My love for wildlife and being in the woods started at an early age. I was born in 1986 in Northern Alamance County, North Carolina, and raised on a couple of acres that luckily for me, bordered a 60-acre alfalfa hay farm. To hear my Mama tell it, she would say that once I could walk, she had to leave the front door closed so I couldn’t see out of the glass storm door, or I would stand at it and cry to go outside...

I've always loved being outside and still enjoy the sun and wind on my face and all the sounds that one can hear in the woods. I was also very lucky to be born into a family of hunters and fishermen that cared for me and took the time to take me afield and teach me all things deer and fish.

My dad is a deer and bird hunter and has often told the story of taking me at a very young age to “clean” as we would call it, or gut and process a deer. He was concerned that the sight of a bloodied deer with guts and meat being removed would somehow traumatize me and turn me away from hunting and processing game. He says the exact opposite happened and I was all over the deer, touching it and being mesmerized by the animal and how it was butchered. I’ve seen this exact scenario take place with one of my friend’s sons as well as some of my friends when they were young. Some kids get “eat up” or just plain fired up about everything hunting in the outdoors, and that was certainly me.

The farmer who owned the 60 acres adjacent to my parents’ few acres was gracious enough to let me roam it as if it were my own, and I certainly did. I scoured the woods with a BB gun or bow in hand, shooting squirrels, birds, and learning to stalk up to deer and other game. I really cut my teeth on that farm and can still remember the alfalfa fields and oak flats, where deer would often come to feed in the evenings.

I was also extremely blessed that my family had bought a 36-acre farm 10 minutes north of our few acres that my parents would eventually build their forever home on. This farm was attached to a 500-acre farm that one of my dad's lifelong friends had recently purchased. Once again fate smiled on me, and I had the freedom to roam both places. I spent my elementary and the first half of my middle school years roaming these farms and killed my first deer at 10 years old on my family's 36-acre piece. It was a fat doe, and I can still see her breaking cover and walking into the field toward me and my dad.

My dad gave me the nod and I pulled the hammer back on a 12-gauge single shot borrowed from my uncle. I put the bead on her vitals and probably jerked the trigger, but the shotgun with buckshot was the right choice for a green hunter, and she dropped in her tracks. My dad said I walked a circle down to bare dirt around that deer in the field, and that was it for me. I knew then, whether I fully understood it or not, that for the rest of my life, I would be a hunter. Little did I know how big of a role it would play in my life, but it certainly became a large part of my identity almost instantly.

The next six years leading up to getting my driver's license were filled with deer, dove, and turkey hunts with my dad, cousins, pawpaw, and friends. I also love to fish and was lucky enough to have an Uncle James, who we named my daughter Lyla James after, to take me. My Uncle James passed in 2006, and there's not a time that I touch a rod and reel or look at a body of water that I don't think of him. My pawpaw Buck on my mom's side was another big factor in my love of the outdoors, and deer in particular. He loved to deer hunt although when he grew up there were no deer in central North Carolina. He killed his first deer in his 40s but was hooked after that.

He would plant “game patches,” as they were called in the 80s and 90s before the term “food plot” became popular, every fall of clover, oats, and wheat. He planted these small plots on our 36-acre farm and a small place up the road from his house with an old International tractor that we still have, a rough-toothed disc harrow, a drag, and hand spreader. Riding that tractor with him, turning dirt, and seeing those plots grow and in turn, deer and turkeys feeding in them further deepened my desire to be in the woods every chance I got and plant these “game patches” on my own.

My pawpaw passed shortly after my uncle James in 2007 and hunted right up until the year he died. He was a man of few words, and when he spoke, people listened, knowing it was something of value. He had a passion for deer, and I could remember well for many years in a row he would kill a buck on opening day of muzzleloader every year. I've never touched a buck’s antlers that I've killed and not thought of him.

