Episode 57: Jeremiah Voithofer- Mountain Top Outdoors

Outdoorsman Jeremiah VoitHofer of Mountain Top Outdoors joins the Maglite Podcast where he talks about the show and his adventures including hunting. His show on the sportsman channel takes him all over the country where he meets people who use Maglite’s all the time in the course of their daily lives.  He also explains the importance of having a reliable source of light when you are going to be in the back country for days at a time.  He closes with a discussion of the contest and product giveaway that is coming up by mountaintop outdoors/ Maglite.

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Transcript

Maglite: Welcome to the Maglite podcast and our guests today, long time affiliated with Maglite. He is an outdoorsman. He's a television star. He's an all-around just giant human being in personality and he joins us here. His name is Jeremiah VoitHofer, the organization's mountaintop outdoors, and we're thrilled to have him. How are you doing Jeremiah?

Jeremiah VoitHofer: Hey, Lou. Good to see you, buddy. Uh, nice to be back on here. And I tell you, man, um, the weather here in Pennsylvania cooperated this spring. We have another rainy day and, uh, other than that, I'm doing great. My boys are getting big and we had another great adventurous fall, uh, Maglite in hand, uh, producing a TV show.

Maglite:  Well, with the name Jeremiah, you sort of almost had to be an outdoorsman.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  That's right. That's right. There was a movie. Uh, what

Maglite: Was it? Jeremiah Johnson. Yeah. Robert Redford.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  Yes, sir. Uh,

Maglite: You and Redford kind of, kind of close anyway. Yeah. We'll see. So how are things going?

Jeremiah VoitHofer: They're good, man. Um, we just finished up, uh, season two on the sportsman channel 7:30 Wednesday nights. And, um, for y'all that don't know out there, when I first got into the outdoor industry and first hit the TV show, Maglite was my title sponsor and I'm forever grateful, um, to them. Number one, thanks again, Lou, for, uh, everything you guys have done over there. And, um, number two, I think you're one of my favorite American, um, dream stories in general in the Maglite story. And, uh, being asked,

Maglite: Still manufactured in the USA.

Jeremiah VoitHofer: It's amazing, still manufactured in the USA and, and still family run. I mean, uh, I run a family business in my day job as a golf course manager for what I do for six months. And, um, you guys are the pinnacle of the American dream, man. Congratulations on that. And thanks for having me back.

Maglite: How is the television show going?

Jeremiah VoitHofer: Good man. We've uh, we just finished up season two in, uh, season one. We took 11 pop and young, which are, um, respectable type animals. And in season two we took 10. So after coming out on fire, you're not sure if you can do it again. Um, and we just learned and move forward. You know, we grew a lot too. Um, my cameraman, I have a full-time cameraman, which is a young kid out of Penn state college, hired him in 23 and, um, sent him to some film schools. And I tell you what the people on the road that we met, um, in year one, we became like family in year two, right? You go back to these farms, farmhouse all over the country and amazing how farmers in their barns have mag lights. Number one, I'll start there. It's America's brand. And, uh, I think every farmer out of anything that could have come outta my mouth that I would've told 'em my Maglite story, cuz there was a big Maglite on my truck that year in year one, um, was probably their favorite story, uh, here and coming out and meeting y'all and um, man, it's going really well.

Jeremiah VoitHofer: Um, we were, we were 30% up this year in viewership and we appreciate every each

Maglite:  And every now, where can people see the show

Jeremiah VoitHofer: Sportsman channel Wednesday night at 7:30 and then in the fall this year in season two, after July, we'll be dropping some of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Um, so folks can see the high grade content that we're shooting now. Um, the show's changed a little bit from season one to season two, Lou, um, we focus on high grade cinematography now and telling a story of each hunt rather than just running around the country and showing people different places that they could hunt in public land. Um, especially, uh, got way back on Outfitters this year. We only hunt 'em with two Outfitters out of 13 hunts. Um, we spent 81 days on a road living in a camper I might add, uh, Dodge's truck pulled a camper around the country and me and my cameraman produced a show out of our, our, uh, camper. And, um, a little bit has changed. We brought on working man bow hunter as a partner. Um, some mountaintop outdoors under the umbrella now has working man, uh, bow hunter and um, cohost of the show. And at the end of each show, Lou, I know it's one of your favorite parts hunt chef cooks it up. Oh

Maglite:  Yeah, yeah.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  Eat wild game at home by man.

