An old photo popped up on my computer’s screensaver the other day, and I noticed an odd coincidence for the first time.
The photo showed me bowhunting elk with my late friend John Peterson in September 2006. Behind Peterson stood a dead tree, lined up as if piercing his right shoulder. I try not to find hidden meaning or foreboding in photos. Still, it was interesting to see the dead tree merging with John, not me. When I next bowhunted that mountain three years later, John was five months dead.
“The Captain” died the morning of April 9, 2009, to be exact. As was his habit, he rose before dawn that day at his home in Madison, Wisconsin, and went downstairs to let the dogs out. Minutes later he sidestepped the stampede as they raced back in for chow.
He then poured himself a bowl of cereal, ate about half of it, and slumped dead in his chair at age 64 from a massive heart attack.
So ended the life of John Walter Peterson, retired Navy captain, husband to Kristen, father of four, grandfather of three, and my loyal friend and hunting partner the previous seven too-short years.
The Captain and I figured we first crossed paths in Naples, Italy, during the late 1970s. He was flying fighter-jets off the deck of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and I was burning welding rods below deck on the USS Puget Sound. We didn’t meet then, of course. We just retraced our ships’ paths years later while bowhunting elk or deer, and realized we had shared at least one port call in the Mediterranean Sea.
A Chance Encounter
We met by accident at a Deer & Turkey Expo in April 2002, about a month after he e-mailed me his thoughts on chronic wasting disease, and what it might mean to deer hunting in southwestern Wisconsin. We talked a few minutes and agreed to hunt together that fall.
The agreement held. My daughter Leah and I drove to his home on a cold Saturday in mid-December 2002, hunted deer with the Captain until dark, stayed overnight at his home, and trudged back into brutal winds the next morning.
The Captain told us he was trying to make up for all the deer seasons he missed during his 30-year Navy career. He didn’t own hunting land, but he found several landowners within a 40-minute drive who welcomed him to hunt their property.
That took some doing. He spent many weekends driving through the region’s rolling farmlands, taking notes and names when spotting promising lands. He then went home and spent the evening writing letters of introduction. Most landowners wrote back, usually to say they were sorry but their family and friends were already hunting their land.
Eventually, though, the Captain found deer woods with room for him, maybe because landowners appreciated his approach: He assured them he would shoot mostly antlerless deer, which were overly abundant. He wouldn’t shoot a buck unless it was big enough to justify a shoulder mount.
Even so, none of us got a shot either day of our first bowhunt together, but we established a friendship seemingly rooted in a lifetime of stories. During the autumns that followed, we squeezed another lifetime of stories into a few short years. We just didn’t realize it at the time.
And when we weren’t hunting, we were planning our next hunt. The Captain treasured such plans, much as he loved GPS units, compasses, the Internet, Google Earth, aerial photos, topographic maps, scouting cameras, hunting magazines and Primos videos.
He also loved eBay and Cabela’s. When we lacked gear, food or amenities for bowhunting elk in Idaho or whitetails in Wisconsin, the Captain made lists and checked them off as his orders arrived.
Friendship and Integrity
All the while we helped each other scratch a common itch for bows, broadheads, whitetails, hazy mountains, boreal forests and autumn farmlands. And I admired his modesty. The Captain never claimed to be a skilled predator, but big bucks mounted in his basement office and countless does strapped to his red Suburban showed he had nothing to prove.
When Wisconsin provided unlimited antlerless tags to reduce the herd starting in 2002, the Captain more than once filled 10 of them before Thanksgiving. Sure, CWD increased the need to shoot antlerless deer, but he figured it was merely one more reason to trim the overabundant herd.
Evidence of too many deer appeared throughout the properties he hunted. Browse lines ringed every field as if sheared with a straight-edge, and deer imitated Western cattle drives when crowding into croplands each evening.
There to meet them was the Captain, who was well-suited for the labors of these solitary bowhunts. He was tall and strong, and loved the challenge of dragging deer from isolated draws or blackberry tangles. Once back to his truck, he lifted those deer onto the Suburban’s Hitch-Haul as if they were flour sacks.
Likewise, he waited with determination for mature bucks. Few hunters could match his tenacity for long vigils in cold tree stands. During a Manitoba hunt in late November 2006, the Captain sat dawn till dusk all six days in snow and sub-zero air. He saw deer daily but never touched his release. Why? He didn’t see a buck he wanted to shoot. The Captain, you see, didn’t set one benchmark while planning and apply another standard while hunting.
Such integrity made him Leah’s choice in May 2007 to swear her in as a U.S. Navy officer after graduating college. After administering the oath, the Captain watched the young ensign turn 90 degrees, walk a few steps, and then receive and return her first salute from the enlisted man who did the most to train her. In other words, me. She then pressed a silver dollar into my left hand. I clasped the silver, thanked her, snapped a congratulatory salute with my right hand, and rejoined the spectators.
Sharing Laughs
Four months later, the Captain and I again bowhunted Idaho. The Captain was happy to be there, but a bum knee ignited severe pain in his lower back. Still, we hunted hard, and six days later he set up in an aspen meadow a mile from camp. When a cow elk approached near dusk, searing pain twice prevented the Captain from pulling his bow to full draw.
On his third try, with the elk grazing 30 yards away, he accidentally triggered his release when halfway back. His arrow whacked into an aspen 10 feet above the startled critter, which quickly fled. I’m sure the arrow remains anchored there today.
The Captain felt better seven weeks later when we bowhunted one of his favorite farms near Madison. After leading me to a well-marked access trail, he continued up the long draw to one of his 17 portable treestands. As dusk approached, a rutting 10-point buck walked into a shooting lane 17 yards from the Captain.
He was already at full draw, so he swung with the buck as it moved toward the opening. He then grunted to make it stop and released his arrow. Clang! A violent jolt rattled his bow arm and the arrow plunked harmlessly into the ground 10 feet short.
Stunned and puzzled, the Captain took a few seconds to realize what had happened. As he moved his bow into shooting position, he had placed its top limb over the extended shaft of his screw-in bow holder, which jutted out just above eye level. When he released the arrow, the bow’s cables, upper limb and cam slammed into the holder, sparing the buck.
Fear of humiliation would prevent some men from revealing such stories, but the Captain couldn’t wait to share them when we met on the trail after dark.
I wish he were still here to retell more tales on himself, but the Captain had the self-confidence to trust his crew to honor him as they saw fit.
