You Never Know Where Your Hunting Skills May Take You
By Bill Jordan

First of all, I want to congratulate you on taking this, the most important step of your hunting career. For most of you, it is the beginning of a long journey in our wonderful tradition of hunting. Some of you may be seasoned hunters, grandfathered into their home state hunter education requirements, but looking forward to a hunt of a lifetime away from home and wanting to get the qualifications behind you before the big day arrives.

In any case, you are profiting from the experience and lessons of years and years from trained educators. They go far beyond the hunt to teach you personal responsibility, ethical behavior in the field and many more hunting and life lessons that give color and meaning to the black and white rules of your game regulation manual.

My hunting came early and easily. My father was a devoted hunter and I spent much of my formative years with him, roaming the hills hunting deer and dove on our small farm outside Columbus, Georgia. Sports were also a big part of my life growing up, so much so that I was fortunate enough to be offered football scholarships when I was ready for college. After narrowing my choices between Auburn and Ole Miss, I chose the University of Mississippi, primarily because of the abundance of good hunting within a short drive of campus.

My college football career created a lifetime friendship with roommate and great quarterb ack, Archie Manning, and included two bowl teams, not to mention the hours spent hunting in those prime North Mississippi woods when not in class.

Returning home and settling into the family boat business, my mind was never far away from the woods and waters of my native Georgia. It wasn’t long before I began parlaying my winnings from local bass tournaments into my own hunting company, Spartan Archery Products. I began by thinking of the things hunters needed and, before long, experimented on improving the limited camouflage patterns that we had. By overlaying a leaf pattern on top of a vertical bark pattern, I found it produced a three-dimensional effect that far outperformed anything hunters at the time.

After a lot of work and trial and error, Realtree as born. And, as they say, the rest is history. So, as you embark on this exciting sport of our never lose sight of your dreams and goals. You could be settling into one of the most rewarding pastimes there or, who knows, a career of a lifetime.

Bill Jordan took his love for the outdoors and his keen eye for the environment and founded Realtree in 19 86. Jordan Outdoor Enterprises is now the premier designer and licensor of camouflage in the world. Bill hosts the award-winning Monster bucks video series and the longrunning Realtree Outdoors television series on ESPN2. REALTREE and ADVANTAGE patterns are the preferred patterns of millions of hunters eager to blend in to their  surroundings.