Sep 27, 2014 4 min read

Local outdoors fans will see the return of a familiar face starting Oct. 5 on Root, as “Joe’s Wildside Adventures” will make its return to television following a hiatus of a few years.

The show, which is produced by and stars Peters Township resident Joe Rossi, will be shown through March 31, with airings every Sunday at 9 a.m.

Rossi, who has four years of previous shows under his belt on the Sportsmen Network and FSN Pittsburgh, promises an exciting return.

“This is almost like an all-star season,” Rossi said. “I was in Argentina, Brazil, Belize, two trips to British Columbia for moose and a mountain goat, I was in Montana. It’s loaded. It’s going to be a really interesting season. Plus, I have a fun turkey hunt with Chris Hoke from the Steelers that I did locally in Peters Township.”

Rossi’s show is different from many of the other hunting or fishing shows that populate the airwaves. He not only incorporates the actual hunting or fishing, but a cooking segment at the end of each show.

“The cooking part of it, I take a lot of pride in that,” Rossi said. “It does a couple of things, it adds another dimension to the show. It also brings in another audience. Instead of the husband sitting down and watching and the wife is bored to death, the ladies can go, ‘Look at that. I can do that.’ I did some wild game cooking classes years ago. I’d have 15 students and they were all women. They were all wives of hunters. That’s a lot of fun.”

It’s also given Rossi the opportunity to add his daughter, Stephanie, to the show. Stephanie Rossi is a senior at Peters Township High School, where she is involved in the school’s media program.

Stephanie Rossi has gotten involved in videoing the cooking portion of the show and editing as well.

“It’s really cool,” Joe Rossi said. “She brings a whole new dimension. I learned how to do it sitting at the editing table and playing with it. But these kids, their minds, they’re a lot faster. The first few episodes, I was kind of watching. Now, it’s like, ‘OK, Steph, if that’s what you think, go ahead and do what you need to do.’ She’s doing a really nice job.”

It’s just another step in the down home feel to Rossi’s shows. He uses friends and family as his on-site crew. And a high school friend of his son, Adam Kaladonis, does the majority of his IT work.

But it’s still time consuming for Rossi, who also has a full-time job as a sales team trainer for Emerson Electric that takes up a lot of his time.

In fact, it was increasing time needed for travel that forced him to place the show on hiatus. Once he decided to start things up again, he needed time to travel to exotic spots to film.

It’s a heck of a way to spend spare time.

Rossi also spends time finding sponsors for the show, outfitters who are willing to trade off hunting or fishing trips and all of the little things involved with getting the show on television.

“I have no intentions of stopping,” Rossi said. “I told my kids, when I can no longer function and walk, I might stop hunting but I won’t stop fishing. It’s been a passion of mine since I was little. I couldn’t imagine stop doing it.

“I’m having a blast. It’s something I wanted to do all of my life. To me, it’s not like, ‘oh man, I’ve got to work on the show.’ It’s something I love to do.”

It’s something that comes through on the air.

Rossi isn’t producing the show to make money. He’s producing it because it gives him the opportunity to go on outdoors excursions that most spend their time dreaming about.

“Years ago, when I was much younger, I kind of put a bucket list together – now it’s a bucket list, before it was just a wish list,” Rossi said. “I wanted to shoot a moose. I wanted to shoot a mountain goat. I’m planning a Dall sheep hunt and a grizzly hunt in Alaska next year. Those are things that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of them.”

Outdoors Editor F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.