On the Hunt.....

Although technically I suppose I have never grown up, when I was a young person I lived in the big city.  We had no family hunting tradition and other than a few trips to the rifle range at Boy Scout camp I have had minimal contact with fire arms.

But I moved to Wisconsin and raised my boys here.  They all hunt.  So this year we will have our first ever family deer hunt.  If you are not from here let me tell ya, deer hunting is a very big deal.  Schools either close or lower expectations significantly.  Factories use the week to shut down for maintenance.  Wives, called "deer widows" go to sales.  Or in some instances also go hunting.

But this is all new to me so perhaps chronicling the journey will be of some interest.

You have to start somewhere, and in this case you start with an online lottery for deer tags.  This is what I saw on a Monday morning recently:

Note the 12,208 people in line ahead of me.  My two sons were also logged in.  One was at the 16,000 mark, the other - the best shot in the family - around 8,000.  But it worked out.  As it happens there are a myriad of options.  Permits are set aside for each county, for public and private land, for antlered and antlerless deer.  Not everyone is aiming to hunt the same little area near our cabin.  As it turns out, very few people were, and we succeeded in getting our permits without difficulty.  Most years there are over 400,000 licences sold, so my fretting was not warranted.  It actually turned out being easier than the  rush for Vindolanda excavation slots.

I of course have no deer hunting "stuff".  You have to wear blaze orange clothes.  They are pretty easy to spot at thrift sales!

Hat, gloves, two pairs of mittens with open up space on the front for trigger finger.  The big orange thing could be used either as a double hand warmer or a seat cushion.

Stay tuned for updates between now and deer season in November.  And possibly for some nice vegetarian recipes to follow!