Reflecting on last years experience
#
“Jim Tostrud tagged this 9-point, 238 pound buck on his last morning hunting Trempealeau County.”
:
“This 10-point buck was taken by Kyle Howard in Trempealeau County during a 5-day rut hunt beginning on Halloween.
“Here…There….
Deer hunt experience dictated by regional numbers”
By Dick Ellis
The idea that the deer hunt experience is not solely about the kill is an easy one to accept, especially as we grow older. We don’t really care if we pull the trigger at all as the years go by. It’s all we want to do when we’re 12.
I’ve occasionally killed big bucks that were highlighted in this column over 20 years, but among my favorite memories is an encounter with a fawn; she caught me….looking straight up into my face as I looked straight down from my stand to whisper “hello”. She then bounded 30 yards only to stop and look straight up another tree for 10 minutes trying to figure out just where the monster had gone.
But, the hunt is prefaced by the word “deer” for a reason. We do want to see deer, we do want the venison, and we do want at least a reasonable opportunity to fill the tag.
The deer hunt and how many deer are managed for in a given unit should be more about people, for example, the resort owners and motel owners and restaurant owner depending on the revenue of hunters and less about the loss of trees eaten by the deer. If the deer become too numerous in a given unit, call the hunter and up the ante. We’ll bring the unit back to management numbers and we’ll do it quick without formulas that too often backfire.
It’s been five years since this cabin of six efficient, ethical, experienced hunters have hung a deer in Vilas County, with bow or rifle. Last year, approximately 140 hours on portable climbing treestands produced two deer seen. This year, with just one year of antlerless restrictions behind us, I’m pleased to report that we are seeing some deer. Few deer, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. These beggars are choosers who have chosen for several years now to refrain from taking does on our own. And we’re hopeful that the state refrains from lifting the protections of antlerless animals imposed in 2010 for as many years as it takes our regional herd to recover.
Our cabin of hunters saw a handful of deer during the final week of the bow season, and it was an overdue welcome. It was also a sickening sound to hear the five rifle reports crack the night at 11:00 just down the winding road from our cabin where the “pet” deer of Island Lake frequent.
It is true that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Although we have adjusted our bowhunting to places in southern Wisconsin, It’s also true I think that hunters experiencing lean times live somewhat vicariously through friends. It was good this week to talk to Jim Tostrud, a Kenosha native hunting with long time hunting partner Don Tjader of Trevor and his nephew Kyle Howard of Illinois. They bowhunt the rut annually beginning on Halloween in Trempealeau County on Wisconsin western border. I admit, I envied the experience.
Halloween has given Tostrud, an extremely talented wildlife video guru, many big bucks from Trempealeau over the years. His first night on stand concluded when he packed his video camera in a bit early in anticipation of 68-year old Tjader leaving his own stand deeper in the woods prior to legal quitting time.
An 11-point buck Tostrud estimates would have scored 165 appeared, rubbing tag alders down the ridge. Tostrud zipped the camera in, pulled the bow back up via rope that was lying on the ground, and hurried through the steps of nocking an arrow and preparing for a shot as the monster moved toward him. Tjader’s appearance sent the buck on his way, but it was to be only chapter one in a week long book of stories.
Over five days, Tostrud would watch 60 deer. Forty would be bucks. Seven point and nine-point bucks would approach his stand from opposite directions and have a “battle royale” 50 yards from his tree. Deer would come. And deer would go.
“On the first morning I saw 20 deer and only two were does,” Tostrud said. “One adult doe came by with five bucks in tow. Thursday evening from a different stand a heard a ruckus from the bottom of the ridge and a magnum monster eight came running up with a 10-pointer with a 22-inch spread. Within 40 yards, they got into another fight.”
Don Tjader missed a very big eight. Kyle Howard tagged a 10-pointer with an 18 inch spread. And Tostrud woke up on his final day of hunting filled with the memories of a great five days and only one sit on stand without seeing deer. He also woke up sick enough to miss the last morning, despite priding himself on hunting through sleet and snow and brutal temperatures over his entire life to capture film footage.
“I wasn’t going to go out,” he said. “I was that sick. Don said, ‘It’s the last morning. It could happen in the eleventh hour.’ I went out. At 9:00 a.m. I saw what I thought was a mediocre buck coming up the ridge at 80 yards. His racked looked small. But it looked small because he was so big. I had the good angel, bad angel sitting on my shoulder whispering, ‘shoot or film, shoot or film.’ I decided to shoot.”
The buck, brought to a stop by Tostrud’s grunt call, went 60 yards. Two days later, the heavy massed 9-pointer was officially weighed at 238 pounds with an 18-1/2 inch spread.
Sometimes, and in some places, Wisconsin hunting is nothing to be sick about.