Sorry for the delay in a response. I was out on an elk hunt in MT and was getting tons of emails about Toby Bridges' most recent rant.
In this first post, I will show how little Toby Bridges cares about facts. Facts are not a currency with which is comfortable. If facts were a currency, Toby Bridges would be insolvent.
I will copy and paste the relevant facts and misinformation Toby has provided in his effort to take a swipe at Federal Ammunition, using me and my show as his most recent vehicle for doing so. I apologize for the length of this post, but it was Toby who provided so many untruths, and thus the space needed to address them all.
And to think some people will quote, recite, or claim Toby's words as something worth reporting. I suspect when you see how little fact he uses here, as is case with most everything he writes, it will show the danger one's credibility an sustain by taking Toby Bridges' writings and words as truth and fact.
Ryan and Mark;
As a lifelong sportsman, and a strong supporter and student of the North American Model of Wildlife Management, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in both The Sportsman Channel and Federal Cartridge for airing and sponsoring a show that supports the destruction of the big game herds of the Northern Rockies.
Classic Toby there. No fact, no data, no example, just his mindless keyboard cowboy, pouting because every time he has opened his mouth, he has eaten his foot. But, if it serves the purpose of his agenda, facts are not a concern.
Last week's segment of Randy Newberg's "Fresh Tracks" was one of the saddest "outdoor" or "hunting" shows I have ever endured. Never have I witnessed a bigger lie aired. Do either of you really know the agenda that you've slipped into bed with?
Please Toby, tell us who Federal and Sportsman Channel have slipped into bed with. It gets good from here on out.
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is a major sponsor of the show.
Wrong - I had this episode planned before we worked with BHA to join to promote this hunt. I like that group and the amount of hardcore backpack hunters who are part of it.
BHA is not a "major sponsor" of our show. The net cash outlay to BHA was not near what our "major sponsors" pay. A "major sponsor" of our show would be Federal Premium Ammunition. This was an episode that worked good for BHA and us, and it was the right thing to do. In 2014, we will be doing a special episode that features another topic and another group.
Toby can criticize BHA all he wants. His right to do so, how ever desperate and factless his efforts are to smear them, me, and Federal.
Personally, I would far rather be associated with a group of serious backpack hunters who advocate for conservation of the best remaining wild habitat we have, than to cast my lot with a small circle of frustrated middle-aged whining wanna be keyboard cowboys who for whatever reason complain about the backcountry areas that give Montana the longest seasons in the country, allows us those long season on general tags, without requiring us to choose our weapon, without making us wait for years in limited entry draws, and results in some of the biggest bulls taken each season.
My guess is that the show was their idea in the first place, a new way to attack the wildlife management practices that rewarded this country with an abundance of game.
Wrong again. BHA was asked to be part of this show, after it was scheduled and planned. BHA came into the picture a while after it was "my idea in the first place," not theirs.
It was my idea to make an entire season about backpack hunts and show why I am so passionate about conserving our wild places on public lands. All our episodes for the current airing season, with the exception of the Wyoming antelope hunt, are backpack hunts in some cool areas. Places I want to feature and the type of hunting I like to do.
Sorry, Toby, you are already at strike two.
This bogus sportsman group is extremely pro-wolf, pro-predator - and that came through loud and clear in the manner in which Newberg praised how he could hunt those large roadless tracts due to the difficulty of getting into them...and the lack of other hunters. Still he found nothing.
Really, Toby. Came through loud and clear. Wonder if he has any specific example?. Nope. He has none.
Yup, you can hunt those large tracts of roadless ground. You will run into other hunters, as we did, but they will probably not be the Toby Bridges of the world.
So, I found nothing. Really. Evidently Toby did not tune into the first part of the episode where on day one I saw a very heavy four point that I did not go after. The buck was 400 yards. I could have shot from where I was, or I could have tried to get closer. He was a mature buck, but not what I had come for. Again, facts are not needed for Toby.
Durng the entire show, supposedly hunting for 30 something days, he saw what...a grand total of a half-dozen deer?
This is a real laugher. I hunted for four days, not "30 something days." We state in the show that we hunted four days. I tried to hunt a fifth day, but 60+ mph winds made it almost impossible.
Where Toby gets "30 something days," is beyond me. Truth and fact is not his strong point, and evidently counting and numbers are not his best area of knowledge.
Yeah...he mentioned spotting a couple of bucks...one which he claimed to be the biggest backcountry buck he had ever spotted. None of the viewers saw them. So...Did he really...or was that just a scripted ploy to soften the impact that uncontrolled predators have had on that wilderness area and just about every other wilderness area in the state of Montana...and in a majority of Idaho and some of Wyoming?
Obviously, Toby has never done much in the TV world. From a mile and a half away, footage of a buck is almost impossible. Especially with 35mph winds blowing the camera and tripod around.
A scripted ploy. Now that's funny. Maybe that is something Toby would do. I would not. In our show, you see what happens, good or bad, kill or no kill. If I wanted to script some ploy, I surely wouldn't haul me and my camera guys three hours up a frozen face of rock and snow, in hopes to get a closer glimpse of a buck that was just some TV ploy.
