A side of Kraut

This weekend marks the time honored tradition of the Wisconsin gun deer hunting opener. I’ve endured a five-year drought since 2017 when I harvested the largest buck in my lifetime, an eightpointer, on my family’s hunting land by Marathon.

My uncle Andy Krautkramer will attest that the only reason I was given an opportunity to harvest the largest buck in my lifetime, on opening day in 2017, is because he was attending my late uncle Lloyd Krautkramer’s oldest daughter’s wedding in Indiana. Uncle Andy always says had he been hunting that day, that he would’ve seen this buck and harvested it before it got to my tree stand. Uncle Andy has been hunting on opening day of the gun deer season ever since then and I haven’t seen this large of a buck come near my tree stand.

I was focused that morning on making a clean gun shot to kill the eight-point buck, similar to David Buchberger’s mindset when it only took him one gun shot to harvest a 16-point buck during his Empowered Dream Hunt this fall. Neither David or I eperienced “Buck Fever” in which a hunter gets too excited and nervous to pull the gun trigger.

A lot of things need to go right to have a successful deer hunt. Hunters will either wear scent block clothing or play the wind game like I do. If the wind is blowing your human scent toward a deer, then it will be under high alert.

Local meteorologists are forecasting the direction of the wind on Saturday will be from west to northwest at 10 to 15 miles per hour. The wind is forecasted to be light and variable on Sunday.

Experienced deer hunters know the colder the temperature is the more likely they will see deer moving. If there’s warm weather, then deer tend to stay bedded down in the woods. Thankfully cooler weather will arrive in time for this weekend’s deer hunting opener.

Local meteorologists are forecasting low temperatures in the 20s and high temperatures in the 40s with no precipitation for Saturday and Sunday. It would be better if the high temperatures were below freezing but we’ll take it.

Good luck to all the area deer hunters this opening weekend. Make sure to e-mail me photos of the bucks you harvest, along with some basic information on your successful deer hunt, to rr@tpprinting.com to be published in The Record Review.

Hopefully I can end my five-year drought of harvesting a big buck this opening weekend.