Dale Earnhardt Jr. Reveals Why Deer Hunting Always Makes Him Think About His Dad: “He Loved Hunting”

Dale Jr. got a little emotional (not intending to) on a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Earnhardt Jr. was sitting with his wife Amy for a conjoined "Ask Jr." segment, and the first thing that came up was a recent, exciting trip that happened in the Earnhardt family. Amy had just taken their oldest daughter, Isla, to a Taylor Swift concert. She admitted that she wasn't a full blown "Swiftie" like her daughter, but that she really appreciated the 3 and a half hour show that Taylor put on. Dale Jr. was invited, but made the hard decision of going deer hunting instead. Just as Amy was excited to talk about her surprise trip to go see Taylor Swift, Dale Jr. was giddy discussing some of the deer that he saw while he was on his annual hunting trip: "I saw a nice buck the first night. I had a decoy out in the field and he was down wind of that decoy to see if that thing was real. When he realized it wasn't, he got out of there. The next two nights I didn't see anything that big, but I had a blast man." Earnhardt Jr. went on to talk about how nice it is - with his busy, jam-packed schedule - to get away from it all sometimes to go sit in the woods. The retired NASCAR driver described his deer hunting trips as therapeutic, and a nice way to slow things down for a bit: "Sitting in a deer stand in the middle of the United States watching the world, right? Watching the real world move is... you can't understand how fun and enjoyable it is until you actually get in there and try it. It is so, so nice." Why does Dale Earnhardt Jr. find deer hunting to be "so, so nice?" Well, that's where this story takes an emotional turn. Dale Jr. has a deep appreciation for hunting because it's an experience that he and his dad shared when he was younger. Thus, he admittedly thinks about his father a lot anytime he's up in a tree stand: "I think about everything. Now it's peaceful, but in my mind I'm thinking about (everything). I'll be honest with you. I'm not trying to get mushy here, but I think about my dad a lot honestly. A lot when I'm deer hunting, because he loved hunting." Dale went on to describe he and his father's early hunting adventures, saying that his father only used chain up deer stands. For those that don't know, there aren't much to chain up stands (though they are better than climbing stands). There's just a little platform for your feet, a little cushion to sit on, and that's it. It's really only designed for one person to use, but Dale Sr. apparently thought otherwise. He would just have a Dale Jr. lay down on the foot platform (at 5 or 6 years old) below while Sr. would sit on the cushion and hunt, and Dale Jr. confessed that he hated it - but did it because he wanted to spend time with his father: "When he would leave to go hunting without me, I'd be like, 'I want to go.' Then when I got older, I wanted to like hunting and I just couldn't. I just couldn't get to where I loved it and wanted to go do it. But I kept pushing myself because it was something my dad loved, and I wanted to love it too." Dale Jr. says that he finally got to the point of loving it 5 or 6 years in, and now he makes it a priority to get into a tree stand at least once a year. And he described himself as one of those hunters that doesn't get upset if he fails to bag-and-tag a buck. He's just a fan of the process of it all: "It's just fun sitting there and just thinking about life, thinking about the choices you made, watching nature, watching animals do what they do." You can hear more from Dale Jr. in the clip below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjTrMF-bk4M