Scowt Stories is a local hunting show that currently airs on Midco Sports. The show is the brainchild of Lennox resident Dustin Sperlich and Tea resident Cole Shawd.
The program was originally founded as “Scowt” in 2014 by Shawd, with the vision to provide a way to better connect people to the outdoors. Shawd started developing an iPhone app that would allow users to find outfitters, public hunting ground, deals on hunting gear, and hunting videos featuring South Dakota hunts. When the app was in its development phase, they needed a name. The Scout App was the original idea, however, Shawd found many website addresses were being used with the word “scout”.
“We broke all English language/common sense and misspelled it to ‘Scowt’,” Sperlich said. “Stories was added when we were approached by Jordan Miller of “Run2Gun” (TV show) to also feature the hunts on Midco Sports.”
It was in 2015 that Shawd connected with Sperlich and the two started Scowt Stories.
“When Jordan Miller connected Cole and I, we began talking about what inspired us and telling each other the stories of how hunting impacted our childhood,” said Sperlich. “We said, ‘the stories we have are what make us real’. Real people. Real stories. That is what makes us — the stories we have, and if we can share those stories, it’s not because we proclaim to be good at anything. In fact, if you watch us for long, you’ll realize we aren’t always the most serious and by far not the best at what we do. Just average guys with an above average passion to share our stories.”
Sperlich grew up around technology and had a passion for editing, filming, and hunting.
“The outdoors have always been one of the biggest things in my life. I grew up with the opening days of hunting season being a family holiday,” he said. “Even before I could legally hunt, I was tagging along for the snacks and the memories. I was doing a lot of self-filming and hiring out to some other “shows” and met Jordan along the way.”
Sperlich was passionate about editing in high school and in charge of doing all the sports’ highlights videos and was hired out to do videos for athletes going to college.
“I joke that the only reason I was ever at school was to use the computer labs brand new iMacs they got when I was a junior,” Sperlich said. “I went to college for Computer Science at Mt. Marty. I still do the hardware and “Nerd” stuff as the IT Director for IT Outlet, but I also freelance for various sporting venues and have produced and freelanced for ESPN, CBS, and Midco during my career. You pick up on a lot of the TV side of things with those gigs. Other than that, if you step into my house, it’s a safe bet that one of our TVs are on an outdoors network.”
After Sperlich and Shawd edited their first episode, Miller pitched it to Midco Sports and within a month they had an air time set.
“The only vision we ever had was to keep stuff light and to show how outdoors has helped us grow along the way,” said Sperlich.
Scowt Stories is currently airing on Midco Sports at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays and 1 p.m. on Mondays.
“We are keeping that spot, but coming this fall we are excited to have been picked up by Pursuit Channel,” said Sperlich.
Since they started the business it was always their goal to keep growing and reaching new audiences.
“Pursuit was the next logical step,” said Sperlich.
Pursuit Network is available to a huge viewing area which is included on Dish Network, DirecTV, Cox Networks, and Sling among a lot of streaming services.
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