Reality TV Discovers Idaho Outfitters

Story and Photos by Amy Larson

Kidd Youren was on a horse with his dad the day after his birth, and claims he’s been an outfitter ever since. Garden Valley’s peaks, peaceful fields, the South Fork of the Payette River and nearby natural hot springs provided an ample playground in his youth. His grandpa did some casual guiding and ran some cows, his great uncle outfitted, and his dad turned it into a full-on business. When Kidd was asked at age eight what he wanted to do for a living, he talked with his dad, who said the answer was easy. Choose something you like and find a way to get paid for it.

“I want to do what you do,” he said.

But that didn’t include giving an interview on the location of a “docu-soap” TV series, the first reality-based show to be filmed in Idaho backcountry. Kidd stars as one of three featured Idaho outfitting families in the series, including the Yourens, Bullocks, and Korells. My visit to the set outside Garden Valley had been arranged by truTV, which broadcasts the show.

“I‘ve been through plenty,” the dark-haired and sun-tanned Kidd said with a grin. As a youth, he team-roped and rode broncs and bulls between hunting seasons. When he was a high school senior competing at the Silver State International, the last bull he rode smacked him in the side of the face, shattering an eye socket, his nose, knocking out teeth, and displacing sinuses. Still conscious, he made it out of the arena and back to his host’s house before realizing he had a serious concussion and “sort of passed out.”

He has lived in Nevada and Canada, but ultimately returned to Idaho. His friends went to college or got their own places, but Kidd used his savings to put a down payment on an Idaho hunting area. He passed the state test with a near-perfect score and became the youngest licensed outfitter in the state.