Blake Binford

Blake Binford grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, splitting time between his parents’ home and his grandparents’ cattle ranch. The ranch is where he first learned what it actually means to put meat on the table. He learned firsthand what it takes to raise, kill, and break down an animal yourself. Those summers spent working cattle, mending fence, and helping with processing gave him something that stuck: an honest, unfiltered understanding of the cost of eating.

The Gulf Coast side of his childhood filled in the rest. He grew up hunting and fishing the marshes, bays, and bottomland timber of Southeast Texas. Waterfowl in the coastal prairie, whitetail and hogs in the Piney Woods, redfish and speckled trout out of Galveston Bay. He chose jobs by how close they put him to good fishing. The outdoors always felt like home. 

That foundation never left. Today, Blake is still most at home in the field. He hunts public and private land across Texas, always chasing whatever is in season and always looking for the next tag to fill. He’s in it for the pursuit and for what comes after, when the animal is broken down and memories are being made from the meals.

The kitchen is where the hunt comes full circle for Blake. He’s a dedicated wild game cook who takes the same approach to the cutting board and the smoker that he takes to the field: do it right, take your time, and don’t waste anything. He smokes, brines, cures, and ferments his way through whatever the season gives him, and he’s always experimenting with new techniques to get the most out of each harvest.

Blake is also a competitive strongman. He’s spent years training and competing in the sport, and for him, the connection to hunting is more intuitive than most people might think. Both demand preparation, grit, and a willingness to push into discomfort. Time under the bar and time in the blind come from the same place.

That background led him to write On the Ethics of Killing: The Moral Math of Eating, available now on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD7YM1F6). The book examines the moral frameworks behind how and what we eat and makes the case that hunters are the most honest participants in the food system.

Blake lives in the League City, Texas area with his wife and kids.