Totaloutdoorsman

Meet the WILD CARD Finalist: The Executive Adventurer

Scott Ritchlin
Frenchtown, N.J.

Scott Ritchlin was bored on vacation in June and stumbled onto the wild card application form for the Total Outdoorsman Challenge, and decided to fill it out. “I liked that it didn’t focus on one thing, so I just signed up,” says Ritchlin. “I figured it didn’t hurt anything.”
    Ritchlin, a vice president of an electrical manufacturing company, started hunting and fishing around his home in New Jersey when he was 15, and he has honed his outdoorsman skills with do-it-yourself hunts in Alaska. “People don’t think of New Jersey as a great sporting state, but I’m 10 minutes from the Delaware River, and I can hunt here from September 1 through February,” says Ritchlin.
    Ritchlin has never competed in an outdoors skills competition before, but is hoping that his trips to Alaska will give him the edge in Springfield. “My idea of the ultimate hunt is an unguided trip where they drop you off and say they’ll be back in six days,” says Ritchlin. “You’re either there waiting for that float plane or something’s happened to you. You’ve got to have skills to get through those situations—it’s more than being a good shot.”
    To get ready for the finals, Ritchlin has been targeting bass in his home waters and brushing up on his sporting clays shooting. “Since I haven’t gone through any of the competition before, I’m not going to have the same advantage as the other competitors,” says Ritchlin. “But as long as I finish at least in 15th place, that will at least show that I belong there.”

Meet the Finalist: The Vermonster

Matt Stedina
Stockbridge, Vt.

Matt Stedina shouldn’t even be in these finals, but he is. And for the betting man, Stedina could be a sleeper with good odds. After taking fourth in last year’s championship, he got the call when the number two finisher, Mike Hawkes, backed out. Says Stedina, competing now in his fourth final overall, “I’ve done nothing right any of the previous three times, but if I have a good day, they’ll be in trouble. I know what I need to do.”

What he’s been doing is practicing: shooting his bow from tree stands at 3-Ds and taking every chance he can to go shotgunning. If there is an area where he might have trouble, it will likely be on the pond with a baitcaster in his hands. “The bass fishing will be interesting,” he says. “I’ve never fished from a bass boat, but I’m trying to get out before the final.” Anyproblems with bassing, though, he should be able to make up for with a fly rod. Stedina, 38, is a trout fishing master. He is a member of Trout Unlimited, and has been competing to get a spot on Team USA to go to the 2010 International Flyfishing Competition. He spends a lot of time on the White River in Vermont, going after rainbows in technical water, and has been guiding for a living for 17 years.

That he is quitting his guide service this fall should provide him even more incentive for winning the 2008 TOC and the $25,000 that comes with it. “I need the win,” he says. “Right now, I’ll work for food.”

Regardless of what happens, he’d like to stay in the outdoors business. “My ultimate passion is whitetail hunting. I love going into the Green Mountains and the White Mountains—the calcium belt running through New Hampshire makes for some pretty good racks.” Lately, he’s been honing his tracking skills. He’s a great admirer of the Benoit family, and last year he followed a buck three miles before finding it unaware in its bed. He snapped a photo then shot it for real. We’ll see in September if he can apply his focus and
predatory instincts to the TOC.

Meet the Finalist: The Young Marine

Jeremy Scott
Camp Pendleton, Calif.

   

Jeremy Scott has not had a lot of time to polish his skills for the Total Outdoorsman Finals, but he’s trying to get on the water as much as possible. “Before this competition, I had never really used a baitcaster,” says Scott. “So I’m trying to go bass fishing everyday.”
    As a military policeman for the U.S. Marine Corps, Scott’s hours haven’t allowed him to practice as much as other competitors, but because he’s stationed in Camp Pendleton in southern California, he’s some good waters to hit. “We have a lake down the street, and Lake Dixon, where that huge bass was caught, is right here,” says Scott.
    Aside from not having as much time to practice as he’d like, Scott also has to overcome being the youngest competitor in the field. “I’m only 21, so I’m a bit younger than everyone else,” he says. “It definitely hurts that I don’t have the experience, but it will hopefully help when it comes to the endurance competition.”
    The avid steelheader and elk hunter is hoping that his military training and experience flyfishing and archery hunting will be enough to land him on the top of the leader-board in Springfield. “I went to the qualifier because I thought it was cool, and I got a $10 Bass Pro Shops gift card. Then I get this call saying I could go and compete again and I’d get a pair of boots, so I thought why now,” says Scott. “Now, I’m going to Springfield and I guess we’ll see what happens.”

