BLAKE POND

“The best part of being outdoors is just getting together with others.”—Blake Pond, founder of Arkansas Outdoors Society.

As a lifelong outdoorsman, Blake Pond has a firm appreciation for the quality of Arkansas’s wild spaces and the hunting, fishing and nonconsumptive sports that go with them.

As founder of the Arkansas Outdoors Society, a group sponsored through the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation, Pond seeks to engage his fellow 30-somethings — as well as young adults coming up after him — in these same natural adventures.

“Here’s the thing for me: I think once you’re experienced in the outdoors, there is a common bond shared by hunters and anglers that I think transcends age, gender, race, ethnicity,” Pond said. “The best part of being outdoors is just getting together with others and talking about what you saw and did. Everybody’s got a story to tell.”

Pond’s story came into focus during the 16 years he lived in Texas. There, he learned of a young adult group called Stewards of the Wild, sponsored by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, which was formed with the purpose of getting individuals who were new to outdoor activities into the open air. Upon returning to Arkansas, Pond saw potential for a similar group in The Natural State.

“They were a group of young adults who were trying to get their peers involved in hunting and fishing; it was a great organization,” Pond said. “When we moved to Little Rock, I ran into (AGFF President) Deke Whitbeck, probably in early 2018. I brought that idea up to him.”

Whitbeck loved the idea and the duo gathered together similarly minded individuals to sketch out AOS and comprise the first board of directors. By 2019, the member-driven organization was born, targeting 21- to 45-year-olds.

“Our mission statement is to support the Game and Fish Foundation by initiating and maintaining interest in hunting, fishing and the outdoors; raising awareness to wildlife conservation issues; respecting the future of the outdoors in Arkansas; and creating sustaining supporters of the preservation of our hunting, fishing and wildlife heritage,” Pond said. “We want to carry the torch for the generations before us to the generations after us so that all these things that we love, that we enjoy, are still there in the future.”

The group accomplishes its mission through various outdoor events that help the uninitiated learn the finer points of a variety of consumptive and nonconsumptive activities.

“Some of the events that we have hosted so far are dove hunts where we’ll bring someone who’s never been dove hunting before and pair them with someone to show them what to do,” Pond said. “We’ve done mentored deer hunts taking people who’ve never killed a deer before. During COVID, we hosted a virtual fishing tournament.”

Despite an easing of events due to the pandemic, AOS has quickly grown its membership and now includes chapters in both Central and Northwest Arkansas. Pond said more activities are on the way that will allow more people to engage in the outdoors in new ways.

“Being a part of that is so much fun,” he said. “When you take someone on their first hunt, whether it’s getting their first gobbler, a trout on the fly or their first mallard drake or their first buck, I mean, there is nothing like seeing that excitement. It’s an experience they will never forget.

“By ushering them through that process, the hope is that they will take that with them and they’ll want to replicate that as many times as possible. And, hopefully, there will be a ripple effect where they’ll share that with more and more people and it just continues to snowball from there.”