Nashville was the first Regional to fill, so I guess there really is a correlation between country music and hardcore outdoors. Combining a trip to the CMA Music Festival and the TOC seems like a no-brainer to me, but I’m just small-town with simple taste. Shootin’ targets all day and listening to Jason Aldean rip it up at night sounds just fine.

The original Total Outdoorsman, Chris Nischan, and top five finalist Daniel Lee Martin, will try and use their experience to return to the Canyon. Chris guides both hunting and fishing, so a rod or rifle is basically an extra digit to him. Daniel Lee was the biggest surprise of last year. He shot the highest ever air rifle score in the celebrity event, finished second in the Regional, and had the highest finish of any rookie in the Finals.

The rest of the field will come from the South and the southern section of the Mid-West, so the “talent” won’t be just in the celebrity competition. Archery will be good, bait casting great, and air rifle will be out of this world. Well, that’s if the competitors handle the pressure from having to perform in front of a... [ Read Full Post ]

Between the Grapevine and Nashville Regionals, the Western contingent of the event crew will spend a few days immersed in Arkansas hospitality. This includes a fishing trip on a couple of really good farm reservoirs. To say the thought of 5-plus-pound largemouth has Eric and Brian excited is way understating their excitement.

Well, that was until the challenge.

My oldest, Elizabeth, is coming into her own as an outdoors girl. (Sorry, she’s only 11 and one of my babies, so I’m sure I won’t use the word “woman” in any context referring to her comfortably for at least 25 more years.) She also has quite a bit of her daddy’s bravado when it comes to taking on or issuing a challenge. Sunday afternoon, she wore out some slabs and had the “invincible” rolling.

A daddy’s “tying up loose ends” call to my boss on the way home became a little brag time for Elizabeth. Let me sum up the Arkansas end of the conversation:

“Hey Mr. Eric, I pounded ’em… Yes sir, of course it was fun… About 25-30 keepers, or about 20 better than you in a... [ Read Full Post ]

This will be the first time a competitor steps onto a TOC course and has to rely on his or her knowledge and skill without the benefit of weeks of practice. The past few years you could practice casting and shooting in the 10- to 30-yard range, knowing that was pretty much what you could expect to encounter at a Regional. Not this year. The addition of the “skills” discipline will require competitors to perform an unknown set of outdoor skills in the fastest time possible.

Competitors know that there will be four skills to perform—all will average around 30 seconds—and they will remain unknown until game day. If the venue allows, there will be one skill each related to hunting, fishing, survival, and camping or hiking. There won’t be a lot of room to run, so the emphasis is on skills, not endurance like in the TOC Finals.

Becoming competent in skills that span every aspect of the outdoors takes years and a strong desire to learn, and that’s the point of the competition. Total Outdoorsman means that you’re ready to set that snare or make that lay-out blind blend into the surroundings—with or without practice.

[ Read Full Post ]

For those who have qualified for Regionals for first-time qualifier, a little fact to put your mind at ease: The competition courses really aren’t that much more difficult at than they were at the Qualifiers. Take a deep breath, move those targets into a reasonable distance, and learn your true ability.

Event staff tests every course, scoring system, and piece of equipment before we take the TOC on the road. It’s a job dirty enough to make Mike Rowe smile, but a necessity to ensure that all the disciplines are balanced and realistic. And it gives us the chance to see if what we are asking competitors to do is doable.

Another objective of course design is to achieve scoring separation. To rate competitors from 1-50, you must have to present the opportunity for the scores to show discrepancies in ability. In other words, a course needs to allow those elite few who are very good at a discipline to smoke it, a majority to do fine, and a couple to bomb.

This is where knowing your ability comes into the picture. Can you really roll up a 60 in archery? If you can, great—I’m looking... [ Read Full Post ]

Before the crew ever makes it Grapevine for the first Regional, we will have shot the brand-spanking new Diamonds at least a hundred times. I know it sounds great—hanging out with couple of buds just flinging carbon over God’s green acre. And it is…for the first few days. But after that, you become convinced that your friends are in dire need of professional help and that shoulder impingements are punishment for the bad stuff you did in college.

Even a dirt clod could learn target placement with this amount of time at the range. I have written in previous blogs about how we try and utilize angles, lighting, and terrain changes, so let’s not cover those again. Breaking the target’s outline and staggering are two other techniques you can use in practice.

