I can provide some of that. But the other is lack of access. And access could be not having the money or there isn't public land or you just don't know where to go. And Parks and Wildlife is working hard to try to change both those aspects. They have a lot of women's programs. They're trying to improve access. So hopefully, this used to be, when I moved out here, I think the population of Colorado was maybe two and and a half million people. Now it's about six. So you stop and think about what, and a lot of those people are here because of the outdoor activities that are available here. Outdoors though, if I think I said this earlier about what it does for your life as far as the value system it helps create and the value to your life and the impact on your life. Being part of the media, I get a lot of these surveys and things that are done. This happened several years ago. It's probably over a dozen years ago. But ASA, the American Sports Angling Association, did a survey of adults over the age of 40 and what their most memorable time with their parents was, parent or parents. 52%, it was an outdoor activity. It was fishing, hunting, or camping. The next was a sporting event, and that was 12%. Wow. So think of that ability to create those. Outdoor activities have an ability to create bonding and memories that almost nothing else we do can duplicate.
Katie
Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, I've never heard that stat, but I feel like a lot of these things require some level of hardship. You know, you might get rained on, you might run out of food while you're out there. There's a lot of like memorable things that can happen that might just not happen if you are, I don't know, say you're knitting with your parents. Nothing against knitting. I used to do some knitting and I like it, but I feel like you can have fun doing that, but you might not look back and think of a particular time you knitted a scarf, just because there wasn't a lot to differentiate that from any other time you did that with your parents. Whereas when you go outside and you hunt or fish or camp, or like you said before, mountain bike, anything, it can expand beyond just hunting and fishing, but you're likely to to have a very unique experience each time you go, and B, you're likely to encounter some sort of discomfort. You overcame something as a family together. You look back and you say, "Remember that time that we got a flat tire, and this happened, and that happened." I think there's just a little bit more that can stick in your brain when you've got a lot of moving pieces, and you're relying on each other as a team to go out and accomplish something together. There's something lacking, I think, if your hobby just takes place at home, and you don't have to go out and experience that hardship.
Terry
I think you kind of talked about it when you said if it's raining, you may not, it may be unpleasant that day, but you're gonna look back at it and smile later, remember all the mud and what we went through and all that. Yeah, it just, it really does. And the one thing about the outdoors too, is if you take your daughter, your son, or your spouse or somebody, your cousin, your nephew, out fishing or hunting or out camping, There's a lot of time when there's nothing going on. There isn't necessarily, it isn't like watching TV, playing a board game, playing a game. There's dead times. And you don't have to ask 'em, how's school, how's life? Conversations just happen. And you don't have to pressure 'em, you don't have to press, you don't even have to dig in if they bring it up. You'll learn so much 'cause people just, they'll converse. And you create a bonding that's hard to duplicate.
Katie
I wanna go back to the radio and the media a little bit and ask just how you've seen things change over the years. And this question's kind of coming from a place of, I grew up listening to outdoor radio, reading the outdoor column in my newspaper, going to the local gun and tackle shop and seeing a bulletin board of people's pictures that they've brought in, like Polaroid pictures. And obviously that has mostly changed to online content, you know, YouTube, podcasts, all that kind of stuff. But I think there's still a market for some of this more hyper localized stuff. And you've talked about this, you know, with your show being, you know, it's things in Colorado and, you know, they're relevant to people here. And I think that there's something missing from kind of the mass media we get these days that is more, you know, it's more applicable to everybody as a whole. But I might turn on a YouTube show or a podcast, and they're talking about something in a different state that I don't really connect with because it's just not it's not what I'm experiencing. But I'd be much more likely to tune in if I turn it on. It's about Denver. It's about Colorado. Have you seen media change over the years? And what place do you think some of these hyperlocalized things have in a world that's now much more digital and worldwide?