My dad bought a 1070 John Deere 4x4 tractor, which we still use daily, in my teenage years and my neighbors were gracious enough to allow me to use some of their old tillage equipment to start planting more and more food plots on our own 36-acre home farm. I figured out fairly quickly what worked and didn't work and was able to expand on the knowledge given to me by my dad and pawpaw on planting “game patches.”

My good friend and neighbor Carson and his dad also were planting food plots on their farm adjacent to my home place, and I got to learn from them and see how larger equipment was utilized and different species of plantings were grown and used effectively. Once I got my license at 16, it opened up a new possibility of being able to drive to new farms to hunt and also new challenges of taking my food plotting and management work on the road. My buddy Carson's family had a few farms we and a few friends were able to hunt, and we set out to manage and plant them the same way we had with our home farms. This led to learning the logistics of moving equipment to and from farms, the timing of these trips, and the order in which they should be taken, dealing with different soil types, fertility levels, pH…you name it, and we encountered it.

I also got some great experience on how to hunt those farms and dealing with the challenges of neighbors, dog hunting, trespassers, etc., that weren't an issue on my home farm. I continued that learning cycle, honing my skills over the years, constantly buying new equipment, trying new methods…finding success and failure often.

I met my wife of 13 years in 2009 when she was in school getting her bachelor’s degree from UNCG and had plans to go on and obtain her master’s from there. We were married in 2010, and I shared with her about a dream I had of opening a wildlife management company that installed food plots for folks and overall managed their hunting properties.

I was working for my parents at our family company, Askew Petersen Monuments, and had planned to take over the business when my parents retired, and the wildlife company would be a side business that I could enjoy and put my knowledge and personal equipment to good use. My wife and I decided that once she graduated with her master’s in 2013 that I could start the business and let it go where it may.

My wife graduated with her master’s degree in May of 2013. In August that same year, we welcomed our first child into our family, Lyla James Petersen. I had been planning and managing my family farm and personal lease properties for years and had even planted plots for friends and neighbors at that point. I had been learning about soil quality, fertility, cover types, planting methods, and so on, and was ready to offer my services abroad.

The word was spread around, and a gentleman approached me about planting the food plots at a local hunting club. I planted the plots that fall for the club and realized quickly that I was going to need more and larger equipment to make a business work. I announced my business on Facebook and registered with the state. I can still see my year-old daughter standing at her little play table when we launched our site on Facebook. How time flies.

Since starting Petersen’s Wildlife Management officially in 2014, I have purchased 2 more tractors, 2 Great Plains no-till drills, skid steers, ATVs, UTVs, sprayers, all types of tillage equipment, and so on. I’ve helped countless clients reach their goals and have planted thousands of acres of food plots. I've personally grown and killed some great bucks on my home farm and lease properties with my best buck to date coming off my home farm in 2020. He was the largest buck killed in North Carolina with a muzzleloader in 2020, and I was lucky enough to watch him grow for four years.

I grew a 180-inch gross buck on the home farm that I watched for three years, but a lucky neighbor was able to tag him. I’ve been blessed to see my properties along with many of my clients’ farms be transformed over the years and turned into premier wildlife parcels. I've seen clients kill their best bucks and watched their children and grandchildren enjoy the fruits of mine and their labor. I've seen seasons of no rain and too much rain, years of unseasonably hot and cold, and watched fads and miracle products come and go.

I've watched managers like me strive to do the right thing and tell people the truth. And I've watched managers in the same position sell snake oil products to folks and rent out their opinion to the highest bidder. I am a Christian, and my every move comes with the realization that I'll have to answer for my actions one day in front of my Creator. Although I am a sinner every day and am far from perfect, I base my decision-making on doing the right thing based on what Jesus would have me do. For me, it's God, family, country, and deer hunting, and everything else falls in accordingly.

That's how I choose to live, and I do my best every day to make God and my family proud. I strive to do the best I can for all my customers and to help them achieve their goals. Lord willing, I can do what I love for a long time and continue to help people and lead a good life with my family on my own patch of dirt.