I am a poor ol’ dumb’ country boy born, and pretty much raised in Orlando Florida during the pre-disney days when there were many more dirt roads than there were paved ones.
I hail from a long line of country folk, most of whom are from Alabama and Mississippi and all migrated to the boom town’s of Florida during the depression years.
1/2 of my family are of Irish descent and the other 1/2 is Native American. The Native American side (Matriarchal), which for the most part, are from the Choctaw reservation in Mississippi.
And they were probably the most influential in my outdoor and hunting education while growing up in the back water swamp lands of Florida.

Although, I will have to give my dad, Thomas Coleman Riddle and his brother, A.B. Riddle (Uncle Buddy) Both with Irish and Cherokee blood in their veins, much of the credit for teaching me the proper technique and edict’s in ethical sport hunting. Because the other side of my family were strictly sustenance hunters and method of take was not of major concern to them.
So I really had the best of both worlds to teach me about Tracking, Stalking and Ambush techniques in order to harvest wild game animals!

I came to California in 1980 to pursue my dream of making a living in the music industry, played in various bands, signed some recording deals, toured extensively, and in the interim, sort of forgot about hunting for a few years. The pursuit of the opposite sex being chiefly one of those reason’s for staying out of the woods and in the city for awhile. But the urge to go back and into the wild was always with me, calling out each time that I would find myself high up on a mountain top, or driving through remote wilderness areas.

One day, somewhere around “84″ or “85″ My friend Wally Bohn, and I were conversing about hunting. This being initiated by me because of the fact that his son, the drummer in my previous band, and all of the guys associated with my current band all were flat broke, and so hungry that we could have eaten a horse raw and alive. I told Wally that I should take up hunting again so that I might be able to at least keep us in meat until the next pay day!

Ol’ Wally, an accomplished sustenance hunter himself from Oklahoma, just laughed and said to me: Boy! That will be the most expensive piece of meat you will ever eat!
It was not until a few years later that I fully understood what Wally was talking about. Hunting License, Tags, Ammo, Equipment, Fuel to travel to, Access Fees (even into some wilderness areas) etc. etc. And then after the game is down, transport and to the butcher (because you know those city bred musicians are not gonna’ eat meat that ain’t cellophane packaged all nice and pretty)

So, here I am today older a little wiser and thoroughly enjoying life with my very beautiful wife and two young children, a smart and sassy four year old girl named Morgan Yi-An and a rough and tumble little two year old boy named Coleman Yi-Gang Riddle. Both of whom I take out and into the woods every single chance that I get, so that I may pass on to them what I have learned over the past 50 years upon this big, blue planet of ours.

Just as my ancestors the Chocktaw have been doing for almost 8,000 years, we all eventually return to the forest, and to the hunt at some point in our lives.