(ABC 6 News) – I met my guide just before dawn.

About five miles outside of Le Roy, Minnesota, I sat in my pickup truck in the dark, waiting on a back road between plots of farmland and patches of trees for the shine of headlights that would signal his arrival.

Having moved to Rochester from Texas barely six months prior, I hadn’t yet adjusted to the cold so I was four layers of clothes deep with the heat cranked as high as it would go like I was cooking a Thanksgiving turkey.

I had never been on a hunting trip before, let alone outside in 30 degree temperatures for more than an hour, so I wasn’t taking any chances.

Five minutes into the waiting, a pair of headlights slow at the intersection behind, turning onto the back road casting the darkness around me aside.

I step out of the warmth into the biting cold I’ll be spending the next few hours of my life in and approach the young man who will show me the ways of the Minnesotan hunter.

Josiah Woltmann, a 23-year-old native of Le Roy, is chipper.

Decked out in the typical camouflage and neon orange color known as “hunter blaze,” his long blond hair, goatee and rough, scarred hands hide the fact that I’m two years older than him.

I feel a little out of my element, but at least the stranger I’ve been talking to on Facebook for a couple weeks is a real person.

Josiah has lived in and around Le Roy his entire life, moving into the town proper when he was in high school. He’s always been an outdoors-man, hunting chipmunks and squirrels with BB-guns with his siblings on the big country farm they grew up on.

“It kind of just gave us a drive to be out there,” he says. “We never really had video games and stuff so we just kind of went straight to the hunting and fishing.”

Josiah got serious into hunting when he was about eight, moving up into real firearms and taking down larger game.

It’s that decade-plus experience I’m hoping to tap into to make up for my significant lack thereof.

Josiah lent me an extra pair of coveralls to throw on over the layers I already had. He said because we have to sit so still to let the deer get close, the cold sets in more than you’d think.

He also gave me a blaze orange vest and beanie, required by law during the firearms deer season.

Grabbing his shotgun and a decoy doe from his truck, made our way out to the hunting spot.

In near-pitch black, we hiked out to a ground blind Josiah’s brother set up the day before. We walked quietly, each step measured and careful as our eyes adjusted to the lack of light, to keep from spooking our potential quarry in the trees.

This site, a tiny patch of woods and field tucked in amongst hundreds of acres of farmland, was full of deer just days before, according to Josiah.

We hoped we’d be lucky enough to see something.

Last year, only about a quarter of Minnesota’s registered hunters actually harvested a deer – but that isn’t always the right metric if you’re trying to figure out the average success of a hunting trip.

“I like to look at it more from learning perspective,” Josiah says. “Instead of just trying to kill something, I’m trying to get better.”

Hunting is a huge part of Minnesota’s culture, and it’s economy.

Things like tourism or the sale of licenses, weapons and ammunition generate $1.2 billion for the state.

According to the Department of Natural Resources Commissioner, Sarah Strommen, that money is key to boosting communities throughout the state.

“The thing I love about the deer opener is it becomes very visible, that economic impact,” she says. “You see in communities all across Minnesota from the south to the north that influx of hunters in their blaze orange. So we can look at that economic impact in terms of the dollars but you can also see it very visibly.”

That kind of money also helps keep conservation efforts alive.

Sales of hunting and fishing license contribute to Minnesota’s Game and Fish Fund, and all purchases of firearms, ammunition and any other hunting related items include a federal excise tax that gets distributed nationwide, a point of pride for many hunters.

“For many, the tradition of deer hunting really is about that conservation or being part of that management aspect,” Strommen says. “Even if you are doing it for a recreational purpose, it is that time in nature which also spurs a sense of stewardship and conservation. The things that we have personal experience with are often then the things we work to protect.”

As Josiah and I sat in the blind, the sun slowly began to eek out above the horizon. It was a slow morning.

Before the first rays of light, a yearling deer, between its’ first and second year of life, ran out from the tree line up to the decoy Josiah had placed only a few yards away.

We could barely make out its form against the background of the open field across from us. Too dark to take a shot, we watched as it cautiously investigated the decoy before springing back into the safety of tree cover.

For the rest of the morning, we sat in silence, occasionally breaking the quiet to whisper a conversation.

For the most part, hunting is waiting.

Waiting for the right moment. The right sound. The right buck.

A lot of it is also just enjoying the feeling of being outside.

Building a love of the outdoors in others is a passion of Josiah’s.

“I feel like it’s just really cool to be that guy who’s creating an experience for somebody that they’re never gonna forget,” he says.

Him and his brother, Joshua, run their own business, Woltmann Outdoors, guiding fishing trips in the Midwest Driftless Region and Alaska.

Just like with hunting, it’s less about catching something and more taking in the experience.

“That adrenaline rush of a big buck or a big fish or whatever it might,” Josiah says. “I just want to help people achieve that.”

For three hours, Josiah and I sat in the blind, listening to the wind in the trees, feeling the cold. When we had enough, we drove to another field nearby, where Joshua pushed through a dense patch of trees and brush to drive out anything that had bedded down.

We didn’t see much. Just another couple deer and a bushy-tailed red fox.

Josiah never even raised his gun.

“It’s not always about squeezing the trigger,” he says. “You don’t have to kill something to enjoy yourself.”

Depending on who you asked, the hunting trip was a bust.

But for me, Josiah, and Joshua, just having the chance to be outside was enough.

Every fall, over 400,000 Minnesotans take to the woods, for whatever reason.

Now, I’m one of them.