By Chris Avena
Today we are speaking with the guy that can't stop the flop, Mr. Bone Collector himself. Michael Waddell came from humble beginnings as a youngster. He worked his way through the ranks of the outdoor industry. His journey began way back during his high school years, entering and winning numerous Turkey calling competitions. Through hard work and maybe a little bit of being in the right place at the right time, Michael was recruited to be on the Realtree Pro-Staff. Back then becoming a pro-staff member of any manufacturer was not something that was handed to you because you put on some camo and took good pictures. It was an earned privilege. It said that your hard work was recognized and it was not something that Michael took lightly. Over time, his work ethic brought him from pro-staff to cameraman and from cameraman to hosting his own television show that aired on the Outdoor Channel. The rest, as they say, is history.
Chris: Michael, I have to say that you are a trail-blazer of our modern outdoor industry. How has it changed since you first came in?
Michael: First, thank you for saying that. That is quite a compliment. It's crazy, because for me so many people, obviously way before me, knocked the path down and paved the way. It is kind of cool to know that, maybe I was able to kind of brush hog on a little bit of a different path. But I would say a lot has changed from the standpoint of, adding social media. I would say in a good way, everybody has a chance to provide their opinion that can be seen by so many. However, the bad part is also the social media issue of it. Sometimes hunters can beat up on each other pretty good. So, a lot of it has changed, but in any situation, you have to figure out how to embrace growth and figure out, who is the next trailblazer. What is their message going to be? I'd say that the nuts and bolts of what hunting means, even if it tries to start changing, usually collectively, the culture brings it back down to Earth. Hunting is about family and friends. Certainly, we have beneficiaries, certainly we have better herds and bigger animals, but at the end of the day it really is just something culturally rich in heritage. We're just so blessed to be able to do it.
I have always said a lot of people see hunting as a privilege. I really never looked at it necessarily as just a privilege. It is, but I always looked at it as a God given right. It is kind of like self-defense, the ability to hunt and gather and feed yourself. Even though it is entertainment and let’s face it, hunting is fun, at the end of the day, it really was a God given right to provide these resources for us to take care of us.
Chris: You started your career by entering and winning Turkey competitions.
Michael: Correct.
Chris: How old were you?
Michael: I was basically in high school, and all my heroes were Turkey callers. It's crazy. My heroes were people like Dick Kirby. He is in Orchard Park, NY? I'm sure that he is a big Buffalo Bills fan, by the way.
Chris: I'm a Giant fan.
Michael: You're a Giant fan? The Giant's did well this year. But anyway, at the end of the day I was always intrigued by turkey calling, I loved music and in a weird way to me, turkey calling, was kind of like playing a guitar. I just love it. So, I just fell in love with turkey hunting first. Then I started to get better at the turkey call. So, I was always kind of a student of Dick Kirby and Eddie Southridge. I started competing in turkey contests when I was in high school.
I was just out of high school when I started having some success, calling the Georgia State Championships, the World Championships, and the Grand National Championships and even the US Open. It is cool looking back at it. It was a really a cool stepping stone because I got a chance to meet a lot of people in the industry. Not only just my heroes, people that I looked up to, but who introduced me to Bill Jordan and got me my first gigs or jobs and where I got to go guide and do some new things in the hunting industry.
Chris: So, moving forward, you were interested in getting into the outdoor industry. What do you tell your family? I'm going to go get a job in the outdoor industry. You can't make a living hunting turkey’s, right?
Michael: I ran into some pretty stiff resistance. I always laugh but when I first started talking about this stuff, you would've thought I went and got hooked on drugs, Chris. It's almost like, you and I said, hey man, we're going to start a rock band, move to LA. People might have thought that we have lost our minds. So it's the same type of adage -follow your dreams, but how are you going to make a living? So, I think that's what my aunts, my uncles and even my grandmother at the time were thinking. I went to Heat and Air School and I had a degree in HVAC, you know service and installation.
