Wisconsin gears up for gun deer season

There’s a wooden, covered box about 3 feet square now sitting at the corner of state Highway 96 and County Road W in Readfield, just waiting for hunters to drop off their deer hides.

It’s a project of the Medina-Dale-Readfield Lions Club, which does various community projects with money raised from the deer hides.

That worn wooden box is just one example of something you wouldn’t find in most states. Thankfully, Wisconsin isn’t like most states when it comes to deer season.

When I moved up here from Iowa in 2000, I knew deer hunting was popular. Men, women and kids I met either hunted deer, owned their own deer hunting land, were planning to hunt or had relatives who hunted or owned hunting land. The addictive habit was more than well-established here — it was a full-blown epidemic, and since that time, there’s been no sign of a cure.

What a habit it is, like no other sport on earth. The excitement is palpable in the days leading up to opening day. Stores like Fleet Farm are ablaze with hunter orange clothing, the state’s unofficial clothing color. Orange Friday, the day before opening day, will see hunters and non-hunters alike standing in long lines to get in Fleet Farm for a commemorative stuffed animal and deals on tree stands, ammo, firearms and hand warmers.

If buying the most deer hunting gear is the goal of some hunters, nearly all of us have the goal of staying warm out there. Deer hunting is a $1 billion industry in Wisconsin, and I think about half of that amount is spent on hand warmers, portable heaters, gloves, electric socks, thermal underwear, insulated boots, orange parkas and anything else that will help us sit an hour longer than last season’s opener.

Gearing up for deer season is at least half the fun, and the anticipation is palpable. That beautiful caravan of redneck humanity with pickup trucks, SUVs and trailers loaded with ATVs and gear headed north on highways 10 and 45 that I encounter the Friday night before the opener is a site to behold.

Although there will be about 630,000 deer hunters in the woods on opening weekend (Nov. 23-24), and every one of them will be carrying a high-powered rifle, crossbow or vertical bow, hunting remains one of the safest of all sports. With all those hunters and weapons in the woods, and maybe half of them drinking the night before, we’ve had no fatal hunting accidents two seasons in a row. Let’s make it three.

I’ll take a little credit for some of that safety record. I’m one of 24 certified hunter safety instructors who teaches at one of the largest classes in the state in Waupaca. Our last class on Nov. 9 brought in 132 students from all corners of the state and even a few from Illinois.

Most of these students plan on hunting deer.We had to turn away about 100.

Hunter education, along with mandatory blaze orange clothing (and now blaze pink, too), have certainly made a safe sport even safer. We are not afraid to automatically fail a student for one of two reasons: pointing a firearms muzzle at anyone else and touching the trigger during the field test. And you should chew out any hunting partner who does the same.

Learn TAB-K and live it: Treat every firearm as if it were loaded. Always point your muzzle in a safe direction. Be sure of your target and what’s in front of and behind it. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

Gun deer hunters bagged just over 247,000 deer in 2018. That included about 112,000 bucks and 135,000 antlerless deer.

Successful hunters don’t only come home with some delicious and healthy venison, but many of them are willing to share their harvests with the hungry. This season marks the 20th year of the state’s venison donation program. Since its start, hunters have donated 92,000 deer and 3.7 million pounds of venison. Hunters donating venison this year will receive a free baseball cap (while supplies last).

Although there are no longer deer tags for attachment to the carcass, reporting your harvest is still mandatory. You can do so by calling, logging in to Go Wild Wisconsin on your smartphone or home computer, or using one of the 200 or so in-person registration stations. Kills must be reported by 5 p.m. the day after the kill is made.

If you want a lot more stats and history of Wisconsin’s deer season, visit dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/deer.htm.

I won’t be able to sleep much the night before the opener, and I bet you won’t, either. Here’s to the best season ever. Savor every moment, no matter how bad the weather gets or how loud Uncle John snores in deer camp.

Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.