Terry
Let's start out where I think media is at right now. When I started, I was very fortunate in my journey as an outdoor writer and then on TV and radio to be in a time when it was difficult to get into. I mean, we didn't have the roadblocks to entry were huge for most people. And you had to establish yourself. You had to earn credibility in the industries. You had to get a break somewhere. And you had usually editors and producers over you that if you weren't performing, you weren't going to last. Now everybody does their own thing at home with a $600 camera and a computer, and we have no filter anymore on what's good and bad. There's a lot of good people doing that, but there's 10 times more people that probably shouldn't be doing it. But they have fun. They become media stars, right? And so it's very difficult with media today to filter out the pertinent information. So listen and find information wherever you can. Just make sure you kind of catalog it and compartmentalize it and understand the source. Now as far as when I was writing for national magazines, obviously they were more articles, they had to be more general articles about fishing anywhere. It could be specific, but a technique that people around the country would be interested in. We did the two television shows, Mountain States Fishing and Angling Adventures. Angling Adventures was more of a travel show. It wasn't meant to be, "Okay, I'm aiming to get the people in Alaska to watch this TV show." It was meant to get anybody in the country. We were on Altitude at that time. We spent 10 years on Altitude, the channel out of Colorado. meant like here's a place you can go and you can do this. You don't have to be me, you can be anybody, but it was aimed at whoever around the country might want to travel to Alaska. The other show, Mountain States Fishing, which really is the one that took us to popularity in the beginning, was because there was nothing out here. And like you said, I would go fishing at Chatfield Reservoir or we'd go fly fishing at Deckers. One of our most watched, because they're all on YouTube now, all our past TV shows. One of our most watched shows, it's been watched thousands and thousands of times on YouTube, is an episode we did fishing right at Deckers, Colorado, because people know are from here and they know me. So yeah, there's something about the local. On the radio, there's podcasts, there's people doing YouTube videos, we do YouTube videos, we've got the whole social media set up. Chad Lachance, who I started in television and now He took over the local show and he's more branched out nationally. He does a lot of YouTube. He's, he's got a lot of local ties, but there's a lot of people doing these things, but they're doing them try to get national exposure because they make money by how many people watch, they get, you know, they need thousands. They need millions of likes. When we, when we do the radio show, we're aiming at an audience. We have a different economic structure and we have a different, As long as we move the needle for our local sponsors, they pay for us to do the show. So it's in our benefit to have the people in Colorado tuning in all the time. So we tailor our information. Not only is it tailored for mostly right in this area, and we have national people on, we go over other things. It's also very timely because we do the show live Saturday. A lot of times the guys calling in are on the water or in the woods when they call us. So the information is right now.
Katie
Yeah, I think that's a huge benefit. And I benefit from the opposite side, which is that I don't have to do live. So if I have a vacation coming up or something, I can pre-record and get things out. But it means that sometimes the episode that gets released might be two months later. And what we're talking about is it's not irrelevant. I feel like most of the content is kind of evergreen. But some of the references are dated. We're talking about summer stuff, but it's out in the fall. And I could see the appeal of really wanting, you know, I'm going fishing this weekend, I'm going fishing tomorrow on Sunday, and I wanna hear what's going on on Saturday so I can plan around that and find out what's going on. So I really see the appeal of both the hyper local and the hyper timely.
Terry
And we've tried to keep it that way. And we try to be informative. And sometimes even with our contributors, I'll call them and I'll say, hey, we gotta bring things down a little bit 'cause we start finding ourselves talking to the elite angler and not the everyday angler. And sometimes we have to reel it back in and make sure that we've got the basics covered. Not that we don't want to teach advanced techniques, but if you don't know the techniques that got you there, you gotta make sure you're taking them there in steps. So we try to be really conscious of covering it from everybody from the first time out to the expert.
Katie
Just a couple things I wanna cover before we wrap up. First of all, what can people expect if they listen to your show. If they tune in at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, you know, I'm sure I have quite a big listenership in the Denver area, you know, what can people expect to hear about?
Terry
Well, if they tune in this coming Saturday, the first segment at nine o'clock is going to be Pheasants Forever talking about the upland game conditions right here in Colorado. There's going to be, there's one segment I haven't totally firmed up yet. The segment after that is going to be a fishing report from mostly northeastern Colorado. We have different people we bring in for different reports at different times. The segment after that is going to be about picking out a travel trailer, a camper. How do you decide what size you need for your family? Segment after that will be Nate Zielinski. Most of our segments run about eight to ten minutes long. Nate usually runs about 17 because we can't get him to shut up. But he's so full of great knowledge. We let him talk and we know we got to save extra time later. But Nate gives almost always a hunting report from in the field. And then he runs a very large guide service, a conventional and some fly. And he'll, he'll give a report on fishing conditions, both in the mountains and on the front range. And then let's see, after that, we have, uh, one of our sponsors is Jack's Outdoor Gear. They'll come on and give a few tips. They have a segment where they give some tips and then Chad LaChanze will join us. And I haven't seen his topic yet, but he brings in, uh, either a fishing, hunting, or a, or a cooking game topic.
Katie
So a very wide variety.
Terry
Yeah. And, and we try to keep it that way. And then next week, I know we're going to have people from the blue quill angler on a week from Saturday. So we try to have some fly fishing most weeks, some conventional fishing. Don't always get both because we try to change up segments, but we have regular contributors. Nate's always going to give a fishing and hunting report. Chad's on every other week. We have Austin Parr who's a great fisherman and hunter on every other week. He rotates with Brad Peterson who's a waterfall guide and a fishing guide and he'll give us an update. And then we have like the people out of Blue Mesa, the people down at Pueblo, people up at the Colorado Angler. They'll come on at different times, North Park, they'll come on and give us reports on their area, timely reports. And we'll always try to look ahead to the big topic over the next few weeks is going to be, what is this sudden drop in weather going to do to our fishing and hunting? Probably something on dressing properly so you don't get hypothermia.
Katie
That's the timeliness that we need is today, the temperature has plummeted. So I think that'll be a timely topic. All these episodes are, or I guess you wouldn't call them episodes, but they are posted as podcast episodes. So if somebody does miss the live show, they can go back and listen after the fact.
