By DAUN EIERDAM
Editor Joshua Star

  Brian Doty may be the first Joshuan ever to have his own nationally-televised show. Whether he is or not, Brian Doty’s Xtreme Outdoor Adventures is playing right now on a television set near you. Doty said his network, The Sportsman’s Channel, is “All hunting, All fishing, All the time!”.
 

  “XOA” debuted last week with an episode in which Doty roams the woods in North Alberta, Canada, in search of bear, armed with bow and arrow. This week’s episode feature’s Doty’s wife, Misty, as she tramps across South Texas in a quest to bag an axis, which crossword puzzle fans will recognize as an exotic, spotted deer not native to this continent. Next week, Brian takes gun and bow to Groesbeck on a hog hunt.
 

  The Doty’s are both 1996 graduates of Joshua High School. Brian was a standout in football and baseball until a car wreck ended his playing career. Misty was a cheerleader, egging on the boy she first met in fourth grade. These days, Misty is a nurse at Cook’s Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, having graduated with a degree in nursing from Southwestern Adventist University in Keene. 
 

  Doty first went hunting with his dad, Tommy, at the age of about five. He shot his first game, a possum, at age 8 and bagged his first deer when he was about 11. “That was a time that me and my dad spent together,” Doty recalls. “There was no one else around, there were no phones. How I learned to hunt was one step behind him.” And like father, like son. Doty is teaching his six-year-old, Hunter, how to hunt in the same manner. The only difference is that Brian’s dad didn’t name his son after his favorite hobby. 
 

  Doty’s original career track was in construction; for several years, hunting and fishing were just part-time occupations. Gradually, however, hunting came more and more to the fore — and started paying. Hunting grew from part-time recreation to full-time profession thanks to the sale of DVDs, seminars, endorsements and now television. Doty, like many entrepreneurs before him, looked at the field and decided to specialize.

  Deer-hunting videos and products are as ubiquitous in hunting as bobble-head dolls are in baseball. Doty decided the real money, at least for him, was in the less-crowded field of predator hunting. When he started out, there was nothing on the market to teach hunters how to go after foxes, coyotes and bobcats. Doty said he began approaching farmers and asking if he could shoot predators on their farms. “They almost wanted to pay me,” Doty said of the response. So the former football star started shooting predators and that led to his first DVD. The DVD, in turn, led to requests for seminars and his business began to grow. Doty finally sold his construction business about a year ago.
 

  The hunter-turned-broadcaster said he’d like to continue his show and hopes his growing fame leads to more product endorsements. He eventually wants to buy a ranch and build a lodge for other game hunters.

  Doty said there is an aspect of his career that doesn’t pay so well, but may be more rewarding. He said he’d like to start working with children. That idea was sparked last year when the JHS ag department asked him to address a class on wildlife management. Doty didn’t talk much conservation that day; instead, he told the students that if they set their minds to something and focused, they could be anything they wanted to be.

  Now, Doty said, he wants to work with charitable organizations, groups that can help underprivileged kids get to know the joys of the outdoor life. Such programs could “show them how to do things that won’t get you into trouble, which teaches patience and respect.”
 

  In the meantime, the Joshuan will continue to “hook” a national audience in the “hunt” for TV ratings.
To learn more about Doty, check out BrianDotyOutdoors.com.