Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hunting Land near Athelstane Wisconsin

Curious as to you exact location. My Family hunted that area from the late 60s to late 90s all public land. Still have a cottage off HWY C and Tower road.I will also echo Windfalls post.

Used to be a ton of deer considering it is marginal deer habitat. Used to log the area extensively. New growth kept the deer fed and acorns were plentiful in the oaks that were not cut. Mid to late 90s things just got ugly up there.
Logging slowed way down, hard winters, gypsy moths decimated the oak trees, DNR sold doe tags by tens of thousands, and the predator population exploded.

Needless to say the population just crashed. Has not been the same since. We might have a couple years that give a glimmer of hope but all it takes is one bad winter to put us back at square one again. Honestly I don't think the deer population will ever recover to what it once was.

Before my hunting career started my dad and grandfather hunted the early 70s to early 80s time frame. It was almost impossible to get a doe tag. Coyotes were actively hunted wolves did not exist in any numbers. Bear population was a very small percentage of what it is now. Logging was non stop. As long as you did a a bit of scouting you could find a deer hot spot. No BS seeing 50 plus deer before lunch was common. Of course they were all does. For whatever reason they has always seemed to be a huge number of does for every buck. And not a lot of big bucks. Spikes and forks the occasional little basket rack. Mature deer though. Some monster spike bucks seen and shot over the years pushing three hundred pounds. We never got any big racked bucks but every year the occasional monster would be shot in the area. Genetics suck plain and simple.

Still have a friend who has hunted every year up there. I have not since around 2005 or so. He sees five or six deer during the season. He hunts public and knows how to hunt. He is on the best spot he can find within reasonable driving distance from his cottage. Used to run a crew of about a dozen guys. They would routinely tag out by third or fourth day of the season hunting same general areas.

Now we get to the other problem up there. Baiting. I have no problem with it. Legal you want to do it fine. I have done it. But it has made hunting more difficult for all hunters even those that are hunting over the bait. When there are lots of deer competing for food they are moving around or if the food is hard to come by even a few deer will be out looking all the time.

Take small deer population and baitpiles in a area of minimal natural food deer movement drops way off. Deer in a particular area will find a bait site and move very little. Typically they will bed down in the thickest cover closest to the best bait pile in an area and not move til dark.

Sorry to paint a bleak picture. I have this to say about the area. It is a great if you want to hunt a deer. If you want to shoot one or for that matter see one there are better options.

I still love to bum around the area with a spinning rod and a large caliber handgun, chasing brook trout in the numerous creeks. I do fairly well.

Spikes and forks the occasional little basket rack. Mature deer though. Some monster spike bucks seen and shot over the years pushing three hundred pounds.

Spikes and forks the occasional little basket rack. Mature deer though. Some monster spike bucks seen and shot over the years pushing three hundred pounds.

Before digital pics will have to do some serious digging for pics. .

Curious as to you exact location. My Family hunted that area from the late 60s to late 90s all public land. Still have a cottage off HWY C and Tower road.I will also echo Windfalls post.

Used to be a ton of deer considering it is marginal deer habitat. Used to log the area extensively. New growth kept the deer fed and acorns were plentiful in the oaks that were not cut. Mid to late 90s things just got ugly up there.
Logging slowed way down, hard winters, gypsy moths decimated the oak trees, DNR sold doe tags by tens of thousands, and the predator population exploded.

Needless to say the population just crashed. Has not been the same since. We might have a couple years that give a glimmer of hope but all it takes is one bad winter to put us back at square one again. Honestly I don't think the deer population will ever recover to what it once was.

Before my hunting career started my dad and grandfather hunted the early 70s to early 80s time frame. It was almost impossible to get a doe tag. Coyotes were actively hunted wolves did not exist in any numbers. Bear population was a very small percentage of what it is now. Logging was non stop. As long as you did a a bit of scouting you could find a deer hot spot. No BS seeing 50 plus deer before lunch was common. Of course they were all does. For whatever reason they has always seemed to be a huge number of does for every buck. And not a lot of big bucks. Spikes and forks the occasional little basket rack. Mature deer though. Some monster spike bucks seen and shot over the years pushing three hundred pounds. We never got any big racked bucks but every year the occasional monster would be shot in the area. Genetics suck plain and simple.

