Opinions on the information Randy Newburg shares.

[i count eye guards]

It's public ******* land. Take a hike with that "my spot" shit

 

[steelheadmike]

First, if somebody is using a YouTube video for scouting info, they are in trouble.

Second, if Randy even slightly tips his hand where he is at, you can be pretty sure it’s in a high point unit. Are you guys butt hurt that he said the Kaibab and AZ strip units were good? Not exactly letting the cat out of the bag. It’s not too hard to figure out a few of the places they are in. But, you quickly realize they are areas that aren’t easy to draw. And, if his videos make the guys with enough points to draw there put in for the tag, the odds for other units just got better.

Third, to those guys who are pissed that guys like Randy are offering help to new hunters and giving out info on how to apply for tags, go fly a kite. I’m 100% in on getting more hunters into the sport and retaining new hunters.


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[Randy Newberg]

Interesting thread to read. While leaving the SHOT Show this evening, someone showed me this thread. Being a regular here on Rokslide, I figured I may as well give my two cents on Randy Newberg.

When you do the gig I have chosen, you quickly realize you are in a fishbowl. Lots of people claim to know what goes on behind all of this, the motivations for doing so, and like to be the supposed expert on topics they often have no firsthand knowledge of. Such comes with the territory. I accept that.

Threads like this have some value to me. The tone and any general comments will cause me to look at what we do, how we do it, and see if I can do things better. I make mistakes, always have, and I am sure the future will have more mistakes. I’m not afraid to admit such and analysis usually provides some learning and some better outcomes.

The specific comments of me selling out, making a big living from this, etc. are funny to read. Not worth addressing such comments specifically, as people willing to make such comments with zero understanding of the situation are not going to be changed by whatever response I might provide.

Suffice to say, I still work as a CPA. That, and related activities, are what pays my bills. I don’t make a livelihood from what we do with the media platforms. Somewhat as expected, given the approach we have taken since the start.

The WHY of the business, since started in 2008, has been “To promote self-guided public land hunting and create advocates for that cause.” Makes it easy to decide what I will/won’t do, what sponsors I will/won’t accept, and keeps a focus on the reasons my wife and I agreed we wanted to do this.

If this WHY was driven by financial returns, I would not turn down sponsorship opportunities with ATV companies. I would work with bigger companies with larger budgets than a lot of the smaller specialized companies I work with. I would not have the majority of things I use be non-paid relationships. I would have deals with scent control companies, muzzleloader companies, e-bike companies, big box retailers, and the list goes on and on. I have had chances at all of those, but they didn’t fit the WHY of the business. I turn down multiple possibilities for each one I accept, due to not being a good fit.

Being guided by that WHY is what gives the realization I may never recover a dime of the significant investment made in these platforms. And why my twelve years of unpaid effort will likely never equate to minimum wage. Don’t get me wrong, if I am able to make money while still following that WHY, I will make no apologies for doing so. And if it turns out to be a big loss, I am good with that, as it was something my wife and I decided we wanted to do after not making the difference we hoped to make with a decade of previous volunteering.

When we started this, my wife signed on to the idea under a few conditions, one of which was that this endeavor would not be our livelihood. She worried it would become a job, I would come to hate hunting, and the financial dependence could make it easier to lose sight of the WHY. In retrospect, her demand was genius, as I am a dozen years into this and excited to work at it every day. I have other sources of employment and income that I don’t need this to be my livelihood, though I do dread the next few months of being office bound.

As for the notion that I give out specific units, areas, drainages, etc. I would ask you to PM me with the examples, since none of them were stated in this thread. I gave out the unit of an elk episode in NM, by design. It has done nothing to change the odds on that hunt. It was a tough hunt and showed people that just drawing a tag is not a guarantee for a big bull. Other than that, I cannot recall a single episode where we have provided exact unit/drainage information in anything other than a few super-hard-to-draw, once-in-many years unit, such as a Henry Mountains bison tag or MT Breaks sheep tag. If I have, it slipped out by accident and I didn’t catch it in edits.

I do get my share of PO’d people complaining when I respond to their email with the following….”Out of respect to other applicants and hunters who apply/hunt that area, we don’t give specific unit information. I hope you understand.” I’ve had people email my sponsors, personally confront me, and go to other forums complaining that I am a POS because I wouldn’t provide them such details. Oh well.

Those of you stating such without providing the examples, if you want to PM me those specific examples where I have done so, I would be interested in hearing such.