So, in my blue-collar family, this is like, oh my god, Michael's made it. He has a trade. Now he will be working in HVAC and I had my own van, my service van. I was working for this HVAC company in Georgia. Everything was going well. All of a sudden, I'm winning in these Turkey contests and the opportunity comes up. Realtree needed help doing some things. So, I'm thinking, well I might try that. I really thought it was going to be a temporary thing. In my mind I was always going to come back to the heat and air conditioning, this blue collar trade, which I have so much respect for because that's what I grew up with, hardworking people.
I have been blessed to do this. I was a little uncertain about it. I almost felt like I was walking away from something that I needed to do. I wanted to do some guiding. I thought it would be almost like taking a trip. If you ever had to say, quit your job because you're going to go away for three months and do something fun. But. At the time, that is how I looked at it because I thought sooner or later, I was going to come back to reality and say okay, I'll get back into HVAC. So, I just talked to my dad. At the time I was very young. I wasn't even 21.
I remember telling my dad about it and he said, “Well, you're only young once and you do not have a family. You do not have a lot of responsibilities outside of providing for yourself.” My dad was really good to me, but he was hard on me in a good way. Some tough love. He told me that it was time that I found my own place and started to pay my own bills. It was time for me to be my own man. Whether I going to do some hunting and guiding, or work with heating and air conditioning. I knew it was inevitable that I was going to get weaned off the care and nurture of what parents provide.
So, when I started talking about this, my family thought that I had gone crazy. They thought that, you can't have fun. You can't hunt the rest of your life. But I knew that I had a passion for it. I already flunked out of high school, had too much fun and missing class. But one thing led to another and really from that time that I went to go take that quick little fun guiding trip and run a camera for Realtree, it never stopped. It was just a door to a door that kept opening.
Chris: How did you originally connect to Realtree?
Michael: The way that I kind of met up with Realtree and where it really hit was when I was turkey calling and I knew some guys that were on the Realtree pro-staff. Guys like Joe Drake a buddy of mine, and Ricky Joe Bishop. At the time, Ricky Joe had won a Grand National Championship in turkey calling. They were already connected in with Realtree and were telling Bill Jordan and David Blanton about, this young guy, and said he's pretty good. Then I met a guy up in Pennsylvania named Dale Rohm, from Rohm Brothers Turkey Calls. I started using their calls to compete with and started representing them. Dale always had good kind words for me back to the Realtree camp. So, one day I go to this contest in Perry, Georgia called the Grand America and first prize was a thousand dollars cash. It ends up that Realtree was the primary sponsor in the contest. Well, lo and behold, all the good callers from around the country came and I got lucky and won the contest. That is where I really met Bill Jordan. David Blanton was there as well. Bill told me that he wanted to do something with me. He said, “I want to put you on our advisory staff.” They sent me a box of clothes and one thing led to another and then David Blanton called me one day and said, “Hey man, I need you to come help.” And that's where I started realizing that things were moving forward. That is kind of how I met Realtree.
Chris: So, you started doing camera work and then Realtree Road Trips that aired on the Outdoor Channel.
Michael: That's correct. The camera work happened by accident too because I came to guide some hunts and they called me because I just went to a turkey calling contests and I was wearing Realtree. So David asked me if I can guide some outdoor writers and there was a lady named Laurie Lee Dovey who you might know, she was a writer and I read a lot of her work. I was already a fan of her work and they put me with her to take her hunting. So, in the process of hunting with Laurie Lee Dovey, I remember coming back to turkey camp where we would eat lunch. At the time, I remember telling David that I was also helping a buddy of mine who owned an archery pro shop, and how he and I would video our hunts. I showed David some of our videos of turkey hunts, and some deer hunting. Well next thing you know, as I was guiding, I was videoing and then when we got ready the next year David said, “Hey man, I want to hire you as a freelance camera guy to just come hunt with Bill.” Oh my God. And so that's really how the camera work started. I started as a cameraman / guide / if you want me to wash your car guy. I mean there was no prima donna. I just couldn't believe I was getting to hang with these people that I watch on TV, and on videos. I was getting a chance to be part of that team. That was pretty cool.
Chris: If you were contestant on Jeopardy, what topic would you excel in?