Meet the Finalist: The Surfing Sportsman

Al Roberts
Ocala, Fla.

    “I haven’t bought meat or fish since 1997,” says Al Roberts, 33, who has been making annual elk hunting trips to Montana since that very year. “My family eats only what we kill and catch.” That statement epitomizes a man who has completely invested his life in the outdoors, who says that if not for outdoor sports he wouldn’t have a life at all. Just look at his various jobs: outdoors consultant, outfitter, guide, and outdoors television host and producer. He does not limit himself to hunting and fishing, either--he's a surf bum who enjoys throwing Jack Johnson on the stereo, too.
    Though Roberts claims to have no particular talents and wants only to show that outdoors TV hosts really can be total outdoorsmen (he took second at the Orlando Regional competition), he is a proficient in the shooting sports. He trained with rifles in the Marines (“Our troops are the real heroes,” he says, “and if any of them want to come to Florida to hunt hogs or go fishing, we can help out”) and shoots his bow every day. “I’m religious about my shooting.”
    Like several other finalists, he’s also a bit apprehensive about flyfishing. One of his friends is teaching him the craft, though, and he vows to be prepared by the time of competition. “I’ll be ready. I know I told Paul Thompson that he better bring his A-game this year, but that goes for all of us. At this level, I’m confident about everyone’s ability, not just his or mine.”      
    Roberts has been working particularly hard recently on his endurance training. “Elk season in Montana starts in October,” he explains. “I love fishing for redfish, but elk are my passion. I’ve been fortunate and taken some very nice bulls.” If fortune smiles upon him in the first weekend of September, Al Roberts just might take home the title of Total Outdoorsman, too. --Thomas McCafferty

The Bass Plan Challenge

    Still haven't decided on a winner from last, but promise to announce one by Friday.  This week the prize stays the same (an autographed Toyota hat, see below), but the task has changed. The answer will be detailed, organized, and legal in accordance to the tournament rules.
    There are 22 days until game time for the TOC competitors, and they getting geared up for it. The biggest change the competitors will have to face this year will be the bass fishing. What's hot now may not be worth a hoot then, so they will have to keep tabs on daily changes on Table Rock Lake until the shotgun start.

    This week's challenge is to make yourself a TOC competitor and plan a strategy for fishing a bass tournament for this Saturday, 23 AUG 08. Oh, a few rules the competitors have to live by; five black bass limit, three hours to fish (and you only control the boat for half that time), and you're fishing in the afternoon only. There are two rods permitted (a bait caster with 15 lb mono and a spinning rod with 8 lb fluro), no live bait, and its length that matters not weight. State of Missouri water only and you will launch from Big Cedar Marina. 
    Please don't give me, an: "I want a burger" strategy. What will win is: "I'll have a triple with pepperjack, add the whole garden, toss on some A.1. sauce, scrape some of them burnt crispies off the grill, mix those with a couple of onion rings, and top off that fat burger with 'em." The right details will make all the difference, boys and girls. --John Davis, Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge competition manager

Meet the Finalist: The Mechanic

Dennis Billingsley
Milan, Indiana

Dennis Billingsley, 46, describes himself in the most modest of terms. “I’m just a regular Joe,” he says, “a hunter who enjoys and appreciates wildlife.” But for a man who enjoys hobbies as diverse as woodworking and car racing, and is also deadly accurate in the shooting sports, that's selling himself short. He advanced from the Harrisburg, Pa., regional largely because of his proficiency with a bow and an air rifle, and beat out, among others, his 25-year-old son, Andy.

“Andy’s also my best hunting and fishing buddy,” Billingsley says. “He’s not even bitter that I beat him—he’s coming to the finals to watch his old man and get in some fishing, too.”

Incidentally, fishing is one of the events where Billingsley himself might have trouble. “Before the regional, I’d never even picked up a fly rod,” he acknowledges. Now, however, he owns one and is doing everything he can to become proficient. A diesel mechanic by trade, he has worked six-day weeks for the last 15 years and is using up some vacation time now, taking off every Saturday until the competition so he can improve his casts. “I’ve gotten to the point where I’m catching fish and having a whole lot of fun—win or lose, I’m going to keep flyfishing.”