But, for someone who may have the character composition that would do that, maybe it is easy for them to conjure up some conspiracy that I am here to deceive the viewer.
For a more factual look at what's happening in Montana's remote, roadless, wilderness backcountry - go to this link -
http://www.lobowatch.com/adminclient/WolfImpact10/go
That drivel was written by Toby himself, with about as much "factual" information as he uses in most of his whining. That piece is worth what you paid for it.
If one believes Toby as a source of fact and knowledge, then one would probably believe some of what he posted in that link. Watching him in action, or just using this rant against me as a measurement of his ability to use facts and truth, is enough for most people to view a Toby-ism such as that with much skepticism.
Apparently neither of you really know much about Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Have you taken a good look at its Executive Director, Land Tawney?
This is where things get funny and where Toby's attempt to connect some dots reaches "Black Helicopter" type conspiracy.
I wonder if Toby understands that this episode was put on my hunt schedule, permits applied for, and production schedules slotted in August of 2012. I worked with Holly Endersby, the Executive Director of BHA at that time all of this happened. Land Tawney was not even associated with BHA until May of 2013, a time well after the episode has been filmed, logged, and readied for network review.
Toby might read this, so I better type it real slow and in big black letters.
Toby - Land Tawney was not hired as the Executive Director of BHA until six months AFTER this episode was filmed.Imagine that, Land Tawney, the person Toby hates, was not even part of BHA at the time this episode was produced, edited, etc. Oh no. Toby's conspiracy that Land Tawney is the anti-Christ to Montana hunting is now down the tubes.
Tawney was one of a handful of similar minded people who put together another bogus sportsman group, known as Montana Hunters and Anglers Action. They were nothing more than a political activist group. Outsiders could not join the group, or attend their meetings. The Executive Director of the Montana Outfitters and Guides Association tried to attend one of their meetings, just to get a feel for their platform, and was told right to his face that he wasn't welcomed...and told to leave.
I have no idea who Montana Hunters and Anglers Action is. I will take Toby's word (stupid of me) to assume they are a group based in some other part of the state, and thus a group that I am not aware of.
Here is where he has his facts wrong, and Bear Paw, along with all MOGA members should know this, given what a big fit was pitched by MOGA and their Executive Director, Mac Minard.
The MOGA E.D. attended a meeting of Montana Sportsmen's Alliance. Mac stated he was asked to leave and has made many public statements of how MSA asked him to leave.
I know the MSA guys. They are based in my home city of Bozeman. They are not Montana Hunters and Anglers Action group that Toby claims is headed by the big monster known as Land Tawney.
But what the hell, MSA, MHAA, who cares, right? They both have the name "Montana" at the start.
Close enough for Toby. MSA, MHAA, MSU, U of M, what does it matter, so long as Toby can intermix them and attribute what he wants to who he wants, so long as it works for his kindergarten-level journalism.
What a joke. Now, he has the wrong group attributed to the wrong thing, all in his desparate attempt to connect his dots.
News flash for Toby and anyone on a mouth-to-mouth basis with him in their regurgitation of his factless whining. MSA and MHAA are not the same group. MOGA has a tiff with MSA, not MHAA.
Down the tubes with that conspiracy.
Land Tawney headed that group, which during the 2012 elections spent several million $$$'s of non-disclosed (environmental group) money on television advertisements (slur campaign) to discredit Denny Rehberg, who was running against Jon Tester for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Rehberg was strongly in favor of aggressive wolf control, and having the gray wolf totally removed from the Endangered Species List and from the protection of the Endangered Species Act.
So, let's get this right, Toby. Denny Rehberg loses an election to an incumbent Senator and it all lays at the feet of a guy in Missoula and some group most have never heard of. As a side note, I voted for Rehberg a few times as he was from the same party I most often associate with, and though his record on public land hunting and fishing was rather abysmal, when I did vote for him, it was because I viewed him as the least harmful of two pitiful candidates.
Now, in 2012, Rehberg enlists the help of those like Toby and SFW to form some of his policies on wildlife and public lands. The election tide is ripe for a Rehberg landslide. He has a strong anti-Obama sentiment to run on. The party opposite of the party in the White House always does well in mid-term elections. Millions and millions of outside money come in for both candidates. He is the Republican Congressmen, running in a state that is heavily Republican.
End result of the 2012 election. Romney wins MT big, as expected, being he is the Republican candidate. Romney 55% to Obama 41%.
Rehberg loses what should have been sure victory, given the tailwinds mentioned above. His abysmal record on hunting, fishing, and public lands finally catch up to him in a state where the majority of registered votes hunt and/or fish.
Rehberg only gets 45% of the vote. Somehow, 10% of Montana voters, about 49,000 of them, decided they would vote for Romney as the Republican Presidential candidate, but for some reason that Toby attributes to the amazing power of MHAA and Land Tawney, those 49,000 Republican-leaning voters reach for the ballot lever and vote against Rehberg.