Maglite: Yeah, the, the cooking part, always one of my favorites, the eating part, as you can tell, just looking at me, I'm with you. Definitely. Uh, one of my, one of my favorite parts as well. So in your second season, sportsman channel Wednesday night, seven o'clock, 7:30. What's been I'm sorry, 7:30. What, um, what, what's a great Maglite story from the road.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  Uh, great Maglite story for the road. I have, um, one in particular that more pertains just to the light. So y'all sell that kit with the cone. I actually have one right here, um, in the traffic

Maglite: Traffic safety pack.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  Yeah. Yep. And um, we had an axle break on our truck in season one at the end of this.

Maglite:  Oh,

Jeremiah VoitHofer: In Kansas and in the nowhere. And uh, our axle broke. Um, so we're sitting on the side of the road. We got a camper behind us and in the safety pack that really let, um, the cars we were in a bad spot. There was no BEM on the road at all. We were still partially on the road and we, we put that cone out there and um, another good story to that. I mean, it wasn't a good situation at all. The first state trooper that pulled over, saw the Maglite on my truck and uh, he pulled his out and uh, that was cool, man.

Maglite: Yeah. One of the, one of it's definitely a favorite of our law enforcement folks is the Maglite they've been carrying 'em for years. Well, it sounds like you're enjoying great success with the show. My one question is how's the wife about this? You're gone a lot, like 80 to 90 days. I travel a lot. Yeah, because of Maglite. So I'm, I'm on the road quite a bit. So let's compare stories here. So what's your wife's thing like it.

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  So I, I help her run, um, her family's business in the summer and I worked lots of long hours doing ah, 17 hour days

Maglite:  So you sort of earn your,

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  I earn my vacation time. It's like building, uh, PT time. Right. And, uh, uh, now that my son is at five years old, the finale of this season that'll actually is the father's day special on the, uh, stunt on the sportsman channel is called time with dad. Um, you have three generations of white Hoff offers on there. I take my dad who isn't in that great of health out, uh, hunting. And then my five year old son kills his first turkey, um, on film this year and just passing along and, um, enjoying the great outdoors. My friend

Maglite: That'll make that Thanksgiving turkey even more enjoyable. maglite.com is where you can go get all those manufactured in the USA products, the roadside safety, uh, pack, especially important going into what are the deadliest days of the year, which, uh, more people are killed on the road and pedestrians killed through the first week of July. It really spikes then during any other part of the year. And of course, M 300 L four D I know it's something you use in the field and the spectrum series, right?

Maglite: Yes. For tracking

Jeremiah VoitHofer:  The, the, uh, yep. We use that tracking every, uh,

Maglite:  The green light, the red light. Which one do you use the most?

Jeremiah VoitHofer: Well, I use the green light walking in and then in the evening when we're blood trailing or we're tracking an animal, we just pulled out and he's a regular light because we wanna see that red blood, you know, glow brightly, right. The light is bright enough to let that glow shine on the leaves. And, um, you know, Lou, we've been lucky enough to be in a lot of situations to the Rocky deserts of, uh, New Mexico tracking something on rocks to watch that, that blood stand out or, um, in a farm in Wisconsin, Kansas, Illinois, um, all across the Midwest where you got leaves covering up the blood or the blood trail where the game is running away. Right. And that's where bright light is super important. I will say as well. It's nice and little, it fits in your hand. The, the Magtac series, um, is, is my personal favorite. And, uh, especially in the back country, Lou that's where things get really gnarly.

Maglite:  Well, I'm glad the products have been helpful, really, really glad for your success, Jeremiah. And once again, it's Jeremiah VoitHofer with mountaintop outdoors, and that is Sportsman's channel Wednesdays at 7:30. I'll get that right. Thanks for listening to everybody. This has been the Maglite podcast and we'll be back with a new edition in a couple of weeks.