Still have a friend who has hunted every year up there. I have not since around 2005 or so. He sees five or six deer during the season. He hunts public and knows how to hunt. He is on the best spot he can find within reasonable driving distance from his cottage. Used to run a crew of about a dozen guys. They would routinely tag out by third or fourth day of the season hunting same general areas.

Now we get to the other problem up there. Baiting. I have no problem with it. Legal you want to do it fine. I have done it. But it has made hunting more difficult for all hunters even those that are hunting over the bait. When there are lots of deer competing for food they are moving around or if the food is hard to come by even a few deer will be out looking all the time.

Take small deer population and baitpiles in a area of minimal natural food deer movement drops way off. Deer in a particular area will find a bait site and move very little. Typically they will bed down in the thickest cover closest to the best bait pile in an area and not move til dark.

Sorry to paint a bleak picture. I have this to say about the area. It is a great if you want to hunt a deer. If you want to shoot one or for that matter see one there are better options.

I still love to bum around the area with a spinning rod and a large caliber handgun, chasing brook trout in the numerous creeks. I do fairly well.

Curious as to you exact location. My Family hunted that area from the late 60s to late 90s all public land. Still have a cottage off HWY C and Tower road.I will also echo Windfalls post.

Used to be a ton of deer considering it is marginal deer habitat. Used to log the area extensively. New growth kept the deer fed and acorns were plentiful in the oaks that were not cut. Mid to late 90s things just got ugly up there.
Logging slowed way down, hard winters, gypsy moths decimated the oak trees, DNR sold doe tags by tens of thousands, and the predator population exploded.

Needless to say the population just crashed. Has not been the same since. We might have a couple years that give a glimmer of hope but all it takes is one bad winter to put us back at square one again. Honestly I don't think the deer population will ever recover to what it once was.

Before my hunting career started my dad and grandfather hunted the early 70s to early 80s time frame. It was almost impossible to get a doe tag. Coyotes were actively hunted wolves did not exist in any numbers. Bear population was a very small percentage of what it is now. Logging was non stop. As long as you did a a bit of scouting you could find a deer hot spot. No BS seeing 50 plus deer before lunch was common. Of course they were all does. For whatever reason they has always seemed to be a huge number of does for every buck. And not a lot of big bucks. Spikes and forks the occasional little basket rack. Mature deer though. Some monster spike bucks seen and shot over the years pushing three hundred pounds. We never got any big racked bucks but every year the occasional monster would be shot in the area. Genetics suck plain and simple.

Still have a friend who has hunted every year up there. I have not since around 2005 or so. He sees five or six deer during the season. He hunts public and knows how to hunt. He is on the best spot he can find within reasonable driving distance from his cottage. Used to run a crew of about a dozen guys. They would routinely tag out by third or fourth day of the season hunting same general areas.

Now we get to the other problem up there. Baiting. I have no problem with it. Legal you want to do it fine. I have done it. But it has made hunting more difficult for all hunters even those that are hunting over the bait. When there are lots of deer competing for food they are moving around or if the food is hard to come by even a few deer will be out looking all the time.

Take small deer population and baitpiles in a area of minimal natural food deer movement drops way off. Deer in a particular area will find a bait site and move very little. Typically they will bed down in the thickest cover closest to the best bait pile in an area and not move til dark.

Sorry to paint a bleak picture. I have this to say about the area. It is a great if you want to hunt a deer. If you want to shoot one or for that matter see one there are better options.

I still love to bum around the area with a spinning rod and a large caliber handgun, chasing brook trout in the numerous creeks. I do fairly well.

The area is north of Hwy F just off of Hwy C near Harper Road.

I guess I expected a somewhat dismal report on the area, as I have talked with the neighbors, and they don't have much positive info on the deer situation either.

I'll put out some trail cams and see what happens. I'll post the results in this forum.