So Close, So Far
Our intention, last weekend, was to bowhunt Vilas County. With a cabin on the Manitowish Chain, we have deer hunted near Boulder Junction for the last two decades, gun and bow. When deer numbers are good, hunting has been good and we have hung our share of deer including good bucks. Collectively we have also not hung a deer in six years. Any venison we process has come from both public and private property hunting in southern Wisconsin near Oshkosh or the Kettle Moraine northern unit in Sheboygan County.
When my brother John Ellis and I arrived in the North Country to open the cabin Thursday night the weather forecast changed the plans. Despite the whitetail rut, inclement weather dictated that we would at least spend the first afternoon following a morning of work duck hunting. Brother-in-law Bob Johnson and good friend Jack Liban as usual, would spend time camped over rock humps on Trout Lake, pursuing walleyes.
Would the northern, Canadian mallards be down, pushed by the cold and rain? Well, we would see. Yellow lab Dylan and Micah, my Golden Retriever, seconded the motion. Often, during the deer hunt, they are cabin prisoners and not at all happy campers when the masters reach for the bows.
With the pier pulled and safely packed away for another winter, we chose one of many locations we pack into on foot to hunt ducks, gathered a handful of mallard and teal dekes, and headed out. We would hunt wild rice potholes near main water and see where the chips fell.
The mallards anyway, fell. Not from our shotgun loads, but they fell from the skies in 10s and 20s and hundreds. Fat, northern birds looking to rest and feed and in no hurry to continue the journey if not pushed. They were not pushed, with no other hunters on the big water to persuade them to move on. The result was that our fringe hunting, at times a beautiful place to be, offered only sparse shooting. And we were bad at that sparse shooting, by the way.
We estimated that we saw 3000 to 5000 mallards each hunt. That sight, and the weather, kept us coming back through Saturday to continue hunting ducks, with slight adjustments. With news that sunshine and more stable weather was flooding southern Wisconsin, we headed home to find a tree and jump more seriously into the rut game.
In the pre-dawn dark of Sunday morning, I followed the top of a ridge in Kettle Moraine country that dropped down to offer shooting to the edges of converging swamps. I had discovered the area last year, and let the Lone Wolf drop from my back, shimmied up the poplar quietly, and pulled the necessary gear up after on a rope. With the day emerging, my telephoto camera rested on the seat of the climbing stand. As always, I remained standing with the Mathews Reesen hanging with knocked arrow from a branch and a Hunter’s Safety System offering no worries of a tumble.
If I looked back 60 yards at the at the ridge from which I walked in, my elevated perch would put me eye-to eye with any deer that materialized there among the popple, scrub oak, and pine. Although I expected any shot to come on the swamp edge, I thought, wouldn’t “he” look good up there. I’ve envisioned such approaches probably from every stand I’ve hunted. Rarely does it play out as imagined.
And then, he was there. Exactly as I imagined.
I knew he was a buck as soon as I saw him. I did not see antlers among the vegetation but he carried himself like a man on the mission. As he followed the narrow razorback down on my steps, he was unconcerned and closing fast on my stand. I could see he was a perfect eight, with maybe a 15 or 16 inch spread and extremely high tines. If given the opportunity, I would take him gratefully.
My left handed shooting position placed me directly on the other side of the trunk from the buck. I would let him slip by on the other side of the tree, and he would walk right into the zone I was positioned to shoot into. At eight yards, he stopped dead and took on the personality of the prey in trouble. He wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong, but his instincts told him this was not right. He took one leap quartering back up the ridge that actually placed him at 15 yards from me, but now broadside. I would need to adjust my feet 180 degrees on the platform to prepare the shot and got away with the move. He was wound as tight as a drum.
After several minutes, he took the slight step and I took the cue to attempt the draw. I didn’t get away with it. Two more bounds put him in a position that would compromise the shot. Eventually, he melded away again to the forest, leaving me with a great memory and an outdoor writer’s nagging question.
Should I have picked up the camera and guaranteed a cover photo for a future issue of On Wisconsin Outdoors? Or…should I have played the hunter, hoping for the beautiful buck? Ultimately, I ended up with neither photo nor buck.
What would you have done?
The November-December issue of On Wisconsin Outdoors is posted on this homepage and available on the streets at 550 locations. Here’s a guaranteed tip if you do not have an excellent place to process your venison. Bucky’s Fine Meats & Sausages in Mukwonago is where I take my deer. They process your deer and offer a huge variety of outstanding venison sausage and products. It is so good that I recommend any hunter in southern Wisconsin take a drive over and taste the free samples Bucky’s always has simmering in a dozen kettles. It is Bucky’s best marketing move. Just let the consumer taste the goods, and they’re captured for life. See Bucky’s logo ad and link on this homepage, and also their print ad in our newest issue.
Thanks to all of our many advertisers that allow you to pick up OWO at no cost. We will list them next Blog, next week. They appreciate your business.
Thanks for connecting with On Wisconsin Outdoors. Shoot straight.
Dick Ellis