The Lost Deer Ladder Stand
By John Luthens
I had to hunt for it. Lost and forgotten deer stands have a crafty way of staying hidden until they develop personalities as elusive as a swamp buck. I was certain it was nearby. The landscape signs looked so familiar and so right. But that old ladder stand, just like an old buck, sat tight and hidden in the alder slashing. It laughed and watched as I walked over matted grass clearings that opened among the Douglas County timber.
Maybe the sun was right or the wind was right. Maybe I just got lucky. Finally, there it stood, or rather leaned, against a leafless tree crag. There it was—just where I left it quite a few years ago.
The lost ladder straddles the edge of the Brule River State Forest, in heavy brush and second timber growth. I don’t believe it actually leans on state land, instead resting on the outskirts of our family’s property margin. But I’ll admit it’s a close call. If a DNR warden should find it, I might have to take it out of there. While it’s simply a ladder leaning against a tree, it still represents a stand that should be removed when not being occupied. I would be in agreement with that.
I’ve never seen another person back in there, though, be it warden, hunter or otherwise. So there the ladder was, still upright and intact, with only days to go until the opening of the gun deer season. And there I was, in my early forties, having hunted deer throughout the state of Wisconsin, leading a varied life of outdoor pursuits in the state’s never ending settings, for which no other place, in my opinion, can compete in a contest of natural riches. Yet somehow I hadn’t hunted deer or purchased a gun deer license in the past three years.
The state is not likely worried about finding an old ladder. The state is worried about finding me and other hunters like me who have dropped by the wayside. And for the life of me, I wasn’t even sure why I’d dropped by the wayside. The ladder was still sound, so of course I climbed it. Tell me someone wandering in the woods and finding a ladder that would do otherwise. I needed to understand how the ladder came to be abandoned. I climbed on stand to hunt for answers.
On the first rung of the ladder is a mentor. There needs to be someone to take a youngster deer hunting—show him the way. My father took me into the woods before I was legally able to carry a gun. I learned deer hunting on vast tracts of logging company land near Ladysmith. There were stretches that you traveled with the aid of a compass, packing in gear and lunch for the day in the predawn dark and coming out after the sun set. I went tagging along without a rifle, excited as can be, until I completed hunter safety education. For church confirmation, I received a Bible and a 30-30 rifle. The business of deer hunting got more interesting. Yes, I was shown the way, and still I faltered.
The lower steps of the ladder are taken up with the lore that is Wisconsin deer hunting. Once you’ve been shown, you begin the search for your place in the fold. Hunting camps convene annually, many of them legendary places steeped in the tradition of generations. I’ll admit to never finding a place in a camp like that, but I can sit for hours and hear the stories from those who have. Maybe I’m jealous of not having a place in one of those storied camps. Could it be I don’t fit the mold of a proper deer hunter?
I can’t be bitter for the opportunities presented me, graduating from my early Ladysmith deer hunts into the diversity of habitat that makes Wisconsin such a blue-ribbon deer destination.
I’ve roamed the cornfield valleys of LaFayette and Iowa counties, learning that deer can crawl on four knees through corn stubble when they have a mind to. I’ve pushed pot-hole marsh grass on the eastern side of Lake Winnebago in Calumet County and still-hunted warily through the high winds of the Door County peninsula. For several years I sought brown horizontal backs and white flags in the high timber of Florence County, in a place where I could nearly see over the Michigan border from my stand.
There’s so much diverse habitat in this great state. Then there’s a ladder in Douglas County that I haven’t used in three years. There’s always a place to hunt. That’s not the answer I was hunting for.
Higher up the ladder is where it becomes a bit convoluted. With so much to choose from in this state, occasionally something has to give. I spend countless days fishing during the summer months. I travel frequently with the local Boy Scout troop. That adds up to a lot of camping, exploring and burning my food over the cooking fire with the best of them. Back at the home base there’s everyday chores to keep up with: leaves to rake, lawn to mow-not to mention holding down a job to keep the home, and thus prevent the bank from having to mow and rake. The higher up the ladder, the older you get, and the quicker time goes by.
Often I find myself working during the opening of gun deer season, paying back my fellow associates for covering me in my summer absences when the trout are biting here or the walleyes are running there, and the work still has to get out. My co-workers are responsible enough to cover for me in my wanton summer neglect. The least I can do is return the favor. Where I work, deer hunting still reigns supreme, with a countdown of days on the company bulletin board to the gun deer opener that is every bit as exciting as an advent punch calendar is for kids counting down to Christmas.
I know many deer hunters live busier lives than mine and still gravitate every year into the November woods. They join hunting organizations, plant food plots and check trail cameras with regular abandon. The steps get hectic higher up the ladder. Maybe I needed to try harder.
Big buck pictures leap from outdoor publications to cover up free counter space in the lunchroom at work. Video production hunting teams bring the hunt right to my television. The state has put the best biologists and invested in highest technology tracking infrastructure to ensure there are deer in all the right places. Tracking studies, mortality studies, and every possible survey and hunter input forum make it possible to bring that big buck right to my ladder stand in the hidden cover.
And finally, there on top of the ladder, was my answer. Deer hunting had become confusing for me: reading the articles, watching the video production hunts, seeing the pictures of trophy deer taken in our state every season, yet hearing others say there are not enough deer. Are the state deer numbers artificially inflated? Are there too many wolves and bears? Is it a possibility that everyone is right? Maybe everyone is wrong. I don’t really know. I do know sensory overload kicked in at some point along the path of my deer hunting years. I’d dropped from the ranks because I didn’t understand enough about deer biology, chronic wasting disease or trophy management practices, not to mention baiting practices which some say is the only way to hold deer. Had it always been like this? I wasn’t sure.
I looked at the surrounding forest from the top of the lost ladder, and as I thought back through the years, hunting for answers, I remembered all the steps and all the places those steps had taken me. I remembered something else I’d lost. I saw again the deer forest for the trees.
I’d forgotten how basic it can be, seeing the sun come up on another cold morning, where every squirrel pounding the forest floor for winter stock sets the heart on edge, watching curious chickadees come to roost under your very nose, or simply hanging around the registration watering holes to hear the stories and laughter.
I remembered a quote from renowned Wisconsin outdoor reporter and storyteller, Gordon MacQuarrie, who once wrote, “Some people ask why men go hunting. They must be the kind of people who seldom get far from highways. What do they know of the tryst a hunting man keeps with the wind and the trees and the sky? Hunting? The means are greater than the end, and every deer hunter knows it.”
I climbed down the ladder to run into town and buy my deer license. Whether or not I shot one for the record books or if I saw many deer, or any at all for that matter, that is between me and my lost ladder. I found that the outcome is of no real consequence either way.