I can’t believe that our hunting season is coming to an end! We’ve had quite an exciting season and we can’t wait to share to share it with you on next year’s show. As most of you know, we all hunt our own property or small pieces of leased land and work all year to get ready for our favorite time of the year…deer season! We spend hours upon hours planting food plots, scouting and setting stands. Once fall rolls around, all we can do is sit back in our tree stand, bow in hand, and hope for the chance we all wait for.
This year we caught multiple bucks on Cuddeback that we have had history with and a lot of new bucks that definitely made our hit list. We know the bucks were there, now the hard part…outsmarting them. Katie Pipp drew a Montana deer tag and took the long flight to “Timbuktu” to hunt opening week on team members Robbie and Nikki Dockter’s land. They did a lot of scouting and spot & stalk hunting to figure out where the big boys were hanging out. On day four of her hunt, they set up a ground blind and she arrowed a 160” whitetail in velvet. It was the “best day of (her) life”, not only did she harvest her biggest buck, but Alan also proposed to her!
A couple of weeks later was opening bow season in Wisconsin. We were all dreaming of a mature buck walking under our stand, but Ann Altmann had it happen. Sitting in with her husband Jon, she smoked an awesome 8 point buck. What a great way to start the season!
After an exciting opening weekend, we hunted hard, but luck just wasn’t on our side. We saw bucks on trail cams and off in the distance, but nothing we could fling an arrow at. That all changed October 22nd, when Shelly was in one of her favorite stands, set over a food plot where she had been seeing a buck we called Crab Claw 8. This is a buck she had a lot of history with and really wanted a chance at. Everything fell into place that night and she made an awesome 25 yard shot. After a slow start to the season, all of a sudden it started to snowball.
Five days later, team member Josh Smith hit the woods on his lease property in Southern Wisconsin and let his Mathews rip on a bruiser 8, his biggest to date and his first buck since 2006.
Two days later, on November 12th, Alan Dosedla turned the camera over to Katie. He set a stand on a ridge where two mature bucks had been cruisin’ and hoped for the best. A buck we have all had a lot of history with the last couple of years named Lucky ended his lucky streak that night when he walked under Alan’s stand. He released a Muzzy on this 5 year old buck, and the legend of Lucky ended.
Two weeks after Alan shot Lucky, Nate and Brian had a double hitter within five minutes of each other! Nate arrowed a mature buck we named Muley, because he had no browtines to speak of, and Brian shot a management 8. We were on a roll!!!
That brings us to gun season. Shelly took her 10 year old daughter Halie out for her first whitetail hunt. She dropped a doe with her .243 in its tracks. Her reaction was priceless and the essence of what hunting is all about.
Alan also headed out during gun season, this time on his grandparent’s property in southern Wisconsin with a smoke pole. He nailed a mature 8 point buck just shortly after setting up in his stand…he was on a roll.
All this time, Tara was hitting the woods hard. Call it stubbornness or determination, but she wasn’t ready to hang up her Mathews for a rifle. She hunted the entire gun and muzzleloader season with her bow in hand. All of her dedication paid off on December 1st when she finally got to let an Easton fly at a great 8. After a tough season, it was such an awesome feeling for her to get her hands around those antlers!
These are just some of the highlights of our season so far, but our season is not over yet. Until it is…we will keep Workin’ for Whitetails!
