Spokane hunter and entrepreneur teaches others how to be their best
It’s amazing the people you meet along this journey called life. People come and go, and occasionally, you cross paths with a person who leaves a lasting impression, someone who has a unique gift of sharing their passion and changing lives. Meet Dan Staton.
A fitness guru and obsessed elk hunter, Dan has turned his passions into his livelihood. Through his business, ElkShape, Dan not only teaches people how to become better elk hunters but he inspires them to become the best version of themselves.
I’ve always been intrigued with the paths people have taken to achieve their success. Most stories about their journey include failures. Their passion, drive and ability to learn from their mistakes are what propel them. But it’s not always an easy task combining one’s passion with work and family commitments. Passions can evolve into obsessions, which like addictions can sometimes ruin a person.
“We all know someone whose obsession impacted their lives in a negative way. That’s not Dan,” said Jeff Bynum, one of ElkShape’s 10 coaches. “He’s a unique individual, but what makes him unique is his ability to leverage his passion for elk hunting, maintaining the highest levels of self-discipline across his faith, family, fitness and finances.”
» Discovering a passion
Dan, who lives in Spokane, grew up in the small town of Elk, Wash. His father, Rod, was a pastor at a small church and an avid deer hunter. The Staton family table fare regularly consisted of venison. “I remember when I was a little kid and asking my mom, ‘When are we going to have something besides deer? I’m seriously getting tired of deer,’” Dan recalled with a chuckle.
At 10 years old, Dan started following his father around the local woods grouse hunting. Three years later, Dan earned his hunter safety card. “I got my first deer when I was 13 and it was a pretty nice buck,” he said, smiling as he showed me the photo his father took of that memorable day.
School sports took over and between wrestling, baseball, football and skiing Dan didn’t hunt until after he graduated high school. “I asked my dad if he wanted to go deer hunting,” he said. “We saw some elk that day and we didn’t think much of it. When we got home, my dad looked at the regs and said, ‘Elk opens next weekend, we should get elk tags and see if we can get an elk.’… And that’s where it all started.”
The next weekend on opening day, Dan harvested his first elk only a few short minutes after legal shooting light. Dan recalled the pivotal moment: “As the elk was processed, I remember seeing a sea of white packages and I’m like, I am feeding our entire a family for a year. I need to know more about this.” That first elk hunt would make a big impact on Dan and ignite a passion in him that would direct the course of his life.
» Harnessing an obsession
That next year, Dan bought a bow and learned quickly just how tough archery elk hunting can be. For the next five years he hunted relentlessly each September before he harvested another Elk. “I spent five seasons in Idaho getting my teeth kicked in, and I’m not talking just hunting weekends. I’m talking I’m not going to work. I’m hunting for all 30 days. I think it’s important that I struggled, and it didn’t come easy, and that’s probably why this passion is still so strong today,” Dan said.
During those learning curve years, Dan would return home with an unnotched elk tag in his hand determined to become a better elk hunter. “I’d come back home and I would obsess on what I can get better at,” he said. “I didn’t like this feeling of failure. I despised it. I would work out more. I would shoot more. I’d hire an archery coach. I’d learn how to read maps better, go to seminars. I would read anything and everything on elk behavior biology so I could be a better elk hunter.”
This obsession led to self-discipline, which had a positive effect on Dan. “Elk hunting kind of changed my life because I realized if you are willing to put all the work in and lift up every stone and look under it, you’ll get where you want to be,” he said. “It helped me narrow my focus that led into other things. And just like that, because I was making these discipline decisions, my life started improving.”
After several years of success on the mountain, Dan realized there’s a formula for getting an elk. “You can get an elk every couple years … if you have a good spot or if you have money. But if you don’t have a great spot or an abundance of money, you have to be prepared. I have a mantra: Separations in the Preparation, and it starts the second elk seasons over when most guys are like, ugh, elk season’s over. Darn, maybe next year.”
Dan’s groundwork for the next year starts immediately after that season has finished. “It’s a full circle of preparation, and there’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I can’t do something in the name of better elk hunting,” he said. “Even if it’s just a 15-minute workout, a 15-minute shooting session or a 15-minute E-scouting session.”
» Putting it all together
In 2006, Dan started sharing his knowledge of both of his passions, fitness and elk hunting. He wrote articles for publications and even had a monthly column in Bowhunter Magazine, where he was a fitness specialist. Dan was also a partner in two Crossfit gyms in the Spokane area. In 2010, he and his business partner created a web-based “workout of the day” for hunters, called Train to Hunt.
After a couple of years, Dan and his partner parted ways. Dan focused on what really drove him and in 2013, he started ElkShape, a website that would give him an outlet to blog his workouts, journal his hunts and host a digital library of his past articles and videos.
Over the next few years, Dan added some social media platforms including a YouTube channel and began podcasting. His first podcast in 2017 on how to shorten the elk hunting learning curve was a hit. “That podcast crushed it and gave momentum for the brand,” Dan said.
Over the next few years ElkShape grew by the thousands with more and more aspiring elk hunters from across the nation tuning into Dan’s ElkShape YouTube channel, podcasts and Instagram page.
» Branching out
After watching the popularity of his posts grow, Dan had what he called an epiphany. “I’m going to host an ElkShape camp. If they want to come to town, I’m going to introduce them to the style of working out that I think will prepare you for elk hunting.”
He reached out to some of his good friends in the industry and asked them to help with what would be the first ElkShape camp. He wanted them to help coach the aspiring elk hunters on what they specialized in, such as gear, shooting skills, nutrition and fitness, e-scouting, how to make the proper elk sounds all the way down to managing finances and homelife.
Dan’s plan: make it a fun weekend and limit it to 20 guys. “I put it out there on social media and it sold out in one night,” Dan said. Today, ElkShape camps have grown to 40 participants per camp with several locations around the U.S. Dan and the ElkShape coaches travel around the country putting on camps.
“The response and participation has been overwhelming,” Dan said. “We’re at a point now where we kind of look at what place would be the best experience for the campers. We’ve been selling out a majority of our camps six months out before the camp.”
ElkShape camps are attracting women as well. “It’s not just male driven,” Dan said. “We have ladies showing up, and now we want to do a women’s only camp, make it more inclusive and knock down some barriers because there’s ladies out there that want to get out there and hunt elk.”
What you leave with after an ElkShape camp can impact you for a lifetime. “Dan’s mastered, blueprinted and is teaching in ElkShape camps how to be the husband, father, wife, mother or leader in your household or business through developing a healthy lifestyle of self-discipline,” said Jeff, who teaches the finance segment at the camps. “ElkShape camps teach you how focusing on these areas of life are just as important as calling, scouting and elk tactics.”
Dan knows how much the camp has helped people become elk hunters. But what he didn’t expect to see and what he enjoys most about hosting the camp is how it has changed people’s lives, particularly those who have struggled.
“The profound effect this camp has had on people that were battling things that I never knew looking at them from the outside,” he said, noting that many military veterans come to ElkShape. “This way of life is therapy for them. This is a way for them to put that stuff aside and just be themselves and enjoy God’s creation.” N
By Bob Legasa
