Believe it or not, Queens, NY is where I started to develop a love for the outdoors as a child.  My dad would take me fishing at a nearby bridge that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean.  On other trips, we would fish at a beach.  I can remember climbing the nearby trees while my dad watched our fishing poles for any bites.  When I was 9 years old we moved out to Arizona.  It was like living on another planet to me.  Mountains were something that never graced my vision before moving here.

The opportunity for hunting and fishing was way more accessible than back in the big apple and my family took advantage of it.  There was a time as a youngster that we would go camping and fishing every weekend.   Every fall we were met with a deer hunting trip and every fall we never brought home a deer, haha.

That didn’t matter though.  What I got out of those trips was far more valuable than a nice buck on the wall.  They gave me the fusing passion that I have today.

When I started down this path, hunting was something that I thought would only be a once a year thing.  Something that would kind of linger in the back of my mind until the time came.  Since then, it has evolved into something far greater.  Not a day goes by that I am not actively doing something in the name of my passion.  Be it shooting my bow, scouting, writing about hunting, or enjoying the fruits of my labor cooking wild game, it has become a constant in my life.  Backcountry bowhunting and bear hunting are two things that never seem to leave my mind.  This walk has become so much more than just filling a tag.  It is everything that surrounds doing so that has truly captivated me.