Find an open backdrop with a single tree and place your 3-D deer about 10 yards in front of it. Blend the vitals (angle it so the tree blocks any backdrop from the front leg to the kidney) into the tree and shoot from unknown distances. Watch your grouping to see if you pattern high or low.

Staggered targets can have the same effect.... [ Read Full Post ]

It’s raining in Arkansas—enough to keep me off the reservoir even with the redear starting to bed. A shooting house for my daughters needs to be built, but November is so far away. Besides, I’m focused on the Regionals. But the event staff has run through and tested the courses to the point of nausea.

Yeah, it’s Monday.

The blog I want to write is the same one that the TOC nation is ready to hear: Qualifier Results. Unfortunately, we are in a holding pattern. There is no one who wants the results to be finished more than the poor souls having to enter every score from every event. But in order to ensure that it is done correctly, it just takes time. Please be patient and remember that if a mistake is made, it could be you who is incorrectly left off the list of Regional Qualifiers.

I haven’t seen one score sheet or spoken with those entering them, but I’m starting to get an idea where the cut-off line is going to fall. During the Saturday and Sunday of competition, my phone blew up with calls from competitors who wanted to know if (fill-in... [ Read Full Post ]

Total Outdoorsman Challenge host T. Edward Nickens has earned himself an invite to the event crew’s annual shrimp-boil-and-inarticulate-grunt festival in September. Normally, a moniker like “T. Edward” would make a fella have to earn his way to the feast by performing completely asinine acts of recklessness, but Ol’ T. Eddie pulled it off with just a pen: His story, “The United States of Skills,” in the May 2009 issue of Field & Stream sent me straight back to Route 17, waiting by the mailbox for my monthly escape.

An article that covers everything from surf casting in Rhode Island to pig stickin’ in Hawaii is obviously meant for the Total Outdoorsman. Want the fundamental nature of the TOC summed up in a neat little package? Read the 50 tips, from Alabama to Wyoming, and mull over all the varying skills presented. Then go out and apply them.

The pride you feel when you do a decent job with your Connecticut turkey fan… The pure heart-pumping adrenaline you feel before you noodle your first flathead in Mississippi... The anxiety of searching for a lost hunter in Montana, but also the confidence you have in your tracking skills... These... [ Read Full Post ]

I could always count on Mr. Owen.

After a summer of watching me, his pre-teen neighbor, fling arrows in groups that resembled a pattern of bird shot, he pulled himself away from building lure molds to give some much-needed advice to this fledgling archer.

“Son,” he said, “practice smaller and you’re gonna miss smaller.”

The 12-inch paper plate came down and the bottom of a to-go cup took its place. Increased focus, tighter arrow grouping, and confidence on the firing line grew daily. My stock at the range rose all the way to “he ain’t awful” in just a few weeks.

Try to implement Mr. Owen’s sage advice into your TOC practice regimen to increase its effectiveness. Pitching a jig to a willow leaf or shooting dandelion blooms with your air rifle will force you to pay strict attention to all the influences on accuracy. Wind, yardage, and angle will all become second nature after having to spot judge these factors in practice.

I once heard Brian Hanford, a fellow TOC staffer, give some great advice to a disappointed competitor that blends perfectly with the practice small, miss small theory.

“Visualize that whatever... [ Read Full Post ]

My career choice (“professional redneck,” according to my beautiful bride, JaNan) has led me to a life of running in a circle of pretty outdoorsy folks. Most of my free time includes: (A) Hunting something, (B) Catching something, or (C) “Hey y’all, watch this” moments involving motorized vehicles equipped with winches. (Combine these hobbies, and you are qualified for the position of Total Outdoorsman Challenge Competitions Manager. That is, if you’re in the market for a career change with the financial crisis and all.)

Every good craftsman utilizes the tools available to them, and these guys are definitely tools, which I use for new competition ideas. By that I mean they mess up my wife’s furniture while critiquing last year’s show as I take notes of their astute analysis between tending to the grill and the den’s refrigerator. Usually several disastrous schemes fly—sometimes followed by a few decent innovations. But the one thing I can count on is that every single one will say, and I quote, “Come on John, I can [choose any discipline] better than that guy did.”

Yeah, good luck with that, Sparky.

Let’s roll through the odds—just the odds, not factors like... [ Read Full Post ]