Michael: I would say for sure music and history also. A lot of name-that-tune type of stuff. I love music. I love classic rock. Eighties hair bands. I mean everything from seventies, eighties, all the way up.
Chris: I took you for a country music guy.
Michael: Dude, I love country music. But I loved everything. I went as far back to Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Carl Haggard, 38 special. I am going to see ZZ Top tonight.
Chris: I just saw ZZ Top a month ago.
Michael: It's unbelievable. Yeah, I love music. So, any music trivia I think I would do pretty well. Also, the only other subject I really enjoyed in school, outside of football or PE was history. I loved history. So, obviously I live in the south, A lot of civil war, the Indian stuff and anything about our founding fathers. I just think history is really cool because it tells us what can happen because it already has happened. I often wonder why sometimes our politicians don't pay more attention to history. But it also helps understand why some of the politicians want to erase history. Because there's a track record of certain things failing. So anyway, I like history and music.
Chris: Alright. So, if you could hunt in any period in history which period would it be?
Michael: I would say probably right now. The reason I say that and it might be surprising, this also is about history and what we as hunters have done, our game and fish. Our fisheries and our herds have never been this strong. So, were there good periods with certain species? Yes. However, if you look at the amount of money, the Pittman-Robertson Act, all this stuff that's happened and hundreds of dollars from non-profits to the way we manage our herds, the way the private landowners have gone above and beyond this responsibility to take care of the animals that live on their property, even though making mistakes, the government looks at them as theirs.
I think landowners look at the wildlife as something that's, even though they hunt them and put them on the table from time to time, they certainly manage and take care. They trap, they do their best to make sure there's a good balance. So, as a result of that I don't think we've ever had such good of hunting nationwide as we do right now.
From the abundance and to the quality. We are breaking records every year. Even if you are not a trophy hunter or somebody that's against trophy hunting, well that's fine too. But at the same time, you can't deny that the trophy hunting and all of it coming together isn't helpful and good for the herd because if that were the case, we wouldn't be shooting bigger animals, heavier weights, bigger scores and such. So yeah, just to hunt. I think right now for anybody who wants to get into hunting, some of the best hunting is right now.
Chris: I agree. How do you think your life would be different if you had never picked up a turkey call?
Michael: I would like to think that I would've figured out a way to get through and try to maintain some happiness and joy, but it would be drastically different. I feel like there would have been a lot of joy taken away. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and we were sitting and talking around a campfire and that question came up. He asked me, “If you don't hunt, well what do you do?” And it's funny, and I'm sure many people who would quickly say, oh, golf, or we could go and do or we can go see a ZZ Top concert. Well, I do all that too. But there would be such a void if I hadn't picked up that turkey call.
Chris: Opportunities that would not be.
Michael: The opportunities, who we have met. You and I just had lunch with Joe Mantegna. I mean, think about that. That's really cool.
Chris: It is cool.
Michael: Inevitably we have a redneck in New York, and a redneck in Georgia, we are just talking and meeting each other and hanging out and eating fine steak and just living life. And you've got all of us here in Las Vegas. There would have been a lot of things that I would not have experienced. Could something else have come in, that I could have chased after and tried to put everything I had in it that could equally fill a void in another way that could be positive possibly. But yeah, I wouldn't trade it.
Chris: What is your favorite unimportant thing?
Michael: My favorite unimportant thing I do, I like to do a lot and I really enjoy with my kids, especially my two boys, Meyer, and Mason. But all my kids love music. I love to play guitar. So I love to smoke good cigar and sit around and jam with my boys. One is 18, one is 22. It's been really cool because I’m getting a little older, it’s not like I'm getting out there playing tackle football with my boys. I'm really busy. I like to be active. It's like the saying says, if you have your health, you have everything. I believe in that. As long as I have my health, I like to be busy. I like to work. And we have little pit bikes, we race motorcycles. We just have a blast. My wife calls me a man child. I'm having a good time.
Chris: So, getting back to career. How did you come up with the Bone Collector?
