I’m always looking for new deer hunting gear that will make forays into the woods easier and more successful, but when I walked into Aurora Medical Center in Oshkosh on Oct. 22 to have my thyroid gland removed, I never suspected I’d leave with a handy little piece of equipment for that most private of hunting’s moments.
The surgery was a success, and Dr. Lee Stratton removed the whole gland plus two nodules (one benign, one cancerous).
My brief one-day stay was a series of visits by 20 or more nurses. If you’ve never spent a night or two in the hospital, one thing you’ll soon learn is that sleeping is largely discouraged by nurses.
“Hi, Ross, I just need to get your vitals.”
At 3 a.m.? Doesn’t that machine monitor everything? Are you taking bets on whether I’ll get mad? The randomness of visits and seeming lack of coordination in care may be just because I’m the patient and not a trained professional.
Take peeing, for example. After the anesthetic starts to wear off, you will have to go but the process may be slower than normal. They want to know if your urine is coming out. So someone invented a dish-shaped plastic cup that sits just below the lid of the toilet.
I learned this visit that it’s really designed for women, but the friendly nurses still want men to pee in it, too. If you are lucky enough to hit the target (maybe a 5-inch diameter), you will be rewarded with a spattering shower on your legs, feet and other areas. After my first accident, I asked if I could just miss the cup and go into the rest of the toilet. One nurse said yes, so I did.
The next nurse said no, but offered me use of a portable plastic urinal. What? Why have I not heard of this wondrous device? I’ve had many hospital stays and no nurse had ever offered me this collection tool.
The advantage of this hand-held urinal is that it eliminates all aiming errors, as men sometimes make, especially when drugs make a consistent shot nearly impossible. As I listened to the sweet sound of success, the deer hunter’s light bulb came on. This bottle would be perfect in the ground blind.
No more spooking deer while sneaking outside to get rid of the morning coffee or tea. No more contaminating the area around my blind with human smell. In cold weather, no more fumbling … well, think at least three layers of coveralls, jeans and long johns. This was the missing link in the evolution of opening-weekend hunter to polished pro.
I recalled a piece of equipment advertised in the Sportsman’s Guide, a Minnesota-based outdoors gear company, called the Little John. It was red and had a plastic cap, but looked just like my clear plastic mini-urinal. A quick browser search showed that Sportsman’s Guide didn’t carry it anymore but Bass Pro Shops and Scheel’s both had versions of it.
Magazine calls it quits
My favorite bowhunting magazine announced with its last issue (December/January 2027) that it was calling it quits.
Founder and publisher T.J. Conrads, a legendary traditional bowhunter and author, successfully published the magazine for 38 years. Readers hailed from 47 countries, and the beautiful publication scratched that old-school itch for those who prefer to use a recurve or longbow rather than a compound bow in pursuit of big and small game and fish.
“We thought we had a company to take over production, but that fell through,” Conrads wrote in a note to readers.
He has promised a full refund on remaining issues, less a $3 fee for checks or a $1 fee for PayPal. A gentleman to the end.
Here’s hoping someone will pick up the ball and keep a version of it going.
Comment through Nov. 20 on DNR turkey plan
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has an updated 10-year management plan for wild turkeys, and the agency wants your comments.
The 70-page plan focuses on maintaining stable turkey populations and optimizing quality hunting opportunities. The wild turkey’s rebound from fragmented populations in Wisconsin and many other states in the 1960s and 1970s is a modern success story and testament to careful management that included many releases of wild birds through both state and private agencies, including the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Last year, the state’s hunters bagged more than 47,000 turkeys. Making it easier for hunters to get the season dates and zones they want with a minimum of hassles should certainly be a consideration, too.
The Dec. 10 deadline for applying to get turkey licenses has caused many issues, and up to 30% of hunters applying for specific seasons and zones do not ultimately buy those licenses afterward, the DNR said last year.
Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.
