Established 2013-that’s when this journey truly began, although I had no clue at the time.  

In January of 2013 God blessed me in an amazing way.  He made me a father for the first time. While changing my life in amazing ways for the better, it forever changed the way I approached hunting and exploring the outdoors.  

I was no stranger to hunting as a child.  Growing up, my grandfather hunted rabbits, training and trading beagle hounds in the off season, and my dad had a passion for quail hunting and bird dogs. Though they both only routinely hunted their one chosen species, they did so with a passion that words cannot do justice.  My uncle and cousins introduced me to deer hunting in my teenage years but I didn’t pursue it much before military service and, later, a career with the Kentucky State Police took me away from my home in Central Kentucky and put my outdoor pursuits on pause.  

It was my wife Shelley who re-kindled my interests in deer hunting, with me mostly going hunting to take her.  Shelley, who had been introduced to the sport by her cousins and had killed her first deer while I was preparing to deploy to Iraq in 2004, and as time wore on I became more and more consumed with the sport. Around 2010, I picked a compound bow back up and hunted hard from the beginning of season until it ended.  

Then, in January of 2013 we were blessed with Kason Blaine.  I had no clue at the time, but he would change the way I approached the outdoors more than any other part of my life.  Until I became a father, getting outdoors was simply a matter of waiting until my work schedule allowed and then doing what I wanted to.  Babies change everything, and I quickly learned that I had to be much more intentional about the time I got to hunt.  I still made plenty of time, but I knew those fleeting moments with a baby would be gone, so I tried to prioritize parenthood.  

Fast forward a few years, Rhett Thomas was born and Kason, who was 5 and just starting to explore the outdoors, started hunting with me.  That’s what this blog is about.  My transition from a carefree outdoorsman to a father, growing in my faith and beginning to look at the outdoors not only as a place to go have fun, but to enjoy time with my sons and to focus on the true gifts God gives us.   

I also truly came to appreciate that the hunt is in the preparation and months leading up to that crisp fall morning in a hardwood stand as it is in the thrill of the shot itself.   My sons have unique and different interests in the outdoors than I do, and that has forced me into other focal areas that I hadn’t explored much (like fishing).  

What better way than to use skills learned from other entrepeneural ventures to write about these outdoor adventures in an outdoor blog and share the fun! This blog is about exploring the outdoors-finding unique and more exciting ways to do so, growing as a father, and, above all, trying to grow into the type of man that God intends us to be.  

Follow me on this journey, and let’s grow together.