# Bud Grant on deer hunting.



## Dak (Feb 28, 2005)

Dennis Anderson: Bud on the Badger State
Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune

Retired Vikings coach Bud Grant first hunted deer in Wisconsin more than a half-century ago. Never were deer numbers, statewide, as high as they are today -- a fact perhaps also true for Minnesota. Yet Grant says more deer, while producing more hunters, hasn't in many cases produced better hunters. Some are "shooters," not hunters. And some bag deer by baiting. Despite high deer numbers, then, these aren't necessarily the "good old days" of whitetail hunting -- not for everyone.

On the role tradition plays in managing deer and deer hunting:

It's very difficult for deer managers to change philosophies and strategies, in part because hunters won't let them. This is true in Minne! sota as well as Wisconsin. I think Wisconsin has had the same nine-day firearms season for 50 or 60 years, and scheduling it over Thanksgiving week is the way it has always been, and probably the way it always will be. It's tradition -- like going into the cabin at noon on Sunday to listen to the Packers play.

Hunting traditions play a role at the personal level as well. When I was a kid, the highlight of deer hunting every year was the Friday after Thanksgiving, when I had a turkey sandwich and piece of cold mincemeat pie packed in my lunch.

Rising deer populations have produced more hunters -- for better and worse.

When I hunt deer in Iowa, among other states, I usually don't encounter a lot of hunting pressure-- at least not compared to what I see in Wisconsin. On opening day in Wisconsin, gunfire is nearly continual. In Iowa last year, it was 8:30 or so in the morning before I heard someone shoot.

I love deer hunting so much i! t's difficult for me to be critical about it. But in states wh! ere deer populations are generally high, hunter numbers are also high, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

On the notion that fewer deer and tougher conditions produced better hunters:

For much of my life, conditions were tough while hunting deer in Wisconsin. We didn't have snow machines, of course, or four-wheelers. All of our hunting was done on foot. I could tell story after story about dragging deer through deep snow.

Compare that to today. The weather is milder. And thanks, I think, to rising deer populations, we've raised a generation of people for which deer hunting has become deer "shooting."

Some of these guys shoot at anything. I was in the store the other day and a guy said he had shot 37 times while hunting. Thirty-seven times! For many of these people, "if it's brown, it's down" sums up their hunting style. Hunting for them is not about following a track, or figuring out where a deer crossed a creek, or figuring out, in r! etrospect, what led you to get a deer. It's about shooting.

Different rules for different times:

When I was a kid, no one shot does. It was tantamount to a major crime. And you had to hunt from the ground. There was a law saying you couldn't be up in a tree stand the way you can today. Hunting from the ground wasn't as effective for harvesting deer, perhaps, as using one of today's high tree stands. At the same time, I think it forced you to learn how to be a deer hunter.

On the changes baiting and trophy hunting have brought to Wisconsin deer hunting:

I love Wisconsin and have hunted deer there all my life. But it's become my least favorite place to hunt deer.

This is a result, I think, of the fact that I've been able since retirement to hunt deer in many states. Last week I was in North Dakota. Earlier this fall I shot a 258-pound buck in Ontario. I'll also hunt in Iowa. And of course this weekend I'm hunting in W! isconsin.

But Wisconsin is not the state it used to b! e for de er hunting, and legalized baiting, I think, is a big reason. You can't learn to be a deer hunter if you bait. Hunting deer is about walking through the woods and reading sign. Not about baiting.

The politics of baiting in Wisconsin? It's beyond me. I just don't understand it. And these are intelligent people, many of them, who support baiting.

Additionally, hunters have become trophy hunters more than ever before. I like to shoot big deer, too. But a lot of people shoot big deer in Wisconsin by baiting them.

Minnesota, I think, is correct in fighting baiting among hunters, and keeping it illegal.

More deer produces more competition for them, some legal, some not.

I can't prove it, but I also think poaching of trophy deer has increased. In fact, where I hunt, in northwest Wisconsin, competition for the best deer has risen significantly, to the point that many of these deer are killed before the nine-day firearms season even begins.

Archers, for instance, typically are the best deer hunters, and they begin their season in mid-September. DNR surveys have shown that many of them bait, and it's a fact that many of them kill big deer over bait.

Stop at any gas station in Wisconsin that registers deer and often you'll see snapshots of bow hunters with their deer. In many cases it's the same bow hunters every year, shooting deer over bait.

We also have wolves in northern Wisconsin, and they hunt deer year-round. And Indians have the right to hunt deer on public land well in advance of the firearms season, and many Indian hunters hav! e also become trophy hunters.

On DNR hunting regulations written to govern large deer populations, despite low and even very low whitetail populations in given areas:

The area we hunt -- and I know there are other areas -- in Wisconsin doesn't have anywhere near the deer the DNR says it has, or says exists generally in the state. I was reading the hunting regulations the other day, in fact, and they said something to the effect that "in certain areas there is not an abundance of deer."

Yet the harvest regulations generally cover the entire state. Which makes it very difficult for deer to bounce back in areas where their numbers are down. This is especially true when you consider the tradition-bound nature of deer hunting I spoke of earlier; the higher expectations and changed mentality of some hunters, or "shooters"; and given the competition that exists for deer, particularly trophy deer.

Yet the tradition continues.

I say Wisconsin is now my least favorite place to hunt deer. But for us, it's still a great family weekend. We have kids who hunt, grandkids who hunt. So that part is the same.

But the hunting itself, that part is changed. It's just not the same.

Dennis Anderson • [email protected]


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