Deer Hunting, Ready or Not

Ben's newest addition to his Trophy Room!

Well, like everything these days it's amazing that deer hunting is already here.  What started out in the early 1980's hunting with my friends Mark and Jack Taylor, their brother-in-law Tim Guzek and myself has been reduced to simply Jack and I for the last 15 years or so.   Our first adventures deer hunting was in Roseau, Minnesota which is 10 miles from the Canadian border.  Staying at the Evergreen Motel, $20 a night for 1 room with 2 full sized beds, 4 of us slept very comfortably as the goal was to go on the cheap!  We hunted in Roseau because a guy at my work, Dale Larsen was from there and invited us up.  These were the great deer hunting times, 6 hour ride up north in Mark's dad Earl's Blue Chevy van, couch in the back with room for our gear and in those days, beer for the road! After a couple of years we started making a little more money and decided to get 2 adjoining rooms, we each had our own bed.  Eventually we ended up hunting just south of Roseau, staying in some cabins at the Skime Store.  Simple rooms built on a slab, the flies would come to life once you turned on the heat.  Hunting was good around there but eventually that faded as Tim moved away and the hunting land we were on had been bought by a country celebrity called Shotgun Red and his wife Miss Daisy from the old television show He Haw.  We had asked Shotgun to hunt his land and he had no problem however a conflict occurred between us and Red's old hunting camp, the Olsen's.  Red was in the wrong but wasn't going to put us in front of the Olsen's even though he knew that us being on the land would help stop them from assuming they could have free reign of his newly aquired land.  Busting into our cabin and being warned about getting shot ended our days in Skime.  Next we hunted around Pequot Lakes, where Tim's cabin was, those were also good times but eventually Tim sold the cabin and we started hunting the area we are today.  Things continue to change as Rich is been gone over 5 years ago, Mark no longer hunts, and this year Jack's son Ben is joining us. Speaking of Ben, my friend Ben Aiona from Eleva texted me a picture of the beautiful buck he shot while bow hunting in the area.  Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties in Wisconsin are home to some of the largest whitetail deer in the country and this 13 pointer just validates that.  Next to Ben is his son Jared, who I am told actually helped track the deer and found it (wink).  As I say every year, only in my dreams!

Well, Ben wasn't the only one sending me pictures of their successful hunt, another friend Dwight Jordan sent me a picture of the nice elk he shot last week in Colorado.  A nice 5 x 5, maybe not a massive trophy but definitely worth bragging about.  Dwight goes out west every year to hunt and for the most part he does pretty well.  I hunted a few times with Dwight up near Thief River Falls when my cousin hunted a few years back and we have stayed in contact ever since.  I know he's a few years older than me but I'd tell you that he is still someone I wouldn't want to mess with and I'm afraid if I ever did hunt with him I know I couldn't even keep up with him.  He lives just south of Hudson, Wisconsin and I have featured his family in past posts on the Blog.  He's a really great guy and often wish that I could see him more often than I do.  So with that I have bought 12 pounds of boneless ribeyes for the steak feed on Friday night, my stand is ready although we are still debating where we are hunting, in the swamp or on the edge of the field 10 miles down the road.  I can tell you the field sounds like a better option but I think there is more deer in the swamp.  It will be good to see everyone again as we toast to our glasses to Rich Allen, a very nice man who really embraced Jack and myself.  It's suppose to rain on Friday and turn cold on Sunday which is OK with me.  We might as well start getting the lakes froze over as I'm getting anxious for ice fishing.