Dave was born in 1948, at Mitchell, South Dakota, and hunted and fished from the time he was 10 years old and his dad moved the family out into the country south of town.
He worked while he was in high school at a mink ranch, doing everything that needed to be done all the way to harvesting the mink in the fall, plus he ran a trap line before going to high school in the morning trapping muskrat, and mink.
Dave spent (3) years in the U.S. Army, which included a tour in Viet Nam running the casualty branch for the Americal Division (23rd Infantry), coming home to attend college at Dakota Wesleyan University for (1) year, before moving to Rapid City to live.
Dave was a meat cutter, and started his own meat market (Dave’s Olde Fashioned Meat Market) in 1977, which branched into a fresh fish operation, plus a smoked meat operation making Jerky, and all smoked meats. Dave also made smoked salmon for Governor Janklow’s annual ball for (3) years until the Governor stepped down. Dave still dabbles in smoking deer meat once he was able to start eating it again after cleaning up after everybody on their deer.
Dave sold these businesses and started into the telephone business specializing in hotel/motel system installation and maintenance, which branched out into an answering service to better take care of his customers.
Dave started to think about starting an outdoor show in the summer of 2012 when he couldn’t find a pheasant show to watch. This has branched into a show featuring physically and mentally disabled veterans on family retreats, hunting, and fishing retreats. Dave’s PTSD came to the forefront and he wants to help other veterans in the same soup.
Dave is married to the love of his life Marian, and he was (2) sons named Paul, and Steve.
Dave still hunts and fishes as much as he can, and his largest walleye is 13 # 6 oz while his largest whitetail buck is a respectable 155”, 21 inch wide, 6-point buck.
Going for bigger!