Terry
Yeah, if you went to their podcasts in a couple different ways. We do two hours, and hour one and hour two are podcasts, and you can get those right off my page on 104.3 The Fan, or you can go to Apple or any place that does Spotify that does podcasts, and those will be there, and you can go back years and listen to those. Then we also do seven segments during a show, which are called interviews. They're not always, sometimes it's just me talking. Usually it's like you were on my show. We post those on the fan page on a different, you click a different place on my page. And then on my Facebook page, Terry Wickstrom Outdoors, I take most of what was on this last Saturday's show. And every day I take one of those interviews and post it on Terry Wickstrom Outdoors with a link. 'Cause they're the most timely. I'll tell you the secret is the hour you're going to listen to the commercials, if you listen to the interviews, you don't get the commercials.
Katie
Well, and the last thing I wanted to ask you about is just what have you been up to in the outdoors lately? Have you been fishing? Have you been hunting? Having any success? What have you been up to?
Terry
I was out with Ronnie Castiglione, and folks can see the result of this on my Facebook page, Terry Wicks from Outdoors. Just a few days ago, Ronnie and I went out, it was last Friday, we went out on Boyd Lake. We caught about 60 fish. Most of them were largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and white bass. And the largemouth and smallmouth were, for the most part, really quality fish. Caught a few walleyes. Some of them were small, a couple of good ones. But we caught a lot of two to three and a half, maybe pushing four pound bass, and maybe about 20 white bass.
Katie
Now, are those, those are true white bass, not wipers?
Terry
No, they're, we have all, we have white bass and wipers in this state. And these are true white bass.
Katie
Okay. I might need to pick your brain. I've wanted to target... In my brain, it was just wipers. I've wanted to target wipers, but I haven't put much time into it, but I have no idea what I'm doing. So I might need to shoot you an email and pick your brain on how to do that, because I don't have a reliable source for that.
Terry
All right. And if you want to start with white bass, a lot of lakes have wipers mixed in. The difference is the white bass will be about 12 to 20 inches, mostly 14 to 17 inches, and they'll fight good and they'll be great. The wipers, if you get a big one, it'll take your tackle out of your hands and run with it.
Katie
Maybe I'll start with a white bass then. And any hunting? Have you been doing any hunting or just fishing still?
Terry
I mostly just fish anymore. I just didn't have time for everything. We ran into a streak a few years back when we were still doing both television shows. We were doing 26 new television shows a year, 52 radio shows a year, and plus we had our fingers and other pies. And I just had to decide where I was going to focus. And I still love hunting. I just don't get out hunting very much. Did it enough, we have great guys that help cover it for us. So mostly fishing now.
Katie
Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, Terry, this has been super fun. Can you just remind people the name of the radio show and where they can find it as a podcast and any other media you'd like to point people towards?
Terry
All right. So it's Terry Wicks from Outdoors. It's on 104.3 The Fan every Saturday from 9 to 10. Occasionally, like coming Saturday after this, we get moved over to 1600 ESPN because of a football game. But we're always going to be on one of those. If you go online and just click 104.3 The Fan, you'll find us on one or the other. every Saturday 9 to 11. Podcasts, you can find podcasts of each hour of every show by going to my page on the fan. You can find podcasts of the interviews that we do, like the one I did with you, by going to the fan, but also on Terry Wickshom Outdoors on Facebook. And Terry Wickshom Outdoors on Facebook also gives live reports from the field, like when Ronnie and I were out fishing, we showed pictures of the lures we used, we showed some pictures of the fish, talked about the waters we were on. Um, we have a YouTube channel, the best of fishing with Terry Wickstrom that encapsulates 22 seasons of television. Now there are legacy programs and some of them are a little long in the tooth, but there's a lot of good information in them. And I'll give one plug to to go to Wickstrom and Dover and follow a streaming music. Wickstrom and Dover is a music has been the other constant in my life. And I've been blessed to be, have been able to interact. I went to the same high school as Bob Dylan. He's the one that inspired me to pick up my first guitar. I got away from it, but I'm back in it. Mark's a Hall of Fame guitar player. We've got some pretty good music out there on Wickstrom and Doberth.
Katie
Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes too, so people can click that and listen to some of your music. I'd also want to encourage people. I know I have a lot of listeners who also aren't in Colorado, but I'm sure most places have their own local outdoor show. And I think the main thing I want to take away from this conversation is just that there's still a place for this type of media, even though it feels like we're kind of inundated with the YouTubes and the podcasts these days, that there is still a place for this hyper timely, hyper local media that you can't really replicate in the form of YouTube and podcasts that are kind of by default coming out a little bit edited, a little bit delayed. So I would just encourage people to consider that as a way for whatever they're going to do that week.
Terry
All right. Well, it's been a pleasure. And by the way, folks, she did a great job on my show. If you go to Terry Wickstrom Outdoors, you can listen to the podcast.
Katie
All right. Thank you again, Terry. And I'm sure we'll connect soon. I'm going to pick your brain about white bass at some point, I'm sure. But thank you again for joining me.
Terry
All right. We'll get you back on the radio soon, too.
Katie
Sounds good. All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes, as well as You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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