Colorado Parks and Wildlife releases “My First Big Game Hunt” video series

“My First Big Game Hunt” is a 16-part video series from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. It debuted in November.

The series introduces non-hunters to hunting through the journey of Crystal Egli. Egli is a videographer for CPW, who had no resources or connections to hunting until she joined the agency, and decided to give it a try as an adult.

New videos in the series are released weekly on Mondays.  Egli filmed and edited each video over the course of a year, documenting every step of her passage from realizing her fear of firearms to going into the field with a mentor to becoming a mentor herself to new hunters.

“Before I started working for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, I wasn’t for or against hunting. I knew it was something some people did, but it never occurred to me that it would ever be something I would do,” said Egli.

Having grown up in rural Vermont, Egli is passionate about conservation and making the outdoors accessible for all. Although she grew up exploring the outdoors, Egli never considered hunting because she was terrified of firearms.

“It took me a while to realize that the only barrier I had to hunting was my intense fear of firearms,” said Egli. “Once I was able to overcome that through hunter education and my mentors, I was able to switch my mode of thinking from, ‘there might be an accident around me’ to ‘there will be one less accident because of me.’”

Experiencing hunting allowed her to see firearms as a tool to harvest sustainable and affordable organic meat. Participating in the field brought Egli an even deeper understanding of how hunting contributes to conservation and wildlife management. Now she is an avid hunter who mentors and supports other new hunters on their own hunting journeys.

“I wanted to make this series to show people that if someone like me, a millennial who lives in a city and is terrified of guns, can learn how to hunt, then anyone who wants to can do it too.”

Join Crystal on her hunting journey as she first learns the steps necessary to hunt big game in Colorado. New episodes will be posted weekly on Mondays at 3 p.m. Mountain time on the “My First Big Game Hunt” playlist on the CPW YouTube page. Subscribe and turn on notifications to be updated with each new episode.

Crystal is eager to bring locally sourced meat to her family while learning new ways to connect to the outdoors with her hunting mentor. To learn more about how to start your own hunting journey, visit cpw.state.co.us.