The Range Podcast - Introduction

On this introductory episode, Ricky and Hollywood discuss the plan for The Range Podcast. 

Being of different generations, Ricky and Hollywood have unique perspectives in the Hunting and Target Archery worlds. They are both veterans of Vapor Trail and grew up hunting and shooting bows alike. 

The plan is to tell of the many archery related stories they have collected over the years as well as debunk some the myths and misconceptions when it come to equipment, tuning and tactics. They’ll talk about conservation, adult onset hunting and dive into the complicated world of out-of-state hunting applications as well.

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Range Podcast. I'm Ricky Bruley, and with me is Jake Hollywood Iverson, join us at the Archery Range where we'll tell stories from the hunt, discuss technical bow shooting tactics and gear, and pick the brains of some of the most successful people to ever shoot a bow. Whether you're about to shoot that X for the win, or send an arrow at a trophy buck.

This podcast is for you.

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery makers of the best Bowl strings Money can buy. Originators of limb driven arrow rests technology and innovators of stoker eyes, stabilizer systems. Here we go. All right everybody. Thank you for joining us here at the Range Podcast. My name is Ricky Bruley and I'm here with my co-host Jake Hollywood Iverson.

We'll get into the weeds a little bit more about how we got that name in a future episode. We just want to go over what we're gonna talk about [00:01:00] here on our podcast. Get into the weeds a little bit about. The why are we here? What is our purpose? So why the podcast?

Mostly because of brand awareness. Our company's been in business for almost 30 years now, and there's still a lot of people who haven't heard about us. So we're gonna get into the history of Vapor Trail, where we came from. We'll talk about the original founders, Jared and Steve Fonde. In fact, we have an interview with Steve.

Coming up here in a couple of days, so that'll be on the next episode, we want to talk a little bit about how we went from a basement to our current 25,000 square foot facility. And then the next question that we want to ask is, what is our why and why me and Hollywood? Just so happens that him and I are the longest tenured employees.

I'm just about approaching my 17. 17th year here at Vapor Trail Hollywood. How long have you been here? 10 years In about a month, 10 years. So yeah, it went pretty quick. Yeah, it was pretty wild when you sent me that [00:02:00] that email that you had when we first corresponded 10 years ago about you coming on as a Bo String Builder.

Yeah. One of the things that we can bring to the table here on this podcast is that we have slightly different perspectives, generational wise, and a little more old school when it comes to tuning those kinds of things. Hollywood, he is the general manager of the pro shop, so he is immersed in all of the new products and gets to spend some time trying to figure those things out.

So we hope to bring that those two different perspectives to you. My tenure here at Vapor Trail started as a Boling builder and as a graphic designer by trade. I just started doing some design work for Steven Jared, on the backside, and then Sportsman's Warehouse shut down. So I took on a full-time role here at Vapor Trail and worked my way up from a ting builder into management, was managing the bolstering department, which is something that you know all about.

And then one thing led to another. Here I am, I'm the creative director. I do deal with all the marketing side of things. I do all the [00:03:00] publication design, some web stuff. Rory does most of that between you and him. You guys do a lot of that kind of stuff, but dealing with the pro staff, taking care of them, making sure they're all getting taken care of, and then the social media side of things as well.

So that's where I am so far. How about you, Hollywood? Yeah, so for myself, I. Basically started similar to Rick, I definitely don't do any content creation, but a little bit, yeah. On the social side, but yeah, I mean it, like he alluded to earlier, 10 years ago I sent him an email just cuz I was, heavily getting into this archery thing and I said, Hey man, you need help, building strings.

And sure enough got hired on and Then I guess after the acquisition, I had been here a while and yeah, we quit wearing so many hats, I'd say. Or you did anyway. And they put me into Rick's position and he went into a new one. And now here we are to running a pro shop and giving me all the fun with the public and learning all the things [00:04:00] about new things.

Yeah, it's pretty fun. And like we're. Gonna say, that's why we're here. That's, I've been into it this whole time and it's fun working within what I like to do. Archery's our passion. That's what we really love to do. We both grew up hunting with bows.

We had dads that kind of brought us into this whole thing, and I'm super grateful for that. I love it. Absolutely. Love bow hunting, shooting a bow, everything about it, getting technical into the weeds, all that kind of stuff. And that's where you're a main source for me as far as all the new technologies and everything that's coming out.

I just, Don't simply have the time to look into all of that, that's pretty cool. And I don't really have a whole lot to offer you in that department other than, when it comes to doing some marketing things for the pro shop, I can, step in and help out with that a little bit.

But so yeah, that's it. Our passion, we love archery. We're archers and that's why we're here to do this. One of the other things that we really want to get into is education. And I'm gonna let Hollywood take on that. That section. Yeah, so like Rick said, we're both hunters and I'm [00:05:00] also a target archer.

I moonlight as a target archer here and there, but yeah, that, that's a big thing for myself, and all of us here just dispelling like the common misconceptions of things on social media or, YouTube, whatever you might want to call it or hear about. Different tuning methods, what might be bs and trying to get the smoke in the mirror cleared up.

