Dale Earnhardt Jr. Says He Was “Terrified” On First Hunt With His Dad: “I Was Worried About The Greatest Man That I Knew Existed Having Something Happen To Him”

The ultimate hunting guide.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared a great story about his legendary father Dale Earnhardt this week on his Bless Your Hardt podcast, which he does weekly with his wife Amy, and it is about the first time he ever went hunting with his dad.

Jr. recalled going to Alabama and climbing to the top of a tree when he was around 12 or 13 years old:

“We walk up to this tree, and this is the first time ever shot a deer. We were in Alabama. We get up this tree, and it’s a tall a** tree, there’s not a limb on it. Right at the very top, this tree split, and he had a couple two by fours with a chain up in this tree.

And so he had two two by by fours nailed across the Y that we kind of arm height if you’re sitting in the in the stand. I’m 12 or 13.”

The only problem was, at the time, he still wasn’t tall enough to reach each peg, and his dad had to lift him from behind to be able to actually climb it, and see as this was in the 80’s there were no safety precautions or anything like that:

“We get to the bottom of this stand, and I’m just gonna do whatever he says. We get to the bottom of the stand, he goes, ‘Alright, you start up and I’ll go up behind you.’ I get going, I start climbing, I can barely reach the pegs they’re so spread apart.

He put these pegs as far apart as possible, so he didn’t have to put so many in there. But I can’t get my foot to the next peg. All the way up this tree, I’m crawling up this thing, and he’s having to push each foot. Because I would get my foot up and I’d be about six inches or so short of the next peg, and he would push my foot from underneath tot he next peg.

It was terrifying. We had no safety harness, nothing. Like we hunt with safety harnesses now, and you don’t get in a stand without one but then, there was no safety harness. So we got our guns on our backs, you know, I had a gun, he had a gun.”

Jr. recalled being “terrified” the entire time, but not really for himself… he had an intense fear that something would happen to this dad, “the greatest thing on earth,” and he wouldn’t know what to do. It sounds like this kind of fear went far beyond just this hunting trip too:

“We go up in this stand, we finally get up in there… when we get to the top, I am terrified. I’ve been terrified all this way up. I am scared more for him, you know, than me. And that goes back to my empathy, I guess.

I’m like, yeah whatever happens to me, happens to me. But I was worried about him. Because he’s the breadwinner, he’s the greatest thing on earth… I was worried about the greatest man that I knew existed having something happen to him. It’s a hard thing to explain or understand, but I wasn’t really worried about me.

If something happened to me, he was there. If I fell, if I got hurt, the greatest man on earth was gonna be there to take care of me. But if daddy gets hurt, not just now, but long term, what happens, right?”

I think that’s a really neat peak into their relationship and how Jr. always viewed his dad, even if their relationship wasn’t always perfect and they disagreed on some of the way Jr. did things and vice versa.

Eventually, Jr. shot his first deer on that trip, and he remembers his dad being “as happy as if he’d shot his own deer,” and how special that moment was. Of course, they had to get down the same way they got up, and in many ways, it sounds like Jr. was glad it was over, though he does admit it was something he’ll obviously “never forget,” adding what a great memory it is to look back on:

“So we finally get up there, and I’m so relieved, he sets his a** up on a 2×4. He’s standing on the platform of this chain up, leaning up against this 2×4. This is the thing is nailed into the tree, by what I don’t know, and I’m sitting on the stand, and I’m like, I don’t love this, I doin’t like this.

He don’t give a s***. We sat there for a couple hours, we shot a deer. I shot that deer at 150 years, it dropped right where it was. He was as happy as if he’d shot his own deer, which was awesome. And then we had to get down.

And he had to go down underneath me to take each foot and help me find the next peg. Because I had to kind of drop down to the next peg. I will never forget it, it wast terrifying. But I mean, of course, it’s this great memory, as scary as it was in the moment.”

While it’s kind of crazy to think that a young Jr. was thinking about those kinds of things when he was enjoying down time with his dad like this hunting trip, but I think it goes to show how deeply he loved and cared about him no matter what.

It’s actually really sweet, and a great story,  and you can watch the full podcast below.

The post Dale Earnhardt Jr. Says He Was “Terrified” On First Hunt With His Dad: “I Was Worried About The Greatest Man That I Knew Existed Having Something Happen To Him” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.