Blake Shelton in Real Life

When you’ve reached the pinnacle of your field, sometimes you need to find challenges in new ones. Blake Shelton takes that literally.

“Hunting and fishing is one of those things I’m never going to master,” he admits. “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.”

When he fishes, he doesn’t use depth finders or scopes. He won’t set up game cameras on his Oklahoma ranch before or during deer season. For Shelton, joy is found in the challenge of the unknown and the unpredictable thrills of the animal world.

“There’s a love to the mystery of not knowing what’s out there, not knowing what fish might be under that log,” he says. “If I don’t know what’s there, it could be the next world record!”

The fields and lakes where he hunts and fishes are places where Shelton knows his celebrity doesn’t matter. Deer don’t care that he was on The Voice. Fish aren’t concerned about his four platinum albums. Most importantly, the people he hunts with don’t care much either. And if you’re Shelton, that’s precisely the escape you need.

Hunting has always been an aspirational pursuit for Shelton. He grew up idolizing his older brother and cousins, who spent their days fishing in ponds and hunting deer around Ada, Oklahoma.

“I looked up to those guys, and they all deer hunted,” he reminisces. “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.”

The challenge and mystery of finding deer became ingrained in young Shelton’s brain, a chase that remained elusive even after he nabbed his first buck at age 16.

“(Deer hunting) just had me, man, I was so into it,” he continues. “The thought that these things were out there, and you could see their tracks every once in a while, but you never actually saw a deer. So, I became obsessed with deer hunting.”

His passion for hunting seeps into his voice as he talks, seemingly disregarding the Los Angeles mansion he’s sitting in and mentally placing himself in the fields with his best friends. He speaks excitedly about the satisfaction he gains from building deer stands and waxes sentimental about the simple joys of planting food plots. If you didn’t know he was a country music legend, you might think he was a man who engaged in all this to escape the stresses of an ordinary life. For Shelton, it’s to flee the stresses of an exceptional one.

“It’s 25 years now since I had my first song on the radio,” he reflects. “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.”

As he began chasing his musical passion a quarter-century ago, Shelton had a revelation one morning while watching TNN and Tracy Byrd’s Weekend Outdoor show.

“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 says. “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!’”

This may not seem much of a revelation for anyone who follows country music artists. But for Shelton, it was an “aha” moment where he realized the people who sang the songs he loved shared his affinity for the outdoors.

“That’s the great thing about country music artists,” he says. “About 70% of ’em, before I even shake their hand, I can almost guarantee we’ll have something in common, and it’s hunting and fishing.”

His pursuits have allowed him to meet many of his heroes, too, most notably OG Florida Man John Anderson. One of Shelton’s most memorable hunts was joining the “Seminole Wind” singer on a turkey hunt into the Everglades before a show in West Palm Beach.

“John and I were doing a concert together in West Palm Beach,” he recalls. “He’d known that I’d never killed an Osceola turkey so he said, ‘Bring your camo, I wanna take you to my friend’s place and go turkey hunting.’ And you know, it’s one thing to say that the week before, but another when it’s the day of, and you’ve been up the night before in Jacksonville until 3 a.m. and you realize, ‘Oh my God, I told John we’re gonna go turkey hunting at 5 a.m.

“I got up with a hangover, and he was standing out there fully camo’d up, and we went and met up with a guy named Alligator Ron. It was just such a completely different ecosystem than I’m used to seeing, being from Oklahoma. I remember driving through there going, ‘There’s no way there’s a turkey in here, or if there are turkeys down here they have web feet.’ Then you find these pockets that are full of pigs and panthers and bears and turkeys. The first time I saw an Osceola turkey was on that trip, and we ended up getting a bird. I was blown away.”

Shelton’s admiration for Anderson is clear as he discusses their hunts together, blending talks of his favorite Anderson songs with stories about Anderson’s skills as a turkey caller. He regards the Country Music Hall of Famer as his favorite turkey guide and smiles when recalling how Anderson helped him get his most prized trophy.

