Okay, another Wisc deer season in the bag.
The trip was pretty uneventful but there were some gear problems; the air boat shredded it's prop and the new prop was a pull type and not a push (right vs left twist or something) so we could back-up great but going forward was a problem, the fishing boat worked well but the trailer had a broken spring... a little rope and more weight distribution and we made it work, the Bronco blew a brake line and we had spongy brakes but we didn't back into the Chippewa river during boat launch so that was nearly okay.
Opening morning we were near Blair and within about 2 minutes of leaving the Bronco and entering the swamp I had three bucks fighting within about 20 yards of me... lots of grunting, rushing, crashing, water flying etc. The smallest of the three fighting bucks stood about 12 yards from me (in the clear) for about 30 seconds trying to figure out if I was friend of foe but try as I might I couldn't get a clear shot through the red-willows when the large (nice proper shooter) buck stood still catching its breath (about 15 yards). Mean while Randy, my hunting partner, managed to shoot three does (family unit) about as far from the truck as we could get, it took us about an hour (at least) to drag them out relay style. We met a really young fella toting a Marlin 30-30 lever gun (probably his first hunt by himself) as we were dragging... as he gazed down at the three does we were dragging he asked how we got so "lucky"... we told him it was self defense.
We did manage to make a few trips to the various islands on the lower Chippewa to complete our annual circuit. I have a stand called "15 deer" on the one island, it once again held true to its name, I saw plenty of deer including three bucks but was holding out for a large(r) buck. We did manage to get to a doe shooting section and Randy drove a few does past, I shot two.
All-in-all it was a good season, we ended with seven deer, one smallish buck (mine in a weak moment) in the bunch. We gave two to folks that wanted venison but don't hunt and Randy had the rest hanging on his all purpose engine hoist, boat lift, flimsy swing, deer pole contraption.
Yes, I did get to fill up a few times on Sally's famous burgers at the Hide-A-While bar near Rock Falls.
Here's Randy and a few of the does we had by the third day. He used a circular saw to cut the legs off....(??) I threatened to buy him a Dewalt cordless Saws-All for Christmas but his reply was a curt... Why??
P. S. On Thanksgiving Day I sat through 1/2 of the Packer's game and now I know who this Bratt Favre fell is, folks up that way can't seem to stop talking about him. I believe there must have been about 4.8 billion dollars bet on that game just by the folks I met during the hunt(s). I also learned that with enough beer and chips football isn't that bad a spectator sport.
