When people ask about my most memorable hunt, they probably expect me to talk about a giant bull or a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

But when I think about hunting, I think about my Dad.

Some of my earliest memories are of following him through the mountains of Oregon. Long before I could keep up, he was teaching me lessons that had very little to do with hunting and everything to do with life. I can still hear him saying, "You'll learn more in a day with me in the woods than you will in school." At the time, I thought he was joking. Looking back, he wasn't.

I skipped more than a few days of school because I wanted to be in the woods with him, and I don't regret a single one.

He taught me how to bugle with nothing more than his voice and a piece of vacuum tube. How to fletch my own wood arrows, sharpen my broadheads, stalk game, and everything in between. All I wanted to be was a hunter like him.

He also introduced me to the magic of September.

Frost-covered sage and juniper glowing orange in the first light. Crisp mountain mornings filled with anticipation. Bulls screaming through dark timber during full-blown rut fests that seemed too wild to be real. Those moments became the backdrop of my childhood. He taught me to protect those days with everything I had. To this day, September remains sacred in our family. No weddings. No vacations. Very few excuses that can compete with elk season.

But it wasn't just elk hunts. It was rainy days on the Oregon Coast, picking apart clear-cuts for blacktails as the last light faded. It was scorching hot Wednesday nights in the summer shooting arrows and barbecuing with our local archery club. Or road trips to the Oregon desert scouting velvet mule deer and watching for arrowheads along the way.

Endless adventure. That is my dad summed up.

More than anything, he taught me the power of persistence and optimism. There were plenty of mornings when I was cold, exhausted, and ready to quit. Days when we'd hunted hard, hadn't heard a bugle, and I could barely convince myself to crawl out of my sleeping bag before daylight.

Somehow, he always believed.

No matter how tough things looked, he had a way of making me feel like success was just over the next ridge, around the next bend, or waiting in the next basin.

When things get difficult, when the odds feel stacked against you, when everyone else starts doubting, you keep moving forward. You stay optimistic. You believe that if you're willing to put in one more day, one more effort, one more try, something good can happen.

That lesson has carried me far beyond the mountains. Through business challenges, disappointments, setbacks, and some of life's hardest moments, I still hear his voice reminding me that we're probably closer than we think.

For years, I followed his trail through the mountains. Then somewhere along the way, without either of us noticing, he started following mine. Not because he had to, but because that's what fathers do. They spend their lives teaching, encouraging, and eventually stepping back just enough to watch their children find their own path.

And now, I'm watching it happen again.

The little kids who once followed me through the woods are becoming young adults who are blazing their own trails in life. Some days I look up and realize I'm getting closer and closer to no longer showing them the way—I'm watching them start to show me. They will become better than I ever was, and that's exactly how it should be.

Hunting has given our family far more than filled tags and mounted trophies. It has given us a language, a tradition, and a connection that spans generations.

The animals are part of the story, but they're not the whole story.

The real story is a grandfather teaching a father, a father teaching a son, and the privilege of watching that trail continue long after your own tracks have faded.

Someday my dad's boots won't be beside mine on the mountain. Someday mine won't be beside my kids. But the lessons, the stories, and the traditions will keep moving forward, carried by the next set of footsteps heading into the dark before daylight.

That's the trail worth following.