Growing up in South Georgia, he spent every waking moment outdoors. Whether in the creeks, ponds, swamps, or woods, he was actively pursuing his intended targets. His childhood career aspirations were to fish professionally or somehow hunt for a living. As the years went on, his passion for the outdoors only grew stronger.

After graduating from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Wildlife Technology, he spent the next seventeen years managing large private plantations, focusing on habitat and wildlife management, especially for quail, deer, and turkey. His work included overseeing timber operations, reforestation, brood field management, prescribed burning, native grass plantings, GIS mapping, and creating management plans. Managing wild quail encompassed all the aforementioned practices, along with implementing an intensive year-round trapping program, a supplemental feeding program, population censuses, and relocation projects. Reed’s expertise in deer management is unparalleled, as he has spent thousands of hours improving deer herds across vast areas. His projects included camera surveys, management plans, supplemental feeding, food plot management, soil quality management, prescribed burning, data collection, and harvest regulations. A dedicated hunter, Reed’s success is evident in his extensive taxidermy collection, with over twenty mounted deer, including four bucks over 160 inches, all taken in Georgia.