Bradley Johnson grew up in rural Wyoming, often making trips to his family's log cabin in the Bighorn Mountains, built in 1916 by his great-great-grandfather. He learned to fly fish on the nearby trout stream and spent every possible moment on water.
Johnson graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in political science. He then served with the US Army in Iraq, after which he attended graduate school, earning a master's degree in political science and a PhD in natural resource and environmental studies from the University of New Hampshire.
Since 2010, Johnson has been working in the field of natural resource management in Colorado and his home state of Wyoming. He remains an avid fly fisherman and especially enjoys taking to Wyoming's rugged wilderness to pursue trout.