Will Cain: From Montana Ranch Hand to Fox News Star

For millions of Americans, Will Cain is a familiar face on Fox News. But long before the television studios, political debates and national audiences, there was a boy growing up in Sherman, Texas, with a love of the outdoors. Years later, he would spend a year working on a Montana ranch, an unlikely chapter in a career that would eventually take him to national television.

Thanks to The Fowl Life’sChad Belding, Hook & Barrel got to know Cain during a duck-hunting trip to Banded Drake Ranch in North Texas.

In an exclusive interview for the cover of Hook & Barrel's November/December 2026 issue, Cain reflects on his unconventional journey through law, journalism and television, his return to Texas, and why family, duck hunting and staying true to himself remain central to his life.

Will Cain's Texas Roots

Will Cain was born and raised in Sherman, Texas, a small north-central Texas town just south of the Red River. It wasn’t exactly a rural upbringing, but it was small-town living that Will adjusted to quite well.

“My dad was an attorney, and had an office on the courthouse square,” Will said in an exclusive interview with Hook & Barrel magazine. “We lived a couple of miles outside of town on seven acres. We were surrounded by just one other house on about 50 acres, so my buddies would come out. We would shoot BB guns and have BB gun wars in the woods.

“My family had been there for a couple of generations, so I always had a lot of pride in being from there. It gave me a real sense of roots—a base to launch from and try to do whatever it is I wanted to do.”

Growing up with a gun collector father, Will has spent most of his life around guns. Hunting, however, didn’t come until a little later.

“It was even after I was driving,” he said. “My dad had a law partner who was younger—only about 10 years older than me—and he’s the guy that started us out duck hunting. I would go with him, and then bring some of my buddies along. He taught me a lot about duck hunting.”

Decisions On The Horizon 

At the time he was finishing high school, Will wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do for a living. He had two different possible paths, and each was very intriguing.

“One thought was to be an attorney like my father,” Will said. “I revered what he did. I loved watching him argue a case. But I also have been a gigantic sports fan most of my life, and I would watch Bob Costas or Brent Musburger and think, you know, I might want to do that.”

Will chose to go to Pepperdine University in California to major in broadcast journalism. But it didn’t take him long to realize he didn’t really love what he felt like he was learning.

“I remember sitting in the campus news studio and reading a teleprompter, and there was something inherently fake about it to me,” he said. “I just felt like in order to be good, I had to be a bigger personality or be inauthentic in a way that didn’t feel real to me at the time. I felt like I was going to school to be an actor. And I didn’t want to do that.”

After graduation from Pepperdine, Will returned home and went to law school at the University of Texas. And he quickly loved it.

“Of all the education I’ve ever had, that felt like what I was meant to learn, what I was meant to do,” he said.

From the Montana Mountains to Media Entrepreneurship

After law school and passing the bar, he took a detour to spend some time at a ranch in the mountains of Montana, where he lived in a small cabin on a blue ribbon trout stream and worked as a ranch hand and a camp hand. He’d help take hunters up into the mountains in pursuit of game.

At the end of that magical year, however, Will’s father died, and as the oldest of four siblings, he knew it was time to return home. He spent the first year winding down his dad’s legal practice. Then went to work for a Texas Hill Country newspaper group.

After working in every aspect of newspapers—from writing the news to delivering the papers—Will bought newspapers in several small towns north of Dallas where the population was quickly growing.

“It was a good entrepreneurial venture for me,” he said. “I sold them to a bigger media company.”

Having recently married and finding himself interested in the Latina market, Will next launched a national magazine focusing on quinceañera—the traditional Latin American celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday. Soon, Will and his wife followed their dreams to New York.

Will Cain's Journey From CNN and ESPN to Fox News

Unfortunately, while in New York, the business failed, leaving them looking for work. While working on a TV pilot about the philosophical debate going on during the Obama administration, Will met a guy who worked for National Review, and he began making video content for them. That led to Will doing Sean Hannity’s Fox show several times, becoming a CNN commentator and then spending five years at ESPN talking sports.

Will’s next big break came when he got to make the move back into politics on Fox & Friends Weekend.

“One of the reasons was because it is 2020, and the world is losing its mind,” Will said. “It’s losing its mind on COVID. It’s losing its mind on race. It’s losing its mind on everything, and I wanted to be more in that debate. I didn’t want to just be talking about Dak Prescott versus Carson Wentz.”

