It all started back in South Dakota many years ago when I was born. I didn’t know it at the time because I was just a wee little baby, and all I was doing was eating and pooping, but I would grow up to love the outdoors.
I started this website to share my outdoor interests with all who care to come here and read about it. I enjoy camping, bushcrafting, hiking, fishing, canoeing, hunting (watching and harvesting), and everything in between.
My dad got me started young, around age four and five, when he would take for walks in the woods around our house. Later I joined Cub Scouts and went on some pack and troop camping trips. He also took me fishing whenever he could. I really loved fishing… my grandparents owned a cabin on Bone Lake in Wisconsin and I have vivid memories going there with my mom and dad and fishing off the dock.
My dad also took me hunting. The first time I think I was six and we headed into the woods to get a squirrel. It was my first lesson learning where meat came from. We harvested one Grey Squirrel. I watched him field dress it, cook it, and we both ate it. Later when old enough I took hunter safety and learned to hunt on my own.
Over the years I’ve hunted all over for white tail deer, mule deer, black bear, antelope, free roaming bison, and of course small game such as squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, grouse, and woodcock… to name a few. I am not a avid hunter, but I do hunt. I go mostly to enjoy being in the Great Outdoors, and occasionally take some meat for the table.
My real passion for the outdoors is camping and fishing. In particular I enjoy canoe tripping, like in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I used to live in Ely, Minnesota… Canoe Country… oh how I wouldn’t mind returning to those days of my late teens when I went to Vermilion College in Ely.
Sadly around 2009 my level of outdoor activities plunged. I met a nice lady and things got serious. Sometimes things come along in our lives that causes focus and interests to change. And for me I didn’t get out nearly as much as usual to camp and fish. But more than that I started eating a lot of fast food – it was convenient to eat on I admit I like eating it. Of course I began putting on a lot of weight, fast.
When I started this blog I weighed 335 pounds! Be sure to check out my Overweight Outdoorsman posts here on this site to see how my weight loss progresses as I return to a more active outdoor lifestyle.
One aspect of the reason I started this website was to document my getting back into the the outdoors. But another reason that came about in December of 2018 was to document and share my weight loss as an overweight outdoorsman. As of 4/19/18 I am down to 286 lbs, loosing about ten pounds per month over the past four months.
UPDATE 6/1/18: Back from my BWCA trip a week ago and I weighed in at 274 lbs.
I plan to use this website to share my outdoor experiences. I also plan to do some product reviews of gear that I like to use. I will also be sharing some weight lose progress along the way.
I always knew I was hefty and needed to loose weight “someday”. But then in late 2017 when bow hunting and dragging a moderate sized deer out of the woods I had a wake-up call. I was huffing and puffing and sucking wind hard, stopping every twenty feet to rest for several minutes.
I’d never had that hard of time doing a drag. It really caught me by surprise and made me realize “someday” was that day.
TD