CWF3 mission continues with this year’s veterans’ hunt

Shane Piantek with his wife Toni and their three daughters, as well as members of CWF3 and their significant others before the veterans’ hunt at Little Lakes Memories in Irma Wisconsin. CWF3 holds the annual hunt on the 105-acre plot for a deserving veteran. Submitted Photo

By Nathaniel Underwood, Tribune-Phonograph

Central Wisconsin Fur, Fin and Feather, or CWF3, is an organization of like-minded individuals with the mission of preserving the natural habitats of the area and helping spread their love of the outdoors to those that perhaps may not normally be able to experience it themselves.

Over the last decade and a half, the nonprofit has organized or been involved in a variety of local initiatives aimed at giving opportunities to experience outdoor sporting activities to their community. Most of these programs have focused on giving veterans a chance to go on hunting or fishing excursions that they may not otherwise be able to or passing on their passion to the next generation.

“That’s our mission,” Erik Totzke, who is the current president of CWF3 and has been part of the organization for nearly a decade, said. “To find veterans, disabled veterans, elderly veterans, people that maybe cannot get outdoors on their own because of their situation but still enjoy the outdoors, we try to get them that opportunity. And then for the youth, we want to try and ignite a flame in them to want to be in the outdoors instead of sitting inside watching TV or scrolling through Tik Tok.”

The organization has done this through a number of different initiatives. Every year, they take on a number of different excursions, from ice and salmon fishing trips for groups of veterans to white tail youth hunts.

They have sponsored the Medford and Colby high school trap shooting teams and the Medford archery team, as well as the Colby ice fishing team when it was running. This year alone, with the help of the conservation committee for Clark county, they have stocked Sportsman Lake in Owen with 5,000 crappies and bluegills. A pheasant hunt for six to 10 veterans at Little Hills Hunting Preserve outside of Gilman is scheduled for later this year.

This mission to get those into the outdoors that may not otherwise get to began about 15 years ago, when the original board members banded together to help a young man named Dylan Crabb. Crabb was 16 years old and battling leukemia, but as an avid fan of hunting and fishing, he wanted to continue to pursue his interests.

When what would become the original board heard Dylan’s story, they knew they wanted to help in what ways they could. They took Dylan out turkey scouting and looking for deer sheds and eventually wanted to get Dylan a turkey gun so they could take him out on a hunt. They were able to scrounge together the funds for the project and were able to take Dylan to pick out his very own shotgun.

“[While helping Dylan], they were like ‘hey, why don’t we start a group that could raise money to do more of these things,’” Totzke said. “Not just for Dylan, but for others as well.”

Dylan passed away in 2009, but CWF3 tells his story every year at its annual banquet in March ahead of handing out the Dylan Crabb award, which they give to someone who supports the community through similar means as the organization, by getting youth and veterans into the outdoors.

“You can hear a pin drop in the hall when we give that award away, because everyone there knows the story and it’s very meaningful to the organization,” Totzke said.

The banquet, which is an invite only event that interested parties can get on a waitlist for on the organization’s website, helps fund many of the initiatives that CWF3 takes on over the year. They typically give away about 70 guns from Main Street Guns and Knives in Medford at the event, including a Henry Golden Boy for one of the 20 to 30 veterans in attendance. One of the main parts of their mission is to try to keep everything as local as possible, and so working with small businesses like Main Street Guns or Colby Metal, who helps sponsor the raffle during the banquet, is something that they do as often as they can.

“With some larger, national organizations, if you go to a banquet like that, all that money gets sent to the organization at a national level and then they send you a small portion back to spend locally,” Totzke said. “Whereas everything that we raise, we spend as locally as we can, within a 50 mile radius of the Abbotsford area.”

This was on full display for their most recent excursion, in which the board, which usually handles most of the volunteer activities themselves, took veteran Shane Piantek and his family up to Little Lakes Memories by Irma for their annual veterans’ whitetail hunt. Local businesses like Smith Brothers Meats and Ray’s Market in Colby and County Market in Abbotsford were primary choices for the meals over the weekend hunt.

The veterans’ hunt is one of the organization’s most important excursions of the year, something that is not just for the hunter, but also an event for their whole family.

“When it comes to the hunt, we try to make it a family experience,” Totzke said. “It’s about the hunt and the hunter, but it’s also about their family. We want to give them all a getaway, give them a weekend to relax and get away from whatever they might have going on at home.”

While Piantek headed out to the woods with some of the members of CWF3, others stayed behind at the lodge with wife Toni and their three daughters for other activities like carving pumpkins, sewing quilts and frosting fall-themed cookies.

The event is, like any whitetail hunt, somewhat dependent on the deer, sometimes wrapping up on Saturday or going through the Sunday evening if necessary. This year, the deer were uncooperative, and while Piantek was unable to bag that trophy buck this time, the group is hoping to get him back out there in mid-November to give it another go.

And while Totzke and the rest of CWF3 are more than happy to help in any way that they can through events like these veterans’ hunts, they also hope that others in the community can see what they are doing and feel encouraged to do similar things.

“I hope people realize that you don’t need an organization to do these kinds of things,” Totzke said. “If you have a neighbor kid who you know likes hunting or fishing, take the opportunity to take them with you. If you are taking out your kid and they have a friend who would be interested, take them out too. Getting people at a young age into the outdoors is what is going to keep the outdoor community and the outdoor tradition alive and well.”