Commitment to craft
When he’s not hunting, Fassiotto coaches high school baseball for a program that he and his father relaunched after the school went nearly eight years without a team. He uses that to contextualize his commitment to hunting. “There aren’t many things after high school sports that you put a lot of time into, and then it’s showtime and you reap the rewards from what you put into it. So it’s really just all how you prepare and then you can see how well you do from being prepared to do that. It’s physically demanding, mentally demanding, and it’s definitely going to teach you patience.”
In southern Colorado, winter temperatures regularly dip below 30 degrees. Hunting days are spent outdoors and often span from sunup to sun down. Kelby says in his family, hunting starts as soon as you’re old enough to carry a gun, typically at six or seven years old. He can remember his first hunting trips with his father, and in particular the chilly temps. Those days, he says, he would get so cold that his jeans would freeze together. Kelby would beg to keep moving to stay warm, but the elder Fassiotto preferred to stay put, waiting patiently for an opportunity. It’s a lesson in patience that stays with Kelby to this day. Still, those chilly memories stay with him too, especially when the icicles start to form on the roof of his Can-Am Defender. Those cold Colorado winter days have Fassiotto considering making a slight adjustment to his side-by-side: Adding a fully sealed cab for warmth.