2013 Gun Deer Season

If you look closely at the pic below you can see the cut on my nose from the evening's celebration

2013 bow season was pretty rough and I logged a lot of hours in a tree trying to turn it around, by gun season I was feeling it was pretty hopeless. Thankfully I have a lot of unselfish hunting buddy's and Tony is one of them with some outstanding property. This years weather for opening day was around zero degree's when you factor in the windchill, it was bonechilling and the only positive to that was the buck's needed food after rutting. Tony had his farm scouted out well and invited me out to hunt an entire herd that was feeding on his property each evening. It was a cold afternoon sit, but wow, it was worth it. Twenty minutes before dark the floodgates of deer opened up and I was seeing does by the dozens and numerous tall racks piling out into the corn field in front of me, it was a spectacle like no other, it was something from a hunting show; the cold weather was forcing these deer off of the no hunting preserve they called home to pack on some fat for the winter. It didn't take long and I had two nice bucks a couple hundred yards in front of me feeding. I decided to take this beautiful 8pt. The shot wasn't the challenging part, but locating a down deer in a harvested cornfield proved to be a ten minute long agonizing challenge. I knew I knocked the deer down and my buddy's were enjoying watching me frantically try to find my trophy that somehow seemed to dissapear. Once I found him the gratification of a long grueling season and the perserverance it took to finally be successful made this deer extra special, even better my cousin Carl called shortly after to let me know he just shot a great buck too! It was definitely going to be a big celebration that evening, its rare that two of us in the family take nice deer on the same day, very rare. We got back to the farm set our deer out for pictures and rallied all of our buddy's for the First Annual Deer Camp festivities. That night was wild and I don't think there have been many times our group of friends has had more fun than that evening, the drinking and talking stupid was at an all time high, we even inspired my cousin Jeff to get back into Gun hunting after being strictly a Boone and Crocket Bow slayer the last few years. You will notice in one of the pictures you can see a cut across the bridge of my nose, I probably had it coming, but lets just say empty cans flying at your face can be sharp (thanks Jesse)! It was a night for the ages among this hunting group and the pictures are here to prove it. I am already excited for the Second Annual Deer Camp, if your smart and like to have a great time, you will be there.

Jesse's 2013 bowkill

2013 will go down as the most challenging season of my hunting career. Low deer numbers, due to a pathetic attempt for a management plan for the whitetail deer herd from our out of touch buddy's in the Wisconsin DNR for the last 10-15 years is starting to take its toll. I am pretty sure my two year old nephew could make more intelligent herd control decisions than these boneheads. Let's introduce wolves and not control their numbers, lets allow the brainless, toothless, hillbilly hunters in Wisconsin to shoot an unlimited amount of does with guns and give them extra long seasons to do it; great! I really wish my fellow hunters could have a little more vision for the future than some of them seem to, but I digress. Jesse is attending college 3 hours from home and we knew there would not be much time for him to hunt, we chose the last weekend in October and first weekend in November as the times we would get together and bowhunt hard. The first weekend was a little slow, the weather was not good and we had some newer hunters on the property that were just getting their feet wet in bowhunting that put quite a bit of early season pressure on our stands, causing the deer to stear clear of our past hot spots some. I knew we had to find some fresh stand sites to hunt to have any hope, so the first weekend the only productive thing we did was mainly hang two new stands. We were very excited about the new stands and the first day back up for the second weekend I put Jesse in what I figured would be the hotspot, the morning started out with a little more deer activity, but it slowed around mid morning. At 11:15 am I pulled my phone out to text Jesse and see if he was having better luck than me. 15 minutes and no response from him, then I felt a buzz in my pocket; Jesse's text " I just shot one" I almost jumped out of my stand I was so excited for him. It was my main priority to get him a buck, I had a little more time to hunt than him and I have taken more bucks, I was just hoping the deer would cooperate with him in his short window to hunt. I called Jesse and quickly got the story, apparently about 11am he was stretching his arms and knocked his bow off the hanger 18 feet to the ground, ha! He climbed down picked it up and got back in the stand and within ten minutes had a nice buck cruising down the ridge from him, he let out a grunt and the buck came charging in to 7 yards! Apparently the fall didn't affect his bow's accuracy at all because he stoned this deer, it went maybe 50 yards before crashing, thats getting to be the usual for Jesse, I hope I don't jinx him, but as I have stated before he is really a crackshot during clutch times while bowhunting and thats what makes a great hunter, controlling the buckfever when it matters most. Jesse expressed some frustration this fall while in Nevada, that he doesn't have the size of trophy's on his wall yet that he would prefer, I tried reminding him that he is doing pretty well for a 19 year old and the trophy's will come. I went out that evening in the other new stand we hung the week before and grunted in a beautiful 8pt about the size of Jesse's buck here to within 10 yards. I regret now not taking that deer and doubling up with Jesse, that would have made the day even more special. Also, that was really the last nice deer I saw the rest of the season from my stand as I stated before it got extremely slow and I learned the value of having fresh stand sites once the rut comes around, unfortunately other hunters actions are not something within my control. There is always hope that next season will be even better, but with hunting pressure up and the WI DNR wildlife bioligists intelligence down, my hope is pretty weak. Nonetheless, the time spent in our deer camp in Richland Center away from it all will be just as enjoyable regardless, the companionship of hunting is hard to replace or explain to someone who has never experienced it.