TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
To this day, Ryan considers his family, and the boys he grew up with, to be his greatest influences and mentors. Ryan says he always hunted hard with the “Texarkana boys,” and still comes home every winter to go out and see family and friends. He has a camp in Arkansas and recently bought a few acres for his family on Millwood Lake, which at one point had some of the best duck hunting in the area. No matter where his adventures have taken him in the past or where he goes in the future, Ryan claims Arkansas, around Texarkana, will always be his favorite place to hunt. Since childhood, Ryan has learned a lot on his own, from good ole’ trial and error, and all the different people with whom he has hunted. When he was a kid, he had to walk and search a little harder for each new conquest, but like with most things today, accessibility has gotten easier with technology. As he started going out in different places, he learned new things as well; he discovered how to dry-field hunt, which, for him, brought totally new aspects to the way he approached the sport. After graduating from Texas High in 1996, Ryan’s journey took him to College Station, where he spent three years, until some old friends invited him to the Smoky Mountains. Once there, he was introduced to river rafting. It was a game changer and quickly ended his college career. He jumped in with both feet and became a rafting guide. He has since led groups through rivers all across the Southeast United States, and even into South America, including world-renowned rivers in Peru. As he continued to travel the world, he spent time in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for skiing, and then on to California. There he learned the twists and turns of his all-time favorite location for rafting, the forks of The Kern River. Riding rapids will always be one of Ryan’s biggest passions. After several years of extreme adventure, Ryan moved north to Montana. A resident of Bozeman for 15 years now, he is happily married to the love of his life, Alexa, with whom he shares a young son named Hiram. Even though Alexa is not a hunter herself, she appreciates the food Ryan brings home and always prefers wild game to anything available in stores. Ryan claims his son is his “mini-me,” and
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SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
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