Penn’s Outdoors

Every sport needs household name superstars.  Football has them.  Baseball has them.  Hockey, not so much and look at the ratings for it on television.  Please no angry comments from hockey fans about how great their sport is.  I like hockey. But if you ask the average person to name one hockey player, they are going to stare at you blankly and eventually ask if Wayne Gretzky is still playing. 

NASCAR has them.  Look at what Tiger Woods did for golf.  Its been years since the average American has even thought about professional tennis.  Why?  No household names since Andre Agassi.

There is a direct connection between the number of household names and the popularity of a sport.  Hunting is in desperate need of a household name.  Hunting is in desperate need of someone who can bring life, enthusiasm and interest to it.  I imagine that most of you reading this blog are already passionate about hunting, but the amount of people hunting is dropping at alarming rates in most States. Even more concerning is that the decline in youth hunters shows little promise for a recovery of our numbers any time soon.  I firmly believe, as our numbers fall, that we face increasing risk from the anti-hunting movement.

Hunting is in jeopardy and in need of a Tiger Woods.  As I survey the current crop of professional hunters and television personalities, I see little hope for that person.  Don’t get me wrong.  A lot of these folks are quite good, and I enjoy and respect them.  But their appeal is to people who already hunt.  Their prospects for opening the floodgates for new hunters seems limited, at best. 

There is one glimmer of hope.  Enter Tiffany Lakosky from the show Gettin’ Close.  I am going to try to get through this post without mentioning how cute she is in case my wife reads this.  But hunters like Tiffany are what we need.

If you are not familiar with the show Gettin’ Close, it is about the hunting adventures of husband and wife team, Lee and Tiffany.  I just watched the episode where she takes her mom on a bear hunt.  This episode epitomized why she is great for hunting.

Tiffany has so much passion for hunting.  You can tell she really loves to hunt.  She gets excited about hunting.  This is my biggest pet peeve about many hunting show hosts who only get excited when they harvest bucks bigger than I’ll ever even see in the woods.  The interaction between Tiffany and her mom was genuine and a pure delight to watch on television.  I guarantee that all but the most staunch anti-hunting folks couldn’t help but have enjoyed the episode.  It was a daughter and her mother sharing the excitement of a bear hunt and enjoying their time together. 

There was a small piece of the episode that had nothing to do with hunting but further proved why hunting needs Tiffany.  The cameraman went into her tent before she had her makeup on.  Yes, she took makeup to bear camp.  She told the cameraman quite sternly to leave until she had it on.  What made it great was that it was genuine.  My wife would take makeup to bear camp and would tell everyone to leave her alone until she had it on for the day.  For those of you who know my wife, you know she wouldn’t go to bear camp, but I guarantee she would’ve been able to relate to this part of the episode. I imagine there are more women than we realize who would consider a trip with their husband, son or dad to deer or bear camp, and I guarantee this episode could convince them to go.

I am not in the television or pr business but it is my hope that those in the hunting industry understand what they have in Tiffany.  Jeff Foxworthy this year championed National Hunting and Fishing Day.  Jeff was a great choice due to his new found popularity with the television game show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.  Being a spokesperson for our sport is the type of role that Tiffany is made for.  She has the potential to take hunting new places.

It sure sounds like I am putting the future of hunting on this young lady.  I don’t mean to be.  But it is amazing what just one person can do.  Tiger Woods is the most prolific example of this.  Whether it is Tiffany or someone like her, hunting needs a household name soon before it is too late.