Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Wisconsin Deer

Tommy,
Just to clarify, I didn't say that.

I get a kick out of folks that think their 160# is 200# too.

And you're right, Northern MN has the Canadian strain of whitetails, they're far more sturdy than our northern deer.

Tom,

I can't believe you just admitted that !

Paul

I know...I used the "quick reply"

You probably don't know what a 200# buck looks like either. You just shoot them big Canuck bastards.

Yeah, I prolly shouldn't have.

That Tink's 69 works a lot better than a guy would think. And fer Chrissakes....DON'T KEEP IT IN YOUR BACK POCKET!

SKane- We are hunting with Tom Indrebo. That is good I hope....He seems like a pretty straight guy.

Jerry

Oh...THAT'S good. No need to worry. He might even get you on a decent buck

Jerry,
He's the guy that put Buffalo County on the map. You're in good hands.

I hunted at my brother's farm about 30 miles west of Madison. Never seen more deer signs and big rubs. We hunted for a week and he got a 220 8 point and I got a 180lb one

Beautiful hardwoods, acorns and cornfields. Will return again this year

That's some beautiful country and boasts some really good deer - can't imagine why you'd wanna go back.

I used to live in Eau Claire, my great grandfather had a farm south of Gilmanton. We used to hunt there every year on opening weekend. This is back in the late 70's and early 80's. I don't now how it is now, but you could only use shotguns with slugs and it was buck or doe opening weekend. On a drive we used to flush out 1/2 dozen deer out of every valley. We always filled our tags. We ate lots of venison in those days. Great grandpa died in 1986 at the great old age of 96. His son in law had conned him into selling him the farm. No one else knew of it until it was too late. Haven't been back since his funeral. He's buried in Wuamandee. Beautiful country.

Back to deer. Ya, they had a reputation for being "corn fed" and big, but not as many were amazing like Iowa or MN deer, but they all tasted good. I used an Ithica 20 guage model 37 and shot every deer under 50 yards. Brings back memories.

Enjoy your hunt. Buffalo county is nothing like it used to be. Wealth and development has taken over like every other remote beautiful place in the state. Our deer camp fell apart. Now I hunt north by Hayward where deer aren't as plentiful. Shooting a doe should be criminal.

Ahhhh, the good old days.

Thanks for taking me back.

DC,

Most of the deer in northern WI are "corn fed" too - a pile of yellow acorns can appear out of nowhere.

I'd worry more about that G'damned earn a buck than I would about what it takes to put a buck down.

I grew up in Eau Claire. Go Old Abes!

We have a party that hunts near Spooner, big buck there body wise is going to run 170 - 180 lbs, that's a mature deer.

In MN, East Central part of the state our last 6 bucks have went 215, 210, 205, 190 and 185 (2) - that's the last 3 years and all have been 4+ year olds. These are all dressed weights on a fairly accurate scale. For whatever reason they don't grow as big in the part of WI that other members of our party hunt, not sure why (they're racks are better over there!).

They don't have to get as big. Winter is at least a few weeks shorter there. Probably more like a month.

Until this year, I lived near Wausau for the last 11 years. There is a big difference in weather from there to here. (north of the twin cities 25 miles.)

Small world. I'm a mid 80's Old Abe too. Coached by Birkel.

I may be wrong, but I understood that they stopped the earn a buck program.

You guys have got me thinking about hunting in days gone by. I can still remember the first time my dad put me on a deer stand. I was 12 years old and it was about 5:30 in the morning and so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face. After he walked off, I could hear every sound. I shot my first buck on that same stand a few years later. That was in Pennsylvania.

Now I am anxious to hunt Wisconsin. I have wanted to go there for a number of years.

Jerry - 2010 earn-a-buck applied only to deer management units (DMU) that were in a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) DMU unit. Stay tuned that could change for 2011.

Actually the largest bodied deer on record is from MN and dressed at just over 400lbs. Our state record is from the UP and dressed in the upper 300lb range. I think there was a few WI that were in that range also IIRC. Most obviously don't get close to that, but one of the problems we have here is it's hard to get bucks to maturity due to the volume of hunters. A few years ago some check station data recorded around 2% of bucks coming through were 4.5 and older. I think we'd see a lot more of the 200+ dressed out if they were mature deer instead of a bulk being 1.5 and 2.5 year olds.