Michael: That is crazy, man. It is a cool story and I don't get asked a lot. Basically what happened was in 2007 I started working with Gander Mountain and they hired me to host their TV show. So, by me doing that, I had to leave full-time employment at Realtree. At the same Bill Jordan basically made the subcontract, and I continued hosting the show, Realtree Road Trips that was on the Outdoor Channel that you mentioned earlier. This is where I really first saw some opportunity to make money. Like wow, I'm getting to host two shows!
Immediately in the short term, I felt like, man, I’ve got some money in my pocket, but I had always heard that you should invest whether it's in the stock market or buy real estate. I wasn't rich, but that's more money than I'd ever experienced in one year's span for sure. I remember thinking, well, where should I make an investment? I don't need all this money. I've been living on literally $40- $50,000 a year and I was doing fine. I was happy. So, my thought process was, “Well, why don't I invest something else into the future and I invest in myself.” So, I came up with the concept of Nick, and T-Bone Turner and I basically, doing a show very similar to road trips.
I didn't have a name for the show. So, with the name for that come up was simultaneously what even spawned the reason I wanted to invest in something was a lot of companies that I hadn't had a chance to work endorsements with. They were giving me opportunity. These signature series license type of opportunities, which if you look at Realtree, that has been their model. It's a licensing company. They license out their name, they license out their camo patterns. So, I understood that model and I knew it could be lucrative and it could lead to some long- term metal box money and success. But everybody wanted to call it a Michael Waddell series. And so the first big opportunity I had is Thompson Center. At the time Greg Richards owned the company in front of the marketing and he said, man, I want to do a Michael Waddell edition Muzzleloader.
I was excited, I was flattered. But for some reason I didn't like the idea of a Michael Waddell signature edition. I was like, man, that is a little shallow, So, we went to the range and were shooting different models and configurations. I shot one of the muzzleloaders and, looked at Greg, I said, “Man, I don't know what we're going to call it. But this one is going to be a Bone Collector. “This is the Bone Collector gun.” And so, from there I flew home, on the way home I got to thinking, that is also going to be the title of this show.
The rest is kind of history. I remember I had a graphic artist over in Alabama and I said “Hey man, I'm just thinking of this idea. And I kind of told him the concept that Linda had written on a napkin, on a plane ride home. He came up with a logo. We have never really made any alterations to the logo. The current logo is the original logo.
Chris: I don't know if you remember this. A while back we were at the Golden Moose Awards. I was conducting interviews on the red carpet and I called you over. I gave you a bag. And you asked, me what it was I said, that it was Long Island Duck bones. You asked why are you giving me Long Island duck bones? You are the Bone Collector and I was sure that you didn’t have any for the collection.
Michael: I do remember.
Chris: Lastly, how would you like to be remembered in the outdoor industry?
Michael: You know what, that's a good question. It is hard to say. I think at the end of the day, as somebody who maybe spoke up when he needed to speak up and fight for the culture for all of us who liked to hunt. I know that might sound kind of weird to say, fight for the hunters, but they say, nobody's fighting. I think a lot of that fight trying to keep us together as a group of hunters because everybody likes different things. People might ask me, “You've hunted elk and sheep and all this stuff, and turkey is still your favorite?” That might be surprising, but what I like is different than what you might like.
People ask “Well, what's your favorite weapon to hunt with?”
It's a bow and arrow, but still, every once in a while, I get 308 and go hunt a deer. So inevitably there are so many tips and tactics and things. And so I think if I could be anything. I hope I could be somewhat of a voice for all hunters to say, “hey, it is ours.” The good Lord gave it to us. We all hunt different ways and we all have opinions which certainly deserve to be heard. But at the end of the day, we are on the same team. Some of us, might like a white house, some of us have a log cabin, some of us might want to paint a house blue with red shutters, who knows, you can do what you want to.
That is their decision and hunting is the same way. It's here and I think at the end of the day, I'd like to just be known as somebody who didn't take himself too seriously, who just loved hunting and loved people and wanted to see people succeed. That's really it. Hopefully somebody who helped improve a space that he was always a big fan of. That's really it.
Chris: Well, thank you. I appreciate your time.
Michael: Thank you man. I appreciate it so much.
Michael Waddell | The Man From Booger Bottom - Michael Waddell
Michael Waddell - Outdoor Channel