Now that is funny. If MHAA and Tawney have that kind of power, they could be highly paid political consultants in the beltway of DC, not working on non-profit issues in the hinterlands of Montana.
But, it fits Toby's obscure logic, so he publishes it anyhow. Unfortunately, some are foolish enough to believe and recite it, making themselves look as misinformed and schizophrenic as the source from which it came.
Oh, and as it relates to Rehberg's wolf bill, the bill claimed to be the Silver Bullet by Toby, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, and Big Game Forever, it was introduced to the House Committee in which Rehberg was a seated member, in January of 2011. As of the date of the 2012 election Rehberg had not been able to get a hearing on his bill within his own committee. That is laughable, for the lone Congressman from a state struggling to get state management authority of the wolves in the their state. That is how little Toby, SFW, and BGF know about getting anything done that is effective in gaining state control over wolves.
Probably no coincidence that the bill that did give MT and ID state control was originally brought for by Congressman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and later co-sponsored in the Senate by Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana). When the Simpson-Tester bill was announced, Toby was sent out with the hatchets by his cronies at SFW and BGF, hacking at all the mainstream groups who could see the Simpson-Tester bill as a way forward, as opposed dead on arrival bill SFW talked Rehberg into sponsoring.
Toby and SFW predicted that Simpson-Tester would be a sellout and we would never be hunting wolves anywhere other than MT and ID. By the end of 2011, MN, WI, and MI were delisted. In 2012, WY was delisted. This summer the USFWS delisted gray wolves in the entire Lower 48.
So much for the crystal ball Toby uses. He has been wrong on every prediction related to wolf delisting. Which, given his "Johnny come lately" arrival to Montana about a decade after most of us had started the heavy lifting on the delisting process, is no big surprise. Yet, he holds himself out as some special knowledge on the topic of wolves and wolf politics.
That wolf delisting topic could be an entirely new thread, where SFW, BGF, and anyone spewing their Toby-like rhetoric would walk away with a 3XL *censored* after about ten posts to the thread.
Randy Newberg's push for even more roadless wilderness is also a part of that idiocy, which I will be sharing later this week in a LOBO WATCH Release.
Obviously, Toby never took the time to read the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, the legislation I mentioned as being beneficial to those of us who hunt the area near where this episode was shot.
Fact - Contrary to what Toby says about "even more roadless.......," the RMFHA adds not one single acre to "roadless" acres in question. All of it is already inventoried roadless area under the Roadless designation of the Clinton Administration.
It does take some of the areas of rock and ice, areas that will never be roaded or developed due to extreme topography and terrain, and changes that from inventoried roadless to designated wilderness. None of that is an increase in roadless area. "Inventoried Roadless" to "designated Wilderness" is still roadless.
For the remaining acreage covered under that Act, it carves out a new designation - Conservation Management Areas. CMA would be a designation that continues all existing uses, such as grazing, etc. It would make wildlife management and conservation the management priorities for those lands given the CMA designation.
Funny that Mr. Bridges fails to note that most the local outfitters are in favor of the bill. Maybe those MOGA members who support this bill are also a bunch of "wolf lovers."

Toby demonstrates so little understanding of the topics in question, it is only expected that he would be so far off in his logic and so void in any fact in his effort to try make this argument.
This morning, I shared some thoughts on all of this on several Facebook pages, including the LOBO WATCH Facebook page, and have already received private messages and e-mails from a large number of sportsmen who "used to" tune into The Sportsman Channel...and who "used to" buy Federal ammo. Now they feel slapped in the face and stabbed in the back. The word I've heard over and over again has been "Boycott" - and as word of this spreads, I kind of feel that the beat of that drum will grow much louder.
And so you will know, I am sharing this e-mail with several hundred members of the Shooting & Hunting Industry and the Outdoor Media - plus a number of real sportsmen organizations.
Interesting as to how effective Toby's band of misguided fools can be. Since his supposed boycott, the network has provided me copies of dozens of letters of support for this episode, our show and our message. They have sent me one negative reply; a person complaining that I didn't kill anything on the episode.
I go to his Mickey Mouse excuse of a Facebook page and he had ten total comments on the post calling for a boycott of Federal. Five of those are Toby himself, four are from people question his rant against me, and one is from a person who follows Toby.
Very impressive for such a supposed "large number." Evidently, Toby and one other person qualifies as a "large number" to Toby. As I mentioned, Toby's comments do demonstrate a struggle with terms related to numbers and measurement.
His claim "that the beat of that drum will grow much louder" is laughable. If anything, it looks like only Toby and one Facebook fool sitting around patting each other on the back, beating their own drum. Big noise there, no doubt about it.
As a friend told me, the empty barrel will make the most noise when you hit it. Once again, Toby shows how empty his barrel is when it comes to these topics; how factless his arguments are; and the danger to anyone who takes a spoonfeeding of his sniveling.
I am pressed for time right now, but if I get time, I will follow with another post that gives little more history to Toby Bridges, his body of work since moving to Montana a while back, and the group of carney-like company he keeps.