Guide Life: Jeff Colwell
Jacob Morris for SPLIT REED
We all have one friend who may be a little long-winded when it comes to how many birds they saw in a field or saying, “I can get any waterfowl close enough to kiss, feet down in your face!”. Sometimes it happens that way and sometimes it doesn’t. Few people rarely become known for this kind of skill, much less build their entire business model around this, backed with a guaranteed of providing good quality hunts for their clients. “I tell our clients on our Canada goose hunts if we go out and don’t get any opportunities at decoying birds, I am going to re hunt you.” For Jeff Colwell owner and operator at Front Range Guide Service located in Windsor, Colorado. This has become second nature, gained from over 20 years of experience guiding and watching waterfowl from the muddy pits of a crop field.
Most of us go to the doctor to get cured of numerous illnesses or when we are feeling under the weather, but for Jeff, he went to his neighbor, who happened to be a doctor, and found himself with addiction - one that some would say there is no cure for. “Just a few years ago here on the front range in Colorado I was 7 years old and my dad never really did any waterfowl hunting to speak of. There was a man down the street who was a doctor, he is the one that introduced me to duck hunting. I used to fish with some of the guys down the road and I noticed that he had a bunch of duck decoys out one day. I got to talking to him and after getting the okay from my dad. He took me hunting for the first time. I think the first duck I killed was a hen mallard that I water swatted, I was immediately obsessed! My dad even got into it a little bit and started hunting with me. I just grew into it more and more, just becoming this obsession, something that waterfowlers have and understand. It gets in your blood and you can’t get rid of it.” I think we can all agree that we, even as adults still get giddy when opening day rolls around and the smell of the fresh marsh or harvested cropland takes us back to the many memories that we’ve experienced.
History of the Colorado Front Range Goose Population
Can you imagine a time when Colorado, home to some of the best goose hunting (with a mid-winter goose count of around 214,643 as of 2020 - according to the CPW) was basically nonexistent? Jeff recalls “As I started waterfowl hunting we actually had a lot more ducks and fewer geese. Back in the 50’s I believe, there was a guy here in Fort Collins that started the Canada goose project. They hatched 9 Canada goose eggs in a city park in Fort Collins. Today they claim our resident geese population in a 60 miles radius is somewhere between 20,000-50,000 resident geese. Those resident geese started attracting migrant Canada geese that would never before stop here. The lessers and cacklers would just go straight on through to the panhandle in Texas. Now we are fortunate enough in Colorado to shortstop a huge portion of those geese. We get anywhere between 200-500,000 migrant geese. It’s kind of funny the Canada goose population was in the infant stage when I was in the infant stage of my waterfowl hunting. I got to watch the whole thing evolve into what it is today.” That’s what effective conservation looks like! Like in the field of dreams “If you build it and they will come” that’s exactly what happened here all basically from 9 eggs. This not only helped put Colorado on the map, but it preserved the sport for generations to come.
It’s funny how you can look back on all the life experiences or the jobs you’ve had and see how they play a role in the person you are and the position you’re in. Some good and some bad, but all contribute, like with Jeff, to the success he has in the waterfowl business. It all started with a manager position at an outdoor store, “Over time as I got a little older, I was working as a store manager at Sportsman’s Warehouse. I had the opportunity to start guiding for one of the major outfitters here on the Front Range in Colorado. I guided part-time for about 10 years, until I finally decided, "I think I am ready to do this on my own instead of working for someone else.“ So I did and have been kind of rolling along with it ever since, and here we are 12 or 13 years down the road still rolling.” Jeff also took on a lot of other jobs that helped supplement his guiding business. Jobs such as farming, and construction- both of which gave him insight into attracting geese and building duck blinds and pit lids (that he designed and are unique to his operation). Any of the skills you can do yourself will cut down on a lot of business expenses along the way.
For a lot of people in today’s hunting culture, it’s more about stacking piles for the Instagram picture than the sheer enjoyment of the hunt and what goes into that hunt to effort to deceive even the wisest of birds. That’s what gets Jeff's blood pumping, “Anybody that knows me pretty well will tell you, that I could care less if I shoot another Canada goose the rest of my life. Honestly, I just feel this passion and drive that is there to decoy and fool the birds, to actually finishing the geese. That has always been my driving force behind waterfowl hunting. I remember when I was a little kid and we lived on a lake. I would go down in the spring and set out decoys to try to get ducks and geese to decoy. I have always been the kind of person whether it’s waterfowl hunting or elk hunting that instead of the 300-yard shot I would rather take them at 20 yards. It’s the same thing with ducks - can we pass shoot these ducks swinging over the top at 30 yards? Yeah sure we can, are they killable? Absolutely. There are days when you have to do that. But for me, it’s always been that experience of decoying the birds and putting them right there at 10 yards backpedaling.” He added a tip for snow goose hunting: instead of shooting them on that first pass at 50 yards when they look like they are going to flare. Relax, relax, and relax; give them another pass and who knows you may even get them up close and personal the Front Range Style backpedaling. If you want to experience that ‘Front Range Style’ first hand then you need to book a hunt with them, they do duck and Canada goose hunts in Colorado and Nebraska. With Canada geese and ducks being the main quarry on the Front Range, and spring snow geese in Nebraska, they are a premier outfitter with Split Reed and one that has stood the test of time and will continue to do so.
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