I was born In Kemmerer, Wyoming on October 9th 1969, where I still reside to this day. This gift has given me the opportunity to experience the outdoors in a multitude of adventures. My Dad and Granddad taught me to hunt and fish at an early age. Fishing the salmon river in Idaho every summer, and hunting deer, elk, and Pronghorn Antelope around Kemmerer are just a few of the great adventures I experienced growing up as young man.
As I grew older the passion continued to burn, and I somehow made it through grade school to continue the dream. I hunted and fished all I could when my dad, introduced me to the sport of bowhunting elk. This type of hunting was the coolest thing I’d ever done, being so close and calling elk within a stones throw.
My next experiences was heading to the high country on hoarse back literally miles from all of the roads, and civilization. In 1991 I met Jim Sessions while working for the city of Kemmerer. Right away Jim and I hit it off, and started hunting and fishing together as often as our schedules afforded us, the first being a turkey hunt in the Black Hills of Wyoming.
About 3 years later Jim introduced me to the sport of filming hunts, and I found out real quick that it was great way to relive many of our outdoor experiences. We started out with filming deer on the winter range, and progressed to one of the hardest hunts to capture on film, a self-guided mountain goat hunt in the high country of Colorado. To put it mildly, I was hooked on filming hunts. Having a full time job, a wife, and a beautiful daughter were all I needed for a few years, but I still longed to work in the hunting and videography field of the outdoor TV industry.
My opportunity came when Jim went to work for the show "Best of the West". This afforded me the opportunity to learn and gain the experience needed to put great hunts on film. My next experience came when Jim and I went to work for Bighorn Outdoors, which couldn’t have happened at a better time. It just so happened Jim had drawn a coveted Colorado Bighorn Sheep tag. This gave Jim and I a chance to share the experience with Tom King, Producer of Bighorn outdoors. The hunt went as planned and Tom filmed Jim take a beautiful mature ram. We later invited Tom and his good friend Tim Seitzinger to come out to Wyoming for a self-guided Elk and Mule deer hunt in the high country of Wyoming. Tom took a nice Mule deer buck and Tim had a once in a lifetime chance a 360 plus bull.
Before heading home Tom returned the favor, and offered Jim and I a chance to hunt Whitetails in their home state of Ohio. The hunt turned out to be something neither of us had ever experienced, we literally walked to our stands under the glare of the Columbus city lights. While hunting in Ohio we were able to meet several other of the Bighorn staff. Guy’s like Bob Lott, also an Ohio native, Tim Young, and Danny Godwin who were up from the great state of Florida, they too were trying their luck at one of those giant Ohio bucks. It was this time that we came to know one another and began a friendship that will last till the end of time.
Bob, Jim and I were working with Tom, when I contacted Mike Schmid to set up a spring Turkey hunt at his ranch in Wyoming. This allowed Bob and Jim to become better acquainted with ranch owner Mike Schmid. From there we started the SOS/Bighorn Youth Adventure Program, a program designed to help youth in the outdoors. After about a year, we (Mike, Bob, Jim, and I) were not completely happy with the way the program was going, so we decided to start our own program, as well as a new TV show that would feature more kids in the outdoors.
The idea was to continue our self-guided, hunt swapping attitudes, but also get more kids on film in the outdoors, to help promote our great sport. Mike Schmid came up with the idea to put a segment in every show featuring a kid, and Jim Sessions came up with the name for it. We decided to call it “Get a Child in the Wild”. This attitude is truly shared, without argument, with all of the hunting staff that are connected to Intrepid Outdoors. So as they say the rest is history and I welcome you all to Intrepid Outdoors. Where we will cover all of North Americas Big Game from the peaks to the prairies and everything in-between.
|
