For some people, hunting and the outdoors is just a hobby that comes and goes every season. For others, it is something that changes your life for the better. For Troy Ruiz, hunting has most certainly done that.
Troy Ruiz grew up in south Louisiana from a commercial fishing family who were also big duck hunters. He first began deer hunting when he was nine years old.
“When I first began deer hunting in Mississippi and Alabama, I thought itwas just the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was always trying to figure out how to get up there. To me at that time, Mississippi and Alabama were like Montana and Colorado are to me these days,” Ruiz said.
For many years after Ruiz finished school, he continued working on his father’s commercial fishing boat. Ruiz then decided he wanted a change and would love to work in the outdoor world.
“Back in those days, the late 80’s, there really wasn’t a lot out there in the outdoor world as far as videography purposes,” Ruiz said.
Around that time, Ruiz was leasing a piece of hunting property near Prentiss, MS. After turkey hunting, Ruiz would always go to his favorite restaurant in the area to eat. Through this and a chance encounter, Ruiz was able to launch himself down a path he had dreamt about.
“I was in the restaurant one-day eating lunch, and in walked Preston Pittman. And I just about came uncorked and said to myself ‘Holy smokes, that’s Preston Pittman’. I went down and sat at Preston’s table and introduced myself. They asked me what I had been doing and said that I’d been turkey hunting,” Ruiz said.
While at the table together Ruiz was able to tell Pittman about his turkey hunting and was afterward able to show him some video footage he had recorded of the hunt.
“I showed Preston and Tommy some of the footage I had recorded that day and they were kind of awe-struck about it. But after that we just went about our separate ways,” Ruiz said.
A few days passed, and after turkey hunting in the same locale, Ruiz again ran into Pittman at the same restaurant as before.
“We talked for a little bit and then he asked what I was doing the next weekend. I had actually already taken the next week off because the next week was supposed to be really good for turkey hunting. Then Preston looked at me and was like ‘Oh okay, I was just wondering if you wanted to come down to Florida and hunt with us and film’. I was just kinda looking around the room to see if someone was trying to play a joke on me” Ruiz said.
Through these hunts with Pittman, he was able to record and meet some other people in the industry, including Toxey Haas, founder of Mossy Oak. Ruiz continued filming for Pittman for three more years before landing a job with Mossy Oak.
“Cuz, from Mossy Oak, called me up and asked if I’d be interested in coming to talk to them about a job with Mossy Oak. I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding’,” Ruiz said.
A couple years into Ruiz’s time with Mossy Oak, they began development for a new television series called “Whistling Wings”.
“I knew what duck hunters would like and what they would want to see because of my background hunting in southern Louisiana. We were able to take the ‘Whistling Wings’ label from just a very small number, to getting it inside the walls of Walmart as the hottest selling VHS tape out there,” Ruiz said.
From there, they were eventually able to turn the VHS tapes into its own television series.
“On that televisions show, I always tried to find guys out there that were credible and that people would listen to when they heard their voice or gave them tips or saw them on TV. And there were a lot of guys out there, especially guys out there in the industry today like Fred Zink, Kelley Powers, John Stephens and the guys from RNT; all those guys got their start through ‘Whistling Wings’. Those are the guys I used to make our product better,” Ruiz said.
Through the interviews and shows with the men that Ruiz recorded, Ruiz’s life was once again changed.
“There was one guy out there, in particular, I wanted to do a show on and that was Phil Robertson. I had known Phil for a couple of years at the time since he was one of our Prostaff members at Mossy Oak. Phil was doing the Duckmen VHS series, but I wanted to do a show on him and his crew. At the time, they had never been on TV, just VHS,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz and Robertson decided on a hunt in Texas where Ruiz would film him for the ‘Whistling Wing’ series. Before Ruiz was able to go on his hunt with Robertson, some things began taking place in his life.
“There were some things going on in my life at this time that I really didn’t understand. I grew up as a good kid, and I always had thought ‘God’s always there, if I’m a good person, hey that’s all that matters’,”
Ruiz had moved up to West Point during this time where he was living with his wife and daughter. After his daughter made her first friend at school, she was invited to church and wanted her dad to come along too.
“I had a hunt in Canada scheduled for that weekend and my thirty-something years of being in this business I had never had a trip canceled for any reason. But a couple days before, it got canceled, so I went to church with my daughter and wife. I sat in the back row because I didn’t wanna be around Jesus freaks; I always thought they wanted my money. But man, the preacher started talking, and I thought he was talking right to me. Ever since that day I couldn’t figure out what was going on with me,” Ruiz said.
A couple weeks later Ruiz was finally able to go on his hunt to Texas with Robertson. After their first hunt in the morning, Ruiz interviewed Robertson on a few things for the television show.
“Somehow or another, we got off on God and salvation and sin and being saved. We just got off on biblical things and I didn’t even know how we got there. That tore me. I had the same feeling doing that interview with him as when I sat at the church a few weeks before. When I got done with that interview with Phil, I couldn’t even lift my head from that camera. I was crying like a two-year-old and I didn’t want him to see that,” Ruiz said.
That night Ruiz was hardly able to sleep as he was still wrestling with what he had heard the day before. So before their hunt the next morning, he decided to have one more talk with Robertson.
“My anxiety level was through the roof, I didn’t understand what was going on with me. I pulled Phil aside the next morning and told him I had a few more questions for him with the interview. We sat down like we were going to do an interview and I sat there and told him for 45 minutes what I had been going on in my life. I looked at him the whole time and he never even once blinked his eyes; I had his undivided attention. When I was done, he just looked at me and rubbed his old beard and said ‘Ruiz, this is serious business. We are talking about the resurrection of a dead man’s soul’. I said ‘Dead man? What dead man?’. And he said ‘Two. You and Jesus,” Ruiz said.
Robertson was then able to tell Ruiz his own story as well. From that moment, Robertson was able to lead Ruiz to Christ right in the middle of a duck blind in Texas in 1999.
“It was 18 degrees that morning and he was trying to baptize me right there in the middle of the duck decoys. I said ‘Phil. It’s kind of cold.’,” Ruiz said.
Once Ruiz returned home he was able to make his public profession of faith and be baptized along with his wife. Since then Ruiz has been able to share his story with many people across the country through public speaking.
“I still remember that first time I got up there and spoke to anybody at a wild game dinner. I really thought it was going to be like any other seminar I had done. I got up there and introduced myself and did everything I was supposed to do. I took the VHS tape I had made and stuck it in the VHS player. I pushed the tape in and pressed play, then turned around to talk to the crowd a little. I heard this noise behind me. And I thought I had heard that noise before; the noise a VHS player makes when it eats the tape. So everyone thought it was funny in the crowd when they saw the look on my face. I turned around and finally got the tape out but it was in shreds. Then this little small voice, which I knew who it was, said ‘Troy. Just tell them about me and what I’ve done for you. Just tell them your story”, Ruiz said.
Ruiz continues to share his story with others today in whatever circumstance he is in. He currently resides in Madison, MS and is working for Primos managing the TV and video department.
