Aiming For An Audience
Published 7:13 pm Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Clark Dixon isn’t going on any paid safaris.
The 35-year-old sportsman and oilman from Brookhaven has nopatience for hunting shows where sportsman pay big bucks, stay incomfortable cabins and harvest big game from fenced-in reserves. Hedoesn’t call that hunting – he calls it shooting.
That’s why Dixon’s new TV show is for the real hunters outthere.
Now in its second week, “Just Pass’n Thru TV” features theBrookhaven hunter and three associates hunting all types of gameacross the U.S., doing it the old fashion way. The growing seriesfeatures hunts recorded in high definition, tips, do-it-yourselfadvice, product reviews, hunting techniques and viewer-submittedvideos.
“We’re basically going to be hunting everything there is aseason for, and we’re doing real hunting on public and private land- hunting anyone can do,” said Dixon, the son of Charles and BetteDixon. “If you see something on this show you like, you don’t haveto sit there and go, ‘Man, I wish I could do that.’ You can doit.”
“Just Pass’n Thru TV” airs on the Sportsman Channel – 605 onDirecTV and 285 on Dish Network – on Mondays at 6 a.m., Tuesdays at4:30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m.
The first season will be made up of 13 episodes, one of whichaired last week. The show’s Web site iswww.justpassnthrutv.com.
Hunts that will be featured in the show’s first season werefilmed in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi,Tennessee and even Canada.
Dixon’s team, primarily bow-hunters, will be seen taking downdeer, moose, bears, turkeys and just about every kind of populargame. The sportsmen are leaving this month for the Gulf Coast tohunt sharks with a bow rigged to snare alligators.
The show will also feature some unique outdoor experiences, suchas Dixon’s three-day stint camping out at his father’s wreckedairplane in Alaska last September. Charles Dixon crash-landedunharmed and went for help, leaving his son to guard the plane.
“Believe it or not, there are pirates in Alaska. They can hearthis on a scanner, and you can basically get $10,000 worth ofequipment off an airplane with a Phillips-head screwdriver,” hesaid. “There’s some great footage of me with a tent tied off to awrecked airplane.”
Wherever the team hunts, they do it legal and cheap.
Dixon said the team hunts on public lands and private lands withpermission, using their own equipment and following all regulationsand limits from state to state. Instead of expensive weekend tripsto big game ranches, the main costs of their hunts are fortransportation.
“So many shows now you see them kill these big, nice animals,but they’re hunting in places it would cost you and I $7,000 tohunt on,” Dixon said. “We joke that they’ve got the animal tied up.This guy shows up at noon, shoots the deer at 1:30 p.m. and thenthey have a cocktail. An animal taken on our show is much more of atrophy than a bigger animal taken in a fenced-in reserve.”
Joining Dixon on the show are archer and inventor Paul Morris ofArizona, Kentucky’s Kenny Parson and Barlow, Miss., native RandyGoza. He got into the show by meeting and befriending Morris on anAlaska bear hunt in 2008. Morris lined up the production end of theventure, while Dixon bought an HD camera and began rolling on hishunts.
The show has limited sponsorship and needs help from viewers tosurvive. Before more support joins in, the show has to becomepopular with the public.
“It’s kind of like a restaurant – the first year is the criticalyear,” Dixon said. “If we can make it through the first year andthe show catches on, everybody’s going to give us something. Ofcourse, we’ll have to say how much we love using our camo camerathat came from wherever, but if we don’t use that equipment we’lljust have to bite the bullet and not take the money. We’ll getthose offers to come hunt at the $7,000 ranch for free, but we’renot going to take them.”
If “Just Pass’n Thru TV” takes off, hunters will have a TVresource dedicated to the average hunter. Dixon is hoping the showwill also motivate more people to get outdoors and pick up abow.
“The long-term goal, whether this show does it or not, is to getmore people out bow-hunting,” he said. “We want kids, or women whohaven’t tried it, to get into bow-hunting, to get into the woodswith no phones ringing and no horns blowing.”