Welcome to the Country Trailhead Newsletter

Why This Exists

I'm David Rodgers, and I built Country Trailhead because too much outdoors advice online is either written by someone who's never actually done the thing, or it's so generic it could apply to any hobby with the nouns swapped out. This newsletter is the place I'll actually talk to you directly — what's worth knowing this week, why a piece of gear works the way it does, and the stuff I wish someone had told me before I learned it the hard way.

My own background isn't a straight line into the outdoors industry, and I think that's actually useful context for how I approach this site. I spent time as a Marine Corps infantryman, which is where a lot of my comfort with land navigation, weather judgment, and just being genuinely uncomfortable in the field for long stretches actually comes from. I've also served as a colonel in Civil Air Patrol, which sharpened the search-and-rescue and aviation-adjacent side of outdoor safety thinking — reading terrain and weather isn't just a hunting skill, it's a survival skill. And before any of that, I was an Eagle Scout, which is honestly where the whole thing started: campfires, knots, land navigation, and the habit of actually finishing what you start.

None of that makes me the single best hunter or angler you'll ever read — plenty of people have more hours in a specific deer stand or a specific trout stream than I do. What it does give me is a genuine, tested feel for the fundamentals that hold up across hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and gear decisions generally, and a low tolerance for advice that sounds good but hasn't actually been field-tested.

What to Expect

This newsletter isn't going to replace the in-depth guides already on the site — those stay the definitive, long-form resource for a given topic. Instead, think of this as the shorter, more personal companion: what I'm noticing this season, a gear breakdown that didn't need a full guide of its own, a regulation change worth flagging, or just a genuinely useful tip that's too small to be its own article but too good to sit on.

A few things you can count on:

• No fluff, same as the rest of the site. If an issue doesn't teach you something concrete, it wasn't worth sending.
• Honest gear opinions. I'll tell you when the cheaper option is genuinely fine and when it isn't — the goal is your success in the field, not a sale.
• A mix across every category the site covers — hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, gear, and stargazing — not just whatever I personally did most recently.
• A clear next step every issue — a guide to read, a wizard to run, or a state resource to check, never a dead end.

Where to Start

If you're new here, the Gear Finder Wizards are the fastest way to get a specific recommendation for a rifle, rod, tent, bow, backpack, or pair of boots. If you already know what you're after, the guide library has in-depth breakdowns across all six categories, and the State Resources page will point you to your specific state's official licensing, seasons, and camping reservation systems — that last one matters more than people expect, since regulations genuinely vary a lot state to state.

Glad to have you here. More soon.

— David