And though that pronouncement belies his competitive nature, it is in perfect keeping with a man who says his favorite place to fish is the next water he sees, his favorite spot to hunt the next woods he enters. His true love is goose hunting, a more social sport. “Going after deer and squirrels is great too, but you have to be so quiet. When you're hunting geese, until you see the birds coming from two miles off, you can talk with friends.” --Thomas McCafferty

New Question, New Prize

       The last four weeks there were specific answers to the quizzes; this week the answer is subjective. The event crew is setting the shotgun course for the Total Outdoorsman Challenge finals, and we need to make sure it’s a true test of the competitors’ skills. So, the first answer that makes us really consider adding the shot to the course (and isn’t a shot the crew has already considered) wins a Toyota Tundra Fishing Team cap autographed by Kevin Vandam, Mike Iaconelli, Terry Scroggins, Gerald Swindle, and Dave Wolak.

   What is the toughest shot in duck hunting and why? Realistic situations only, and I want details. --John Davis, Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge competition manager

Meet the Finalist: The Old-Timer

Bill Moses
Chandler, Ariz.

Bill Moses had to be talked into competing in the Total Outdoorsman Challenge qualifier in Mesa, Arizona. “We went into the Bass Pro Shops to kill time,” says Moses. “It was the last day of the qualifiers there, and the promotions manager and my wife kept telling me to go through the qualifier, I said no four times before they finally convinced me.”

Once he started competing, it didn’t take him long to get hooked. Moses was one of six qualifying competitors that advanced to the Rancho Cucamonga regional, and ended up finishing in second place, making it to the finals.

“I was right at the top for most of the day at the regional, but choked on casting,” says Moses. “But I’ve been running on the treadmill every morning, casting, fishing, shooting archery and sporting clays to get ready for Springfield.”

The casting isn’t the only thing that has Moses worried going into the finals, at 60, the electrical engineer is by far the oldest competitor in this year’s field.

“I think my age might make it a little tough, and there are definitely competitions out there that I’m a bit worried about—like endurance,” he says. “But, there are other contests that I’m going to be giving these guys a run for their money.”

Meet the Finalist: The Underachiever

Tim Gajewski
Lawrence, Kan.

    Theoretically, you have to be on top of your game to even get to the Total Outdoorsman championships. But Tim Gajewski, 27, thinks he didn’t live up to his potential at the Independence, Mo. regional qualifier.

    “To be honest, I was a little nervous,” says Gajewski. “The qualifier and regional competitions were a blast, but I didn’t meet my expectations of how well I’d do.”

    Even if he didn’t excel as much as he wanted to in the initial rounds, Gajewski is training for a solid performance in the finals. He says he’s not doing any “extraordinary” practicing, but his regular regimen of hunting and fishing is extraordinary enough, especially when it comes to hunting whitetails.

    “I eat, sleep and breathe it,” he says. “If I’m not deer hunting, I’m scouting and setting up food plots, and after that I shed hunt. It’s pretty much 365 days a year.”

    During his teens, Gajewski was an avid 3D archery competitor. Now, with a job selling and remodeling homes, Gajewski forgoes most organized sport events in favor of going hunting and fishing as much as possible. The Total Outdoorsman provides him a chance to prove his skills and have some fun, even if it isn’t the same kind of fun he’ll have on the average weekend hunt.

    “Everything just kind of disappears when you’re out there hunting or fishing,” he says. “But that’s absolutely not the case in an event like this. The pressure’s on. If I can do as well as I do when practicing by myself, I’ll be good.”

Last Chance to Win a Pair of Boots

   Tom Best scored a free pair of boots with his answer to last week’s question. Either Tom is a casting instructor or spent quality time with wind knots early in his fly fishing career. This week we will be getting away from situations that competitors may face at the Total Outdoorsman Challenge finals and enter general knowledge. Same deal as always, first fully correct answer earns a pair of Wolverine boots (we'll be giving away a new prize next week).--John Davis Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge competition manager

   The solution is: mix 1 quart hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup of baking soda, and 1 teaspoon of liquid soap. Apply when concoction foams. What is the problem?