Tonight on KSL Outdoors.
We travel to Wisconsin with our friends from Goal Zero to try our luck at hunting whitetails.
(Brady) congrats. (bart) yeah buddy. Sweet, check him out.
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(Adam) Welcome to KSL Outdoors and more importantly, welcome to Wisconsin. I’m Adam Eakle along with Adam Nicosia with Goal Zero. You know Adam, a few months ago you came up to me and said let’s go hunt whitetails in Wisconsin. (adam Nicosia, Goal Zero) you’re response to me was “i’ve never hunted whitetail before.” (eakle) and neither have you? (nicosia) and neither have I. (eakle) Adam had a few friends out here and he said hey, catch a flight, come on out, we’ve got some properties to hunt. So we are going to give it a try and we are also going to give the new Hoyt a try as well.
(Brady Pierce, Wisconsin farmer/hunter) so here is Chicago down here. Here’s the interstate, we are going to come down to right here, the little town of Ocio, our farm is down by the little town of Fairchild.
Brady is our host for the week. He grew up in this land of rolling hills, with it’s thick hardwoods and abundant game. He was the team captain on his high school football team, played for the Wisconsin Badgers and was eventually drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 1991. He now works for a packaging company that does business with Goal Zero.
(Brady) this is our family farm, founded in 1950 I believe.
But his love of the family farm and deer hunting never wavered.
(Adam) so do you farm for the deer as well or no? (brady) that’s basically what we do. The crop that we have out here we’ll just leave for the entire season. (adam) Just for the deer? (brady) just for the deer and turkeys yeah.
(Brady) here’s our new camp, our “rut Knob.” that’s the name of our camp, Rut knob.
The family ranch is small by western standards. The entire property is only 160 acres. But I’m told, you don’t need much to hunt whitetails.
(Brady) The ground we are on now my grandparents farmed, they came here in 1950 and my dad hunted here when he first met my mom and our family has been hunting here ever since.
(Brady) When I was young I gained that love and I hope to pass that along now to my boys.
The old Rut Knob camp. Wasn’t much, just a bunch of bunk beds, packed tight with family and friends and long held memories of big bucks.
(Brady) That one rotted and fell apart so we bulldozed that one and built the new one this past year. The Rut Knob, USA.
(Brady) in Wisconsin, a lot of owners have small parcels.
(Brady) You know 40 acres here, 100 acres there, maybe a couple of hundred acres, that would be a big farm. So what these local landowners have been doing is kind of farming for wildlife. There is a lot of food plots that we are putting in.
(Brady) you know corn, soybeans, pretty popular crops in this country and the deer love to eat soybeans and corn and a fair amount of alfalfa with the dairy farming.
(Brady) So what we are doing is putting food in the ground and trying to maintain our deer herd. Give them nutrition throughout the year. We also use those food plots strategically for hunting purposes as well.
(brady) I’ve got my heavy wool on underneath. It’s going to be in the mid 30’s most of the day. (adam) and I’ve got to sit still? (brady) you do unfortunately. You are going to love that.
(Adam Nicosia, Goal Zero) ok, so you are going off on a different stand. You going to be able to find it? (nicosia) yeah I’m going to head that way.
(adam) alright shoot a big one. (nicosia) alright buddy.
(Brady) ok, first morning in Wisconsin, hopefully it will be a real good morning. Sun is supposed to come out, northwest breeze, about 8 miles per hour. Should be really good, we should have a lot of activity. Hopefully the bucks will be on their feet.
(music and timelapse)
for a guy like me, sitting and waiting is tough. The breeze is cool and I’m on high alert.
(Brady) In this country most of your tactic for hunting whitetails, your stand hunting. Unlike out West were you can spot and stalk. We are in farm country, we are in the woods, we don’t have a lot of ground to hunt, so mostly from tree stands, various types of ladder stands, climbers. We’ll also use ground blinds from time to time.
Finally, on my second stand, my third hunt, I finally see some movement.
(NATS KNOCKING ARROW)
out at about 40 yards is a little buck, good thing because he totally caught me off guard.
(Bart) right now there is a lot of young bucks running around at the moment, the big bucks have just started to kick in.
(Adam) farming for wildlife here in Wisconsin, boy it’s pretty similar CWMU’S back home where they are almost doing some of the same things, just on a little bigger scale. Hey coming up on KSL Outdoors, we are back up in the trees again, but first tonights Burt Brothers Quiz Question.
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(Zach Schmidtknecht, Landowner/Hunter) Right up there is a big water hole. Hopefully bucks are coming back and forth from that water and they run this ravine. This ravine goes way down there all the way up to there.
(Adam and Bart) Turn around dude, make sure his stinky part really gets sprayed down. Alright you are good, I think you are about ready. (laughs)
It’s the second day and Bart Miller with Goal Zero, has flown in to hunt with us.
nat walking
(adam) We are over in Buffalo county, it’s known for big bucks. Already we had a farmer come by and say there was a big four by four, I mean an eight pointer that was seen down the road in a corn field. It’s a big ravine and it’s surrounded by corn, so we are just going to wait it out.
[Notes:#75 Grouse at 34:47, #60 49:03]
(music and pics of animals)
[Notes:cover with video grunting and rattling on 1227 Go Pro.]
