2 Valley hunters win top prize in Outdoor Channel’s contest

By Ed Runyan

The team plans to continue to shoot whitetail and make hunting videos.

WEST FARMINGTON — Just like when they were hunting white-tailed deer a year ago, two local men participating in the nationally televised Outdoor Channel show “Dream Season” have brought home the big prize.

Tim Woods of West Farmington and Ben Rising from Windham learned Monday morning they had received the most votes of any of the five teams competing in the contest, which aired during 13 30-minute segments in June, July, August and this month.

The final show airs at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. today.

Woods said he and Rising learned they had won the contest while watching the show on television at 6 a.m. The men were told in advance only that the voting was close. They still don’t know the vote totals, Woods said. Voting was done by viewers of the show by text message, postcard and Internet.

Along with the honor of winning the contest, the men will split about $70,000 worth of prizes from sponsors of the show, including Bad Boy Enterprises, which is providing a Bad Boy Buggy — an electric, four-wheel-drive, all-terrain vehicle.

Woods said he believes the two deer the men killed and videotaped were the biggest reasons for their success.

Drury Outdoors, the hunting video production company that ran the contest and produces the show, said Woods and Rising killed the two biggest deer in the show’s five-year history last November.

Woods’ deer, shot with a bow Nov. 14, 2007, in Kansas, measured 184 inches in total antler length, while Rising’s deer was shot with a muzzleloader in Ohio on Nov. 30, 2007, and measured 204 inches.

Woods said the subtitle of the show was “Land of the Giants,” so with Team Ohio having shot such large bucks, it seems logical that Team Ohio would win.

Still, Woods thanked his friends who cast votes for the Ohio team. Voting was expensive in the case of text messaging and time-consuming in the case of voting online, Woods said.

Woods said he and Rising will continue hunting and taping shows for Drury — not because of the prizes or money but because hunting whitetail is something they love.

Woods, for one, gave up the chance to play college basketball after a high-scoring career at Bristol High School, in part, because hunting is important to him, he said. Today he runs a trucking company.

Woods said having killed two deer in the 200-inch range is satisfaction in itself.

“It’s a very small class of hunters who get a 200-incher,” he said, “especially on video.”

runyan@vindy.com