Dave Zigtema

I have always said that I have hunting in my blood. Both my dad and grandpa have been hunting all their lives so I grew up with it. Born in 1983 and living in Crete, Illinois through the youngest part of my childhood, my dad would take me with on hunts. He took me out dove hunting with him for the first time when I was just two years old. A few years from then I would go with carrying my own BB gun. My dad taught me the proper way to carry and handle a gun and when I started carrying a shotgun it was a single shot 20gauge. At the age of ten I was able to get my first hunting license to hunt pheasant and deer with my dad. Dad taught me to deer hunt by sitting together in the same tree for my first deer season. I did not shoot any deer that first year but it did not take long. My family bought land and built a house outside Monee, Illinois when I was eleven and I harvested my first deer, a nice mature doe, on my family’s property during the next firearm season. I have now been hunting for 19 years and have taken
many deer and a couple of real nice bucks. I hunt together with my family and many friends. Most often we hunt for geese in our home area. I also hunt for about anything else that has a season and spend off time scouting and preparing for the next hunt.

I went to Southern Illinois University where I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Administration of Justice. While down in southern Illinois I met a lot of new friends and hunted and fished with them all the time. I am still in contact with some of them and we hunt together whenever we can.

I have been married for three years and enjoy hunting and spending time outdoors with my wife. We now live outside Grant Park, Illinois. Together we have our own construction business, Zigs Construction Inc., and I am very busy with that. My wife and I also have horses and during the summer we spend most of our free time riding and working with them. We are also involved with a Cowboy Church Ministry that our family helped to get started in Wilmington, Illinois.

I enjoy being outdoors and being able to be out in God’s Creation. I always try to get new people involved in my sports and hobbies. Hunting has been a passion of mine and it has also been a great way to get involved with new people and enjoy the outdoors with family and friends.

By teaming up with Takedown Outdoors I hope to be able to share with more people the thrill of the hunt and the joy that comes from being outdoors with family and friends.