(NATS GRUNTING)
I try everything these guys told me to.
(NATS RACKING ANTLERS)
And finally I see some movement, barreling right at me.
Even though I have two doe tags to fill and this doe is right under my stand. I let her walk and the buck that was coming right behind her!
(Adam whisper) They come in fast. Just a little buck, chasing a doe.
[Notes:I have some shots of my phone and go pro while in the stands #50]
(BRIDGE on GOAL ZERO PRODUCT) You know when we are out in the fields, whether it’s in Wisconsin or back home in Utah. We are always taking our small devices with us, whether that be our phones or our Go Pro, Hero two that we use to bring video back home to you. Inevitably the seem to run out of power. So goal zero came up with a pretty unique idea, you can throw it in your pack, your purse even if you want to charge your devices back up. It’s called the switch. It’s pretty neat, with one switch I can charge my phone up or with another switch I can charge my Go Pro, Hero up, so we can bring more video back home. And they are easy to charge up, you can use the sun, the solar panels that come with them or you can just plug them into the wall or even your computer. A brand new product from Goal Zero, innovative, light, and pretty convenient.
(Rich Engelien, Wisonson hunter/farmer) weather is changing here a little bit, so we are going to hopefully get on a couple. We are going to spread out, we are going to hunt high, hunt low. We are going to have some ridge hunting, fields.
Two days ago, Adam Nicosia was able to get a doe on Rich’s property, so we decided to bring everyone back to see if Bart and I could have the same luck.
(Rich) if Adam can get one, than anyone can get one right?
(Adam Nicosia) really dude, joining in with these guys now? (laughs)
While Adam hunted on top of a ridge, Bart settled in his blind overlooking a cornfield.
I was hunting a ground blind, just off a turnip field.
(Adam) got a little hot coming in, we are going to be here awhile, so just hunker down and hope something comes out to this field.
(Adam) We are going to put in a full day.
it’s our last day, it’s really foggy and all day long I sat in the blind but didn’t see a deer.
(Rain nats)
Then it started to rain and just when I was about to throw in the towel, this buck appears out of nowhere. I did my best to get the camera on the buck, range him and get by new Hoyt Carbon Express, G3, ready for a shot.
(Adam) that was a nice six point buck, not a giant but it’s the biggest one I’ve seen, it’s the only deer I’ve seen and I just blew it. Frustrating. I couldn’t get him to stop and when he finally did I shot and he jumped the string.
[Notes:doe on #99, spike on #100]
I did have this doe, walk just inches from my stand and this small spike at 30 yards, but I was so disappointed in missing the bigger buck, I let them walk.
(Tag) Come all this way and blow the shot, but that’s hunting, that’s the way it goes I guess. Hey we’ll have more in just a second, but first let’s head back to Salt Lake to the guys at Fish Tech for tonights fishing report.
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(Adam) So what happened?
(Bart) I finally shot a deer, I shot four arrows today, missed a six point this morning. Missed an 8 point through some thicker stuff and missed him, hit tree branches before it got to him and I was lucky enough to have another a third good buck walk by tonight about four o’clock and finally hit a deer. I was so excited. (adam) so we’ve got to go find one. (bart) yeah I saw him fall, he went about 150 yards down through the corn and downhill.
(Bart) I’m pumped, first whitetail.
(Bart) So we’ll go down here, he just, he went down about as far as you can see where the light is.
Bart hit his deer just a few minutes after I missed my shot. It’s been raining ever since. I wasn’t sure we were going to find his deer, but Bart led us right to him.
(Brady) good job Bart. (bart) sweet) (adam) dude you weren’t lying there he is. (bart) yeah buddy. Sweet, check him out. Lets go check him out dude.
(Adam) Look at that. (bart) oh man, first whitetail. That will work. I passed up a lot of forked horns, was patient, I missed one better deer today, but that’s awesome, man that’s a dream come true right there. (adam) how cool is that huh? (bart) sweet. laughs) (adam) right where you said he’d be.
Turns out the buck I had at 45 yards in my blind earlier that day and missed.
Is the same buck Bart ended up shooting just a few hundred yards away.
(Rich) congratulations. (bart) thanks Rich, thanks for letting me hunt here I appreciate it very much. It was a blast.
(Bart) That’s so cool, last night. Dinner is on Bart. (bart) yeah. Let’s have some back straps boys.
(Brady) Bart this is your buck. (bart) I can’t wait, that looks delicious.
(Brady) and that stuff doesn’t taste like sage brush. (laughs) (adam) are you knocking our mule deer. He’s knocking our mule deer. (brady) I would never do that. I’ve never had mule deer.
Brady and the guys were top notch. Love to go back and try and redeem myself someday. If you’d like to come to Wisconsin to try your luck at a whitetail, there is a couple of ways. There is public land to hunt here and a non-resident, first time hunter can get two doe tags and a buck tag for only 90 bucks. But, your best option might be to hire a guide, who has a lease on some property.
(Adam Nicosia) This was actually a challenge it was fun. Catch them while they move from cover for food, this was awesome.
Time now to open up this weeks edition of our Utah Field Guide.
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