Bringing Northwestern Ontario to National TV!!

What is The Real Deal and how did we come to be?

Living in Northwestern Ontario sure has its advantages, and small town living has many benefits as well. Sure, we may not have 15 movie theatres or 5 malls, but being able to literally drive 20 minutes from my house and be in quality deer or bear hunting area more than makes up for those things. Not to mention being able to fish right in city limits or to run your snow machine in many places close to and into the city. Yup, I live in small town Northwestern Ontario... and I LOVE it!

What does this all have to do with The Real Deal and being on coast to coast television on Wild TV?

Well, The Real Deal is just like you; we are literally the guys and girls next door who take advantage of living in small town Northwestern Ontario and our amazing natural resources that we have here.

The Real Deal was formed a few years ago to participate in a reality TV show called "The Search". Founding members, Denise Dubois and I (Marc McNay), were the smallest team with the smallest budget yet we were able to come in second place to the powerhouse team of Born to Hunt (who is now airing on Wild TV as well). More important than finishing second, we caught the eye of an industry insider who said that due to our "extreme professionalism both in front of and behind the camera," he would help us secure our very own TV show to highlight some of Northwestern Ontario's great features.

Last year, The Real Deal expanded our team with the hopes of getting additional footage for our second season of filming. The Real Deal now consists of The Northern McNays (Mike, Kelly and Brooke from Cochrane), Kyle Szachury from Sioux Lookout, Amber Fecho and myself from Dryden, along with our newest team mates The EH' Team (Mark Nault from Fort Frances and Chris Chudzy from Winnipeg). Last year we also had the Bilous family film for The Real Deal.

This is a hugely expensive project and not only did I have a great team, we also have some amazing partners that chose to advertise with us that made this dream a reality. The Real Deal was able to create special marketing promotions for Northwestern Ontario businesses and we were able to work with several local companies (for more information check out The Real Deal with Marc on Facebook or find us online at www.therealdealwithmarc.com). As we helped them, they helped us, and we honestly couldn't do what we do at this level without their help and we look to improve each and every year moving forward.

The Real Deal's episodes will air on Wild TV coast to coast in Canada on all the major cable and satellite providers. In addition, we air worldwide on www.wildtv.ca beginning in July for a full 6 months. Our episodes air 4 times a week, creating a total exposure of 104 episodes.

We had some amazing hunts that we filmed right here in Northwestern Ontario including but not limited to....

• The best ever "failed" moose hunt.
• I had the pleasure of working with a young 15 year old lady named Jordan Bakos who worked from archery season opener in September all the way through to the last hour of the last day she could hunt to try and harvest a mature whitetail buck.
• The Northern McNays along with my Dad and I, had a very successful group deer hunt right here in Dryden.
• I was also able to film a young man from China who now lives in Toronto harvest a nice doe. He had already filled his buck tag and was having trouble getting his doe, so we went out with him and documented the entire hunt on film.
• We had several outstanding goose hunts close to the border waters of Rainy River.
• Plus The Northern McNays got to film their 15 year old daughter harvest her first ever big game animal (just wait until you see this).
• All of this and so much more that we captured on film!

You may wonder why filling a doe tag or a "failed" moose hunt is exciting or worth filming. Well to me it is real, it is very very real. It is what we were raised doing and that is important to me. We are after all The "REAL" Deal. I am not strictly a trophy hunter. I may pass on smaller bucks in hopes of a more mature buck coming along, I may pass on does and wait for a dry doe to come along, and of course we pass on sows with cubs and wait for the boars to come, but to me that is more about being a conservationist than a trophy hunter.

I am also very proud of the fact that we film everything in real time. When you see a close up of one of us pulling the trigger or a video clip from another angle, all of that is really being filmed at the same time with multiple camera angles. We run as many as 5 cameras at a time to capture those moments. You can never recreate moments like that. When they originally happen is the reality of the hunt. When you see us pick up a bloody arrow or walk up to a harvested animal, those things are all happening in real time and were not recreated. We do not go back and recreate scenes.

Trying to film your hunt is a daunting task and is a lot of work carrying all the extra gear with you. Whether you are self-filming (which is hard to do especially for whitetail deer), or adding a camera person (which means double the scent and double the movement), it is just really tough to accomplish, but it is so incredibly amazing when it all works out and you have those "memories" on video forever.

Please watch right here for an upcoming article on helpful hints and tips on the video side of hunting in the near future. With the cost of quality cameras coming down, and the small size of the new cameras, many hunters are carrying video cameras with them now and I will explain some of the tricks that I have learned over the last few years in this upcoming article.

Like I stated at the beginning... Yes I live in small town Northwestern Ontario... and YES I LOVE it!!!! 

Showing 'Edited Body' is no longer supported.