As some here have said, there are no secrets to what we do and where we hunt. I have to do public land film permits, since our hunts are on public lands. Through the Freedom of Information Act, many people get copies of our film permits. Those film permit applications are very detailed with maps of where we will camp, where we will park, where we will hunt, what units we have tags for, how many in our crew, how many days, what days, contact and personal information. Why some think that is a useful manner of scouting is beyond me, but such happens a lot.

Additionally, people know my entire draw history in many states, due to public information laws in those states. Some are not bashful about sharing it with friends, on forums, or comments on our media platforms that allow user engagement.

I have had people hack my game agency accounts, posting on forums what I drew/didn’t draw/where I applied, before I even looked at the results. There is a guy in Wyoming who claims he is building a website to post where every hunt has been filmed, via information he has acquired under FOIA. These things that at first hit me as a rather big intrusion of my privacy have been going on for years and if I decide such is not something I am willing to deal with, I can step aside and fold up the platforms. If you want to know where we were in any episode, you can probably find out and it won’t be from me.

People follow my vehicle, stop at our camps, wait for us to return to trailheads, and other things while we are out there. Some will then race out early that morning to be the first at the trailhead we have been hunting. I’ve read on many forums of “I just saw Newberg out in Unit XYZ this week. Wonder if they got a bull.”

I give those as example of how our locations often get known, not to complain about the people we encounter. 99.9% of the people we meet in the field are really cool folks. Most often those encounters add pleasure to the day in talking hunting with new people. Meeting new people and seeing their enthusiasm for hunting is one of the big benefits of this gig.

I will read these comments again when I get home, examining what we can do better. I do that regularly with many aspects of what we do. The ones where people claim to know this/that when they are completely clueless about me, my motives, and what I do, will have no influence.

As for sharing how we research units, how we plan hunts, my tools for E-scouting, how we draw tags, etc. I’m not sure how to handle complaints about that. To fulfill the WHY of this endeavor, explaining the tools and techniques we use is necessary. The idea is not to provide specific drainages, units, coordinates, or trailheads, rather the techniques and methodologies to do one’s own research and homework that will hopefully make them an advocate for self-guided public land hunting.

Happy to answer any questions when I get home from this trip.

 

[i count eye guards]

Don't let a bunch of grumpy goobers get you down.

Love your content, it feels as authentic as it gets from your medium (social media).

 

[wapitibob]

You're a class act Randy, keep doing what you're doing.

 

[pbcarch]

Randy, i thank you for helping me get started in my endeavors out west.

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[backcountry_hunter]

I feel like with all that typing you're still selfishly withholding information to the most important question in this thread.....
That is: How was the SHOT show?

 

[Two Roads]

My wife (hunting buddy) and I met Randy by chance at Sportsmens while in Bozeman. Did not want to intrude but did want to say thank you. Pure gentleman and grateful to tell him same. It is his ethics that attract us, his call to all for stewardship and responsibility. And his persistent push to have fun, hunt with a smile.

Our world needs more decent people like that.

 

[DangerRanger]

Lots of negativity and anger. I came to Rokslide to get away from that type of shit.

That place doesn’t exist

 

[Farmingdale's Finest]

Responding to the last few posts:

1. No one contests that Randy is a great voice for conservation. I really appreciate and admire his efforts there.
2. The issue is sharing specific spots knowing that it will make them more crowded and not caring when there is no other reasonable explanation for doing so besides commercial interests, more followers, etc.
3. The guys who’re annoyed with the oversharing on places to apply and specific places to hunt are those who spend their boot leather learning an area and being successful there only to have it blow up with crowds because someone wants to make a buck pimping specific hunting spots. (Good term pulled from earlier post.) It’s a matter of respect

Maybe I a missing something since I haven't seen everyone of his shows and podcasts but when I have seen him mention anything even remotely specific to a spot it has been in areas that have very limited draw and you aren't going to be hunting it even every 5 years. If people are butt hurt about that then this is the most ridiculous bitch fest ever.

I have learned how to use ONX maps from his tutuorials and i can say first hand he has been very careful not to show the specific drainage or trailheads he would go in from based upon the topo maps.

My son and I hunted the opening week of Colorado archery elk. I worked my ass off reading everything on elk hunting and listening to podcasts specifically the ones by Randy Newberg, Cory Jacobson and the earlier Gritty Bowmen. As well as videos and picking up on what the terrain and tactics those who were successful did. ISpent well over 100 hours looking at google earth and based upon what I researched within 10 minutes of pulling into my campsite the Thursday before the archery opener I heard bugling elk on the next ridge. The next day my son and I scouted the area and had multiple elk respond to my calls before sunrise. We laid out a plan for the opener but altered where we were going to go because as we dropped into the drainage we had a bull bugle back farther down the drainage instead of up stream as we had heard the previous two days. Unfortunately following the sound we got cliffed out.

