Dave Maas credits his father for getting him started with a passion for the outdoors through frequent family fishing trips to central Ontario and hunting trips to northern Minnesota. Carrying his dad’s trusty .30-30 lever-action rifle with open sights, Dave shot his first deer, a big-bodied mature white-tailed doe, nearly 30 years ago.
Although Dave hunted and fished regularly during junior high and high school, it wasn’t until he attended St. John’s University in the whitetail-rich farmlands of central Minnesota that bowhunting became his obsession. In fact, it was common for him to receive strange looks from fellow students as he peddled across campus wearing full camo, his recurve bow strapped to the rack of his bicycle. The adjacent farms held big bucks, and both before and after classes Dave was usually in full pursuit.
After graduating with honors with degrees in mathematics and secondary education, Dave decided to decline a couple teaching offers and instead rolled the dice on a career in the fishing industry. During the next several years he taught people how to build custom fishing rods, ran a mail-order muskie fishing catalog, guided for five summers at In-Fisherman’s Camp Fish, guided fly anglers in Alaska one summer at Bristol Bay Lodge, and basically spent a lot of time on the water.
In the mid-1990s, Dave landed a job with a publishing company that produced fishing and hunting books. As an editor for Creative Publishing International, he worked with many of the top freelance writers and photographers in the outdoor industry. In June of 2002, the managing editor position opened up with North American Hunter magazine, so Dave made the career change from books to magazines.
Today, Dave is a co-host of “North American Hunter-TV,” as well as managing editor of North American Hunter magazine. Some of his favorite work trips have included hunts for Alabama turkeys, Alberta black bears, California wild boar, Colorado elk, Kentucky whitetails, Northwest Territories’ caribou and Wyoming pronghorns.
During his vacations, Dave “lives in a treestand” while bowhunting whitetails on family property in eastern South Dakota and western Wisconsin. While he still hunts regularly with his dad, brother and high school friends, he also shares the outdoors with his wife, Jodi. Together, Dave and Jodi hope to introduce their two young sons to the joys of a hunting and fishing lifestyle.