My passion for the outdoors started when I was three years old. I remember following Dad and grandpa down trapping trials checking beaver traps and resetting martin boxes. At the time I never realized how important those trips were going to be.

    

Over the next 10 years fishing would be my new life. I would follow Dad fishing backyard rivers like the Berlin, Little Smokey, Wild hay and many other clear mountain streams casting flies and spinners to Whitefish and bull trout. There were always plenty of fish that kept us amused throughout the day.

  

We would spend many summers in the Yukon stopping at creek crossings and Puddle Lakes where we would cast flies at eager grayling and lake trout. Camping along lakes, eating fresh fish, chaseing rabbits with recurve bows and exploring around camp would drive this outdoor passion deeper within me.

    

It wasn’t till I was twelve years old that bow hunting really began for me. Dad bought me my first compound bow and a fist full or arrows. I would walk our back quarter and attempt to harass as many small creatures as I could, with all my arrow flinging! Over the next four years archery went from a passion to a complete obsession, I couldn’t wait to start chasing big game.

    

My sixteenth birthday came and went, with a drivers licence in hand I would go and write my hunter course. Passing the course I couldn’t wait for fall. From that day on my obsession grew with leaps and bounds and the self-taught art of archery grew within me. For me, getting a trophy animal was never the most important; being out in nature and the thrill of the hunt was what fed my passion. The more I could figure out about each species the more successful I became. Nature has truly taught me some valuable lessons over my twenty six years with a bow in hand. I believe as a hunter it’s not so much how you handle your successes but how you accept your defeats that drive you to be better. There’s no doubt we are all after the biggest,oldest and best animal possible but don’t forget the true lessons nature can teach you , greed and ego can destroy what could have been a wonderful outdoor experience.