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My Story
Let me tell you my story real quick.....
I was lucky in the fact I grew up in a hunting family. I grew up hunting
whitetail, turkey, pheasants and quail in Nebraska.
So I was taught the basics of hunting, gun safety, shooting, tracking, etc...
I had a mentor from the time I was born (my Father).
Even though my mentor, sometimes had questionable hunting techniques, that I had to relearn when I was older.... haha that is another story for another time.
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I guess I never realized how important and valuable a mentor was until I moved to Colorado in 2004.I went from hunting whitetails in the river bottoms of Nebraska to trying to hunt elk in the thousands and thousands of unforgiving acres of the Rocky Mountains.
I was so overwhelmed and no idea where to start. How to I get a license? What is this preference point thing? Ok now I have a license.... where the heck do I go?!
I seriously may of well have thrown a dart at the map... The barrier to entry was so great and there was so much to know and learn.
Do I hunt with a gun or bow? How do I learn how to call? Where in the hell do a find an elk in thousands and thousands of acres of wooded forests!?
It's not like I could call up my mentor (Dad) and ask him how to go about this. He had just about as much of a clue as I did.
None the less, I got out there and tried for a few seasons. After a couple of miserably failed season I knew that to shorten the learning curve I needed a mentor of some sort.
But where do I find that? Do I just randomly walk up to people asking them if they hunt and if I could be their friend? haha.
I probably would have gotten some weird comment for sure if not even punched in the face!
So here is what I did.... I went to the western hunt expo here in Colorado and talked to a few people guiding elk hunts.
After calling a couple that next week I booked my first guided hunt.
My sole mission was to extract as much information as possible for the $4,000 I paid for that hunt.
I know, I know.... a guided hunt..... all of you veteran hunters are probably rolling your eyes....
And you newbie hunters are saying that is a TON of $! Yes, you are right that is a ton of money.
But I wanted to learn as much as I could from them and shorten my learning curve to be successful on my own.
So I went on that hunt and learned a ton! Not only did I learn a lot about elk, but I made some great friendships on the trip that I still have today!
I did end up killing a very nice bull on that trip btw... on the last hour of the last day.
Here is a picture of my very first bull elk from that trip.
From that point on I have only had one season that I did not harvest an Elk.
Which is an amazing feat considering only about 15% of hunters harvest an elk.
I went on to buy an outfitting business and guide elk hunters for many years.
And three years ago I started a hunting show.
I basically go on as many bad ass hunting adventures as I can and film them to try to entertain others.
With all of that being said, and thanks for reading through my "short" story haha ....
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I understand how hard it is to either start hunting and also to find a mentor to hunt more successfully.
I understand what it feels like to have that desire but have no clue where to start.
I understand what it is like to not be successful on a hunt and crave the knowledge to be better next time!
Of course we have You Tube and social media that we use to try to pick up as much info as possible,
but sometimes it would be nice to just be able to talk to someone.
So that is why I am started Hunt Mentor.