Montana Outdoor Radio Show

The outdoors has always been important for Mark Ward. From a very young age, he fished and hunted with his Dad and his brothers as he grew up in Bryant, South Dakota. He quickly learned the tricks of the trade, and nurtured a love of fishing and hunting that would become a life-long passion.

When Mark graduated from high school, his Mom and Dad expected that he would continue on to college, as all of his six brothers and sisters would. But by this time, Mark had developed another new passion — radio!

He decided that his “college fund” would put him through the Brown Institute of Broadcasting, so he loaded up his ’68 Chevelle and headed for the big city of Minneapolis. It was a fateful decision that worked out perfectly for Mark, though he still jokes that he has a face for radio and a voice for TV.

After graduating from the Brown Institute, Mark moved to “Big Sky Country,” where he currently raises his family and has combined his passions for radio and the outdoors in creating “The Montana Outdoor Radio Show.”

The statewide radio shows roots are in two local shows that Mark has done over KGVO Radio in Missoula for the past 16 years — “Catchin’ the Big Ones” and “Hunter’s Breakfast” where he made his debut as Captain Catchin. Those shows continue with Captain at the helm today.

Those local shows, and The Montana Outdoor Radio Show, are grounded solidly in providing useful and current outdoor information for sportsmen and women and lending support to conservation causes by organizations including Trout Unlimited, Walleyes Unlimited of Montana, Ducks Unlimited, The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Pheasants Forever, and the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks. That’s one of the reasons that the show is a huge and still growing success in Montana. But its also a measure of the fact that Mark loves what he does and it shows.

Downrigger Dale is the resident trivia and weather expert and also brings the humorous side of outdoor life to the show.

Downrigger was born in Missoula, MT and grew up on a ranch up in the Nine Mile area west of Frenchtown, MT where he enjoyed hunting and fishing and was involved in 4H and FFA. After Downrigger graduated from Eastern Washington University he worked with the Captain in radio for many years and later moved to Nashville, TN where he worked in the recording industry and worked with many of the top recording artists of thee day including Whitney Huston, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Nsync and many others. Now days Downrigger enjoys fishing with the Captain, playing with his Grandkids and doing some limited business consulting and public speaking.