“He wanted to call for me one morning, and added one of those decoys that you could pull the string and the turkey fan comes up,” he says. “He had this whole setup, that’s what John Anderson does when he turkey hunts. He called me one in and I shot it with my bow. And I’m as proud of that turkey as any deer or fish or anything that I’ve got on my wall at the lodge because John’s the guy that called it in for me.”

Anderson is far from the only musician Shelton has had the pleasure of turkey hunting with. On his Oklahoma ranch, he’s hosted the likes of Craig Morgan, Dustin Lynch, Andy Griggs, and even his own personal Superman, Tracy Byrd. Other than musicians, he speaks most highly of his special hunting kinship with NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer.

“Clint’s one of those guys, he can still get as excited as a kid, he’s just fired up and energetic. We probably do no less than three or four trips a year,” Shelton says. “And I guess he’s kinda my give back because anytime there’s something I know I can pass along, it’s to Clint. Because he doesn’t know that much about hunting and fishing, so he’s the guy I’m always having to load his gun or tie his fishing line for him or something.”

Shelton has also gotten to turkey hunt with master callers Michael Waddell and Matt Morrett, an experience he says doesn’t even seem fair to the turkeys.

“I get out there when I’m by myself and, if all the conditions are right, I can get one or two to come close,” he says. “But those guys, they literally speak some other different language to turkeys. They just have all these things that they’ve learned over the years. It is not always just a call, sometimes it’s a different sound, it’s a movement you can make, it’s a timing issue. It’s all different factors that I would never think about.”

Despite his cadre of celebrity hunting buddies, Blake Shelton insists his favorite people to hunt with are still his older cousins, who pay no mind to his success.

“I’m still the guy that they’ve beat the (crap) out of and punch in the arm,” he laughs. “Which is why it’s so much fun to hang out, you know? My cousin Steve especially, he just waits for you to say the wrong thing so he can punch you. And that’s so much fun for me to be around. It just kind of takes me back to growing up in Oklahoma.”

Now that he’s scaling back his TV life, Blake Shelton has even more time to hunt and fish. But that doesn’t mean his performance schedule is slowing down. The new year began with a two-week residency in Las Vegas, where he performed six shows at Caesars Palace. After that, he hit the road in February and March for his latest “Friends and Heroes Tour,” this year bringing Craig Morgan, Deana Carter and Trace Adkins along with him.

“It’s the most fun I’ve had, from a concert standpoint, in my career,” he says of the multi-artist format. “I open the show and perform, then throughout the night these other artists will make an appearance. It’s really like a music festival all crammed into one night.”

Once the tour wraps up, he’s back to his ranch in Oklahoma, focusing on hunting and fishing for the rest of the year. At his level of success, he doesn’t need to do much else. Don’t call it “retirement” per se, but maybe doing just enough work so he can spend most of his time doing what he loves most. 

What’s your bow hunting rig? It’s a Hoyt RX something, it was actually gifted to me this year. Michael Waddell had me and Clint (Bowyer) out to his house and he gave us brand new Hoyt bows. It was pretty cool having Michael Waddell and T-Bone setting up our bows with us.

Favorite country artist and song? Earl Thomas Cooley, “What I’d Say.”

Favorite rock band? AC/DC. I’m a Brian Johnson guy, that “Back in Black”
album just got me.

Guilty food or drink pleasure? Sprite Zero and vodka, though I guess with Sprite Zero, I don’t really feel all that guilty about it.

If you could own one truck, what would it be? I love my 2014 Chevy Z 71. It’s never let me down.

Favorite travel destination? I loved my trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It wasn’t even snowing yet, I just loved it.

Bucket list big game animal? Mountain goat.

Bucket list big game fish? I’ve never caught a shark. That would be cool.

Who’s in your foxhole, living or dead? I better say Gwen Stefani.