When we turned back we ran into a guy who was successful. It was funny because he got it exactly where I had the bulls respond the day before. As we talked he told me he had hunted this drainage for the last 10 opening weekends and had taken 3 bulls and two cows during that time. He told me that my son and I were the first people he had ever seen there even though we were less than 1/2 a mile from a major highway. It was a 900 foot drop in less than 1/3 of a mile with no trail and walking through a hillside of 4-6’ ferns. As we were talking I told him the 5 spots I had mapped out and planned on checking if this wasn’t good. He told me over the years he had killed elk in 4 of the five and if any out of towner deserved an elk it was us.

We had a cow come in to 80 yards on day three but the wind shifted as she was coming in to a water hole we were sitting at the time. Unfortunately my son woke up with altitude sickness the next morning and we had to cut our trip short by 5 days.

I am confident after this experience given enough time we could have been successful. I laugh at how you guys talk about pressure. Living in NJ you have no idea of pressure. I hunt almost exclusively public parks often with not more than 50 acres open to hunt . It’s not unusual to have 5-10 other guys within 1-200 yards of you. I have learned to use that pressure to have the deer come to me on escape routes and hunting the edges of the super thick bedding areas. I applied what I learned to our elk hunting and almost got it done on my first time in what turned out to be a long weekend.

 

[NDGuy]

Randy with the mic drop! Keep up the good stuff sir! My family enjoys your show!

 

[Trevor73402]

Thanks @Randy Newberg
Last night after reading pages 4-6 of this, I briefly thought to myself, what would Randy say/think if he actually read all this. Having no idea you were an active member here, you can only imagine my surprise to come back to this and see a response from you.
Much appreciated. Hope to see you afield one day.

 

[idahohikker]

I appreciate the mature and humble response by Randy. Class act.

So Randy thinks he doesn’t share unit information, which is interesting, and suggests the revelations are due to unintentional carelessness. I’ll say that in the background of that is a subconscious desire for more followers and/or people pleasing.

One example stands out showing this, on a podcast Randy was asked about antelope hunting in Wyoming. He volunteers after much internal humming and hawing that he’ll share with his listeners a big secret about antelope hunting in Wyoming and then shares the type of state owned property that he always hunts on. Add that to the references to the donut shops and where he stays at a hotel and you have things significantly narrowed. This was shocking to me because I thought Wyoming pronghorn would be sacred.

We know the unit where Randy hunted Wyoming elk two or three years ago because he shared the mountain range and then dates and shared he was right by the wilderness line. With about two seconds of research a guy could find the unit where he hunted deer because of all the specific identifiers regarding the unit and where he was that he shared. The deer hunt in Montana last year seemed to have a lot of identifiers based on the nearby city. In other cases, the exact unit has been mentioned like Henry’s or whatever Peaks in Arizona. There doesn’t seem to be any care taken with showing local places or videography showing prominent features. On a number of occasional he’s mentioned the unit in the Bighorns he’s hunted and how there’s just so many elk there.

The most common time for Randy to share units is on the q&a show. I’ve listened to more than half of the shows and would estimate he’s shared 5-10 units he’s hunted. Someone asks do you know anything about x unit in a certain state. Randy says yes, I hunted it and there’s a video in x season of my show or no I haven’t hunted it. With that information you can easily find out where Randy has hunted elk in New Mexico in a couple different units and where he hunted elk in Arizona, as well as a few other hunts.

It’s clever to put the onus on those frustrated to point out all the units referenced but I’m throwing it back to Randy’s court. I have picked up a bunch of references without listening for it or caring. In my lifetime I’ll probably hunt Idaho and two other western states and would avoid like the plague anywhere that Randy highlights (intentionally or not).

Randy did not directly respond to the other gripe—constant pushing for everyone who lives west of the Mississippi to apply for western elk states. That seemed like a good idea at first for hunter recruitment and the idea of helping people get started. But between Randy and other hunting celebs we now are past point creep and into point leap just in the last few years. The unfortunate result is many western guys like myself who’re younger and haven’t been applying in a number of states have severely diminished opportunities for controlled hunt tags in other states and for many states it’s basically pointless at this point—Nevada, Utah, Arizona except for archery and late seasons, etc. I can’t tell you how many guys have told me about how they have no clue what to do in Wyoming because odds are increasing by a point or two a year in many of the mid range units that they were contemplating. This was not all Randy but I think his role was significant and not cool. What could have been done was mentioning the option, describing the process, but not endlessly harping on it. But there’s the GoHunt sponsorship to push...