After making the move, he co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend with Pete Hegseth and Rachel Campos-Duffy. In the meantime, he had moved back to Texas to start a family and be closer to home.

After about five years on the show, Fox offered Will his own show—the current hit Will Cain Show, which he could host out of a Dallas studio.

“It has not only been a dream come true—I feel like it’s divine intervention,” Will says of the program. “Only God could bring me back home and allow me to do what it is I want to do in this world.”

Will Cain on Fatherhood and Family

Throughout his media career, Will had another aspect of his life that was constantly front and center—his family.

“Of all the things I’ve ever done in my career, the best thing I ever did was find my wife,” Wills said. “She’s the best thing that I have ever been associated with. You know, when you do the things that I’ve done and take the risks that I’ve taken—even worked for free—you can’t do that without a partner who believes in you, is in on it and is willing to take those risks with you.”

Will’s wife has given him two gifts that, he says, are the most important things in his life.

“I’ve got one son who I just dropped off for college last week,” Will said. “He’s a freshman at the University of Texas, and I’m excited for him. But it sucks having him away.”

Will’s other son is a sophomore in high school. Both are into sports, playing club soccer in Dallas.

“My oldest son played football as well, and that was awesome for us to move back from New York to Texas and get to experience Friday Night Lights,” he said. “If I have regrets, I wish I’d have moved back from New York earlier, because I never got to take them hunting enough.

“I mean, they hunt. They’ve dove hunted and hunted duck, geese and cranes. I hope that at some point as they get older that is something we can all do more together.”

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Will Cain’s Duck Hunting Passion

As for Cain, his nearly lifelong love of hunting remains a big part of who he is.

“Duck hunting is just fun, man,” Will said, his voice rising a little. “It’s so active, and I’m not even talking about the shooting part. You don’t have to be shooting for it to be fun. I also like goose and crane hunting, although I like goose hunting better than crane hunting.”

As with many people in the prime years of their career, Will doesn’t get to hunt as much as he would like to.

“The biggest gap in my hunting life was the 15 years I spent in New York, and that really took it away,” Will said. “I do hate that. Now that I’m back in Texas, I’ll go dove hunting in a couple of weeks, and we’ll do some duck hunting, which I’ve done the last couple of years as well.”

While Will is a fan of dove hunting, he believes it can be too social. At the same time, deer hunting can be a little too isolated.

“I feel like duck hunting is the perfect combo,” he explained. “You can sit in a blind with two or three guys. You can whisper talk until you think you don’t need to anymore. And then there’s action, calling them in, which makes it fun. Then there’s a flurry of activity when you’re shooting.”

The Will Cain Show and Staying Authentic

For now, The Will Cain Show is kicking butt on Fox, which is currently celebrating its 30th year, drawing in more viewers than Will could have imagined in today’s media climate.

“We’re the highest-rated show this hour (4-5 p.m. Eastern) has ever seen in the history of Fox News, which is a hell of an accomplishment that I feel like we can hang our hat on,” Will said. “People talk about the decline of cable news, but we’re not experiencing that. If we’re beating ratings that were happening in 2005, then we’re doing something right.”

Something right, indeed. And that “right” thing goes back to the authenticity that Cain has focused on since his early college days at Pepperdine.

“My goal goes back to that thing that I felt in college, and that is I want to be as real and as authentic in my relationship with the audience and the people that come on my show as absolutely possible,” he said. “That’s my focus for myself every day. It’s the reason that I left wanting to do this, and it’s the only reason I came back.”

What's Next for Will Cain?

When you’re as busy as Will Cain, you don’t have a lot of time to think about what the future might bring. Still, Will says there are plenty more adventures to come.

“In your career, your job is to fly the airplane and make sure the nose is pointed in the right direction, to monitor the instruments, to make sure you’re maintaining altitude,” he said philosophically. “But I don’t think you really end up knowing the destination—you just fly the airplane until you see what’s ahead of you and you decide, at various times, which way you turn the plane.”

For now, Will is happy to just keep flying that proverbial plane in the direction of true authenticity.  

“I make sure that every day, I’ve got the best show doing the best for Fox, and it satisfies the reason I’m doing this for a living,” he concluded. “And then something else might come along at some point. Who knows.”