Texas LAND•Spring 2017

THE VALUE
OF THE
GREATER
GOOD
PETER JOHN HOLT
Although there was not a right or wrong answer, the
question I posed to Peter John Holt, executive vice
president and general manager of Holt Cat in San
Antonio, wasn’t necessarily fair.
“So if you had to choose between hunting for a muy grande
or sitting courtside at a Spurs play-off game, which would you
choose?”
Holt, whose family owns majority interest in the San Antonio
Spurs, countered, “Playoff game or finals?”
“Finals.”
“That, then, is a very good question,” he said. “Fortunately,
though, I’ve been blessed to harvest my share of big bucks
because deer season in Texas doesn’t run into June and overlap
with the NBA Finals.”
Laughing he admitted that he’d actually been on the horns—
or the claws as it were—of that particular dilemma. It was 2013
and the first time the Spurs squared off against the Miami Heat
in the finals. The series directly conflicted with a long-planned
and long-awaited Montana bear hunt with his closest friends.
“The bear won—literally,” Holt, who is an avid bowhunter, said.
“We walked about 10 miles every day at 10,000 foot altitude and
never pulled the bow. It was a life lesson in patience.”
Holt, a self-described “go-go-go” guy, cherishes his time in
the wilderness because it allows him to slow down and focus on
the things that are important.
“The trip was such a good lesson in the importance of the
journey, not the result,” Holt said. “I was with my best friends.
We saw moose wandering around, elk calving and trout rising
from pristine streams. We were in nature and in the moment.”
He added, “Now don’t get me wrong. I will pick a different
outfitter, go back to Montana and God willing get a bear—but it
was a very good trip.”
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