And then just giving further knowledge to some of the new shooters whether they're older and newer, adult onset as you say. Yeah. Or younger. And especially for the younger kids, it's important to spread that education and teach them things just because, They're our future.

So it just helps us in the future keeping the sport alive. And then, and YouTube is such a common source, and there's, like you're saying with misconceptions, right? Somebody might see something on YouTube and they take it as gospel. That's how it has to be. Oh yeah, if my bow's gonna shoot I have to have this or I have to get that.

And that's not necessarily the case. So we definitely wanted dispel that. And then also, again, just bring back the personal level of. [00:06:00] Understanding, shooting a bow, techniques, all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. And that maybe we'll get into another episode, but there's some fun things where you just pound your head into the table where I'm sure other, Tuning guys alike hear the same thing, and it's just oh yeah, oh my gosh, here we go.

Yep. Then on top of that, staying on top of, new products product releases and that sort of thing, having the pro shop, we, it's a must, for us to be up to date on that sort of thing. And that'll be both vapor trails, stoker eyes, products, and then also right. Industry-wide, companies that we've partnered up with products that we sell in our pro shop.

And then going from the new products, our favorite type of thing to go over this time of year out-of-state applications, we're both smiling because it can be a headache for those of you that know Between points creep and just balancing all of the states that are open and applying to them and making sure you get them sent in.

All that fun stuff. So something we're looking forward to, touching on. [00:07:00] Yeah, I think it's, they're good topics to go over too when when we get into our slow season. It's cool stuff to, to talk about and look into. And matter of fact, I just got in my Colorado applications today. Today was the deadline.

Oh no, geez. I waited just right up. We waited until the last minute. And with as many times as I've done it, I still. I'm like, wait a minute, what do I do again? Okay. And the beauty is when you've applied in the past, usually, at least with Colorado, it's nice cuz you can go back and you can look at what you applied for in the beginning, gives you all the codes and everything so you can just plug those back in again.

But yeah, that'd definitely be something I think will be fun to get into for sure. Yeah. The other thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna get an overview of where where we are now and where we are going. Now we're gonna have an interview with the current president and c e o Rory Locklin, and we'll talk about the 2020 acquisition and how how interesting that was.

And, just a totally new experience for all of us to go through that year later. We then purchase Stoker Eyes, stabilizers, and [00:08:00] then, we'll get into talking about our new building, the Pro Shop the range, of course, which is the inspiration for our podcast. Again, just trying to bring back that range.

Feel like we used to have, me and Hollywood used to shoot at a small range called Wolf Track. And just the camaraderie and the, and how awesome it was going in there, and everybody just hanging out, talking about. Whatever, it didn't necessarily have to be about archery or hunting or anything like that.

It was just a good excuse to get out and do something, hang out with your buddies and meet some cool people. Throw a pizza on the pizza cooker and all that kind of stuff. So it was really cool and we want to try to bring that back. Other than that, I think that's about where I think that summarizes up for the most part.

What we're gonna talk about and we're, we're gonna tell a ton of hunting stories. We've got a ton already that we could tell ourselves. We could do several episodes on that. We've got at least 20 guests already lined up for the podcast. We don't have 'em scheduled yet, of course, but we do have a [00:09:00] handful of people that are interested, that want to jump on with us.

We'll have some chats with them, get some cool stories, and then maybe even touch on tournaments, tournament season. There we go. When we start coming around to it for indoor and. The outdoor guys alike. So yeah, for sure. It can be exciting stuff as much as it can be like watching paint dry for some, but target archery it can be pretty exciting though watching that stuff too, considering how much leverage they have, I feel on our industry and what drives other people buying what products yeah. And that's where you're gonna really be able to shine too, cuz that. That's an area where I'm lost when it comes to ASAs and all that kind of stuff, I'm just like, I don't, there's so many different tournaments going on all the time, like almost every weekend there's something going on.

Yep. And so it'll be really cool to to have discussions about that and, A lot of, I know I'm gonna learn a lot on the target side, just having discussions with you about that. So that'll be cool. I really look forward to that. And then so if anybody has any questions or any suggestions as to what you think we should do, if [00:10:00] there's some.

Somebody we should interview or something that we should address. You can reach out to us on social media. Vapor Traill and the Vapor Trail Pro Shop page are both on Instagram, Facebook, and then vapor Trails also on YouTube and TikTok still cries on Instagram and Facebook. And then you can find me Ricky on Instagram at Ricky dot Bruley 80.

And also on Facebook at Ricky w Bruley. And then where can people find you? Hollywood, if they're looking for myself it's just Instagram is Jake IV three. And then Facebook is Jake Iverson with the parenthesis Hollywood. Just cuz so many guys. No, me is just Hollywood. So helps people find me if needed.

That's perfect. So yeah, if you have any questions for either of us, please feel free to reach out. And with that we are gonna pack up our bows and our cases and we are going to leave the range. Thank you everybody for joining us and listening in. We look forward to chatting with you on another episode.

We're out. Let's go. Shoot.[00:11:00]

‍