Blake Shelton loves to hunt and fish almost as much as he loves to sing. Okay, it's possible that he actually loves the former more. But there was a time when he thought he was going to have to give up his outdoor passions for country music stardom.
That's when he saw Tracy Byrd on the TV. He was watching the music icon's Weekend Outdoor show when he realized that he really could have it all.
"I was the guy that basically had already figured out what makes me happy by the time I was 14 years old: It's country music and fishing and hunting," he told Hook And Barrel. "I saw (Byrd's show) and remember going 'Oh my God! You can be a country singer and hunt and fish? Those are my two things!'"
It's a good thing too because Shelton says that hunting and fishing are two things that he will never master, no matter how much he practices. That's what keeps him hooked much like one of those fishes he catches.
"Hunting and fishing is one of those things I'm never going to master," he said. "I'm never gonna dominate the hunting and fishing world, and 99.9% of the time I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna fail. And that's what keeps me hooked."
But that's part of the joy for the singer. Shelton loves the fact that he doesn't know what he might fish or take down before a fishing or hunting trip. "There's a love to the mystery of not knowing what's out there, not knowing what fish might be under that log," he said. "If I don't know what's there, it could be the next world record!"
Blake Shelton Talks Hunting
Hunting is a passion that he shares with his older brother and cousins and other family members. It's something that he has done since he was a young guy. "I looked up to those guys, and they all deer hunted," he said. "Back then, in Oklahoma there just weren't a lot of deer. If you even saw a deer, you talked about it for a couple of weeks. This was before cameras and all that, so they were such a mysterious animal in a way, that you rarely ever saw."
It's also a way for him to unwind and escape the stresses of stardom.
"It's 25 years now since I had my first song on the radio," he said. "And I'm sitting here, feels like a hundred years later, wondering how many more hours I have to be in Los Angeles before I can get back to Oklahoma and start setting my trap lines."