To push back on someone many here greatly respect, myself definitely included, is not easy. There are just some glaring mistakes Randy is making and I’ll buy that it’s unintentional. The voice of public lands doesn’t need to be so commercial (even if it’s not resulting in big bucks, Randy is a walking advertisement these days for GoHunt pushing draw applications) or so cavalier about sharing information about the location of various hunts, because the result is clear—honest western hunters deal with hordes more people in certain highlighted areas and hordes more applicants. Is that what was intended or is the result just ignored?

 

[ChrisS]

point creep started long before Randy Newberg.

 

[realunlucky]

point creep started long before Randy Newberg.

Your naive to think it doesn't have an impact on point creep.



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[Phil4]

Sure your thankful for it because you don’t have droves of people showing up to your state to go hunt.... maybe the back 40 episodes will start sending us western hunters your way

Good luck! You guys can’t sit still for 12 hours a day without going nuts and likely aren’t fat enough to handle the cold. It’s called whitetail shape, look into it.

-a Midwesterner


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[idahohikker]

Your naive to think it doesn't have an impact on point creep.



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He pushes certain states constantly. You can see the fruit of that in Wyoming especially.

I enjoy helping people as well but normally discuss how people can find good info to analyze rather than just broadcasting good places.

 

[Farmingdale's Finest]

Totally agree man. It’s so lame people aren’t cool with hunting celebs broadcasting specific spots. So where is the best area in your state to hunt? Would be happy with a buck that’s just in the 150” range (whitetail). Thanks a million.

Come to NJ Monmouth County. I will show you some good spots. Including within a mile of the state record typical that netted 189.


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[Farmingdale's Finest]

I like Randy but do think he tries to hard to give new hunters a easy leg up. I think he would be just as successful without doing this and this also has nothing to do with conservation. Also, when it comes to sponsors I believe he only aligns himself with companies he fully trusts, maybe why he pimps them so much.

In reality I don’t base any of my decisions off of anyone else, maybe they grab my interest but I’ll still research the crap out of it and may try it if I think it’ll be good but in the end all they did was make me aware of it. Maybe some new hunters take a different route and buy things just because he uses them. Randy is a pretty basic hunter when you boil down his style of hunting and I think what he uses just works for his style. I do know when he started OYOA he used Sitka and Mystery Ranch on his own dime, didn’t get sponsored until a few seasons in. Heck he pimped Nissan for years and they finally just started sponsoring him, he used their product because it worked well for him sponsored or not and I can respect that in him, I don’t feel he jumps after the first company throwing him money and goods as he hasn’t really changed up his gear since he started his original show.

I also believe he made a large personal investment that didn’t pay off for many years but grew it to have the ability to employe multiple people, I don’t think he personally takes a big amount of $$ out of the business but maybe I’m wrong but yup he gets a ton of cool gear free which in itself is huge to not have to buy.

Overall he has been a great ambassador for hunters, more so then 99% of us posting on this forum. I could careless if he plasters my unit all over the web, there miFit be more people on the roads or trailheads but 95% of them will never see an elk do to their style of hunting or lack of experience with the area.

Being a former manufacturers rep. I can tell you first hand that while he may get some things free the majority he is paying a discounted rate for. I had to pay for all of my samples and that is still the same today.

And as you pointed out he was using certain equipment before they sponsored him. That is going to go a long way for a company to see that you have skin in the game and then sponsor the hunter at some point.


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[elkyinzer]

My opinion... I fully understand this sentiment. I would have some hard feelings if any individual brought attention to one of "my" areas regardless of intentions. I consider it a golden rule violation. I would move on to plan B, C, D, etc. because to be a good hunter that is what you have to do for a variety of reasons, but it doesn't really make it suck any less.

Randy seems like a really good fellow and I appreciate you coming here to put forth your side of the issue.

I am not sure how much the modern hunting media can be blamed for any perceived or real crowding issues. There is a hunger to consume what they publish. Therein lies the real blame I guess. I suspect if not Randy it would just be someone else.

I've personally never been much of a believer in the chicken little view of RRR as it relates to the future of hunting and conservation. I think that is driven by agencies and companies that don't want to see their revenues/budgets decrease for more selfish than altruistic reasons.

I think the internet in general has contributed to Western crowding far more significantly via the increase in available mapping resources. Mapping and GPS have made DIY silly simple. Secondarily I think a lot more people just prioritize hunting high enough to make the sacrifices to do it. Far moreso than a generation ago, for various reasons.