Morgan Rode sports@newmedia-wi.com
Leader Photo by Morgan Rode Terry Moede, of Shawano, converses with workers at the Witt’s Sausage Haus booth at Buck Fever Night on Tuesday.
With the opening day of Wisconsin’s gun deer season closing in fast, area hunters got fired up for Saturday by attending the annual Buck Fever Night at the Shawano County Highway Department on Tuesday.
Hunters worked their way around the building, checking out the various booths on display. They conversed with others about past hunting adventures and shared what they expected to happen come Saturday morning.
Over the course of the night, the talk of being out in the woods again certainly made hunters eager for Saturday’s opener.
“Oh yes, definitely. It gets the heart pumping,” said Bruce Galleske, of Shawano.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt. I bet it revved up the engine more so when I was younger, but yes,” said Terry Moede, also of Shawano.
Among the booths on display were J. Hoffman Knives, Witt’s Sausage Haus, Krueger’s Taxidermy, Yoder’s Bakery, the Crafty Boutique Gift Shop and artwork from Marie Wawrzyn.
There were also stations with air rifles and bows handy for youngsters to shoot.
As the hunting tradition seems to be fading out of the lives of young people, it was refreshing for hunters to see entire families in attendance, especially when children were overheard asking if they could stay longer throughout the night.
Just being around community members who shared the same passion for hunting was enough to put smiles on their faces and hope for nothing but success and fun times for all stepping into the woods over the nine-day gun season.
Earl Conradt, an official measurer from Shiocton for the Pope and Young Club, displayed a head mount of a buck he’d shot — and often had a crowd of people around it. Conradt even scored a buck that was freshly harvested during the course of the event.
To the hunters who harvest big bucks during the season, Conradt urged them to get the buck’s antlers scored, saying “it is a way to honor these majestic animals.”
For most of the hunters in attendance, Buck Fever Night was an event they had been to before and is a just another way to get their brains fixated on the season.
“It’s an every-year tradition,” said Ross Popp, of Shawano. “It’s a chance for me and my son (Elias) to do something together and a chance to kind of get into the mood for the hunting season and get excited about it.”
“I like to see the taxidermy stuff, and I also like to stop and talk to the wardens to see what’s new and up-to-date,” Dallas Hoerres, of Gillett, said.
“Talking to all the people, their experiences from the last year of deer hunting,” said Galleske on what keeps him coming back to the event.
The event was sponsored by the Shawano County Conservation Association and figures to keep bringing back hunters for years to come.