Wisconsin Gun Opener
Growing up in Wisconsin everyone treats gun opener as a holiday, the orange army is out in full force, look for the next big whitetail, or just to fill the freezer. Its a time I always look forward to, for the weeks leading up I get to talk to my grandpa more about what’s going to be going on, who is going to sit where, who has seen deer out there during bow season, and just a lot of bullshitting making sure everyone is ready for the big weekend. My step dad, Uncle, little brother, younger cousin, and I usually get together for dinner the Friday night before at the local establishment, sometimes we have a few too many beers but this year we took it easy.
Opening morning we all meet at the farm and start getting dressed making sure everyone has gloves, hand warmers, and is all ready for the morning. Brent and I decide to sit together since we haven’t sat together since I was 13 years old when I shot my first deer, on the same property we were sitting on. It was really special to me, to get to sit with the guy that has taught me so much about hunting, shown me how much drive and effort it takes to get into good whitetail deer. He put in so much effort to get me interested when I was young, bought me my first bow for Christmas when I was 12, would bring me out to the woods to scout, yell at me for being too noisy and moving around too much or for touching weeds when we were walking through, it is all such a big part of my drive to be out in the woods today. We sat and saw a couple deer, and laughed about Gavin eating his sandwich an hour after getting in the stand. We only saw a couple deer, but it was more about getting to spend a morning together.
Our group had two deer after the first morning, it was kind of slow compared to most opening mornings. Usually you hear gun shots everywhere around you, this year it was probably only 10-15 shots. We went and got lunch around noon and got back into our stands at 2. I went and sat in a different stand a little bit deeper in the woods for the afternoon, walking back there I saw a couple bigger scrapes, so the spot definitely had some promise. As the afternoon went by I was losing hope in seeing a deer for the afternoon, the squirrels had me fooled multiple times, crazy how they can sound like a 200lb deer moving through the woods. It was thicker than I expected back by this stand, I scanned and scanned the woods, and all of a sudden a 4 point came sneaking in, he had 3 on one side and a spike off his other side about 1ft long, it was actually a pretty cool deer and got the blood pumping, as I was watching him through my scope I thought I saw a bigger rack behind him, but I found a 4 point playing on the big scrape I walked by on my way in, I watched them work around and then all of a sudden I got the glimpse of a nice rack again, and he starts pushing in to the other two deer, pushed the fork horn off the scrape and starts working it himself. He is quartering towards me pretty hard, but I’m pretty confident in my shot placement with a rifle, and I know if he gets into the thick stuff I might not get a shot, thinking to myself I need to rack one fast after I shoot to get a follow up shot, I slowly squeeze the trigger, the gun goes off, I rack another one, and when I look into my scope again I am shaking so bad I can’t see anyways, just fired up as I see him plowing the dirt in front of him, he picks his front legs up like he is going to fight the tree in front of him and piles over backwards. I am completely unhinged at this point, my first buck, after 14 years of hunting I finally did it. I can see his white belly laying there 60 yards away. I call my dad, who loves when people hunt so that he doesn’t hit has many with his truck, he is just as excited for me, send a snapchat to all my buddies, let the guys in the group know that I have one down, still shaking I climb down to go look at him as it is getting dark anyways. When I got up to him I was just speechless, all I could do was stand there and look at him.
This whole opening day is much more than my first deer. I got to spend time with my favorite people, doing what I love more than anything else. It is such a special thing to have my step dad walk up to me as I am admiring the deer, give me a big hug and tell me he is proud of me. I am so thankful for these memories we create over something as simple as hunting whitetail deer. The other great part about opening weekend is getting to spend time with my brother and his cousin, they are such great kids who aren’t overly passionate about hunting yet, but always have fun coming out to be apart of the orange army. Those boys were slingin’ lead all over on opening weekend with 6 deer down between the two of them, even dropping one of the deer at 300 yards away with the 7mm. Family really is everything, and I wouldn’t want to spend the weekend any other way. Thanks for reading guys!