Living the Outdoors with Marc Drewek: 04/08/26

April 8, 2026·50 min·3 clips

Ryan started the school garden after a senior student thought potatoes grew on vines like cucumbers—and the program now donates over 4,000 pounds of produce to St. Joe's Food Program annually.

1. Living the Outdoors with Marc Drewek, April 8, 2026 on WSCO, features Ryan Marks, environmental science teacher and fishing coach at Appleton East High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. 2. Ryan Marks hosts the Corey Fisher Outdoor Club and coaches the Appleton East fishing team through the WHIFFA (Wisconsin High School Fishing Association) organization. 3. The episode's central theme is how school-based programs and mentors can fill the access gap for young people who lack family connections or financial resources to enter hunting and fishing. 4. The Corey Fisher Outdoor Club is named for an Appleton East student who passed away; his family donated money to build an equipment lodge at the school stocked with donated hunting and fishing gear. 5. Students can borrow musky rods, turkey decoys, duck and goose decoys, and other equipment through the club, allowing them to try sports they otherwise couldn't afford or access. 6. Ryan describes gear donations including a retiring duck hunter who brought in five bags of decoys in one visit; host Mark Druick notes that a foam Walmart turkey decoy is as effective as a Dave Smith decoy costing $500. 7. Ryan recounts a first mentor hunt where a student shot through a blind's mesh window at a turkey so close—under 15 yards—that the shot pattern had no room to open, resulting in a miss, adding he could feel and hear the student's heartbeat through the blind. 8. The student who missed that bird is still hunting today and remains in contact with Ryan, illustrating his point that the experience itself, not just the harvest, creates lasting outdoor passion. 9. Ryan describes the WHIFFA fishing team at Appleton East, which started with ice fishing tournaments only and now includes open-water events for bass, catfish, and other species through a Sunday pier tournament. 10. About 28 students signed up for the fishing team this year, though Ryan could only run a reduced schedule due to a bicep tendon surgery on December 15th that left him unable to drill ice holes or lift weight for three months. 11. Ryan tore his bicep tendon off his elbow while deer hunting after trying to move a fallen tree, an injury he calls a lesson in not being smart, and spent the ice fishing season as 'a cheerleader and an advisor.' 12. Mark and Ryan discuss how aging outdoorspeople must become more careful physically, with Mark noting he had to 'play roly-poly-oly' to get off the ground after his last turkey harvest. 13. Ryan started the Appleton East school garden after a senior student believed potatoes grew on vines like cucumbers, prompting him to connect students to where food actually comes from. 14. Both of Ryan's grandparents are farmers; the garden program has scaled from a small plot to donating over 4,000 pounds of produce annually to St. Joe's Food Program, with students planting near Calumet Street where they can watch it grow while driving by. 15. The episode covers landowner ethics extensively, with Ryan teaching students to pick up garbage, leave properties cleaner than found, and treat wardens and landowners with respect as essential outdoor skills. 16. Mark describes his own early hunting strategy of helping farmers haul hay and pick rocks in exchange for access, which spread by word of mouth to hundreds of acres of private land. 17. Ryan notes that pigeon hunting on local farms is a growing student activity because farmers welcome it year-round and it requires minimal gear. 18. Tone is conversational and warm, with Mark and Ryan frequently affirming each other and trading personal stories; the episode is a live Wisconsin radio broadcast with sponsor interruptions. 19. Outdoor educators, youth hunting mentors, and Wisconsin hunters interested in school-based programs will find this episode most useful. 20. Listeners seeking hunting tactics or gear reviews will find the episode focused on education, mentorship, and community rather than technical outdoor content.

As heard by us

A warm turkey-season conversation that turns close calls into a case for mentoring outdoors.

The conversation settles into outdoor talk that feels earned after a long day in the field: turkey season is only a couple weeks away, youth hunting is about to start, and the nerves that come with a bird getting too close stay right at the surface.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for turkey-season stories, close calls, and a reminder to take someone outside.

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