MONROE - It's like an addiction and Christmas, say local deer hunters as the prepare for the annual gun deer season in Wisconsin.
For hunters of the trophy antlers, the first 2011 gun deer season begins Saturday, Nov. 19. A second season begins Dec. 24.
The excitement is almost palatable when hunters meet and finish each other's sentences about the upcoming event, even if they have been bow hunting for the past two months.
"It's what you wait for all year," Tony Wells of Browntown said.
"... like a kid waiting for Christmas," added Mike Maurer, Monroe.
"... big boys' Christmas," Nick Rieder of Monroe finished.
Both Wells, 58, and Rieder, 22, have been hunting since age 12; both use bows and guns; and both hunt on private land.
But in the art of the hunt, they agree luck plays heavily in the success.
Rieder took down a bow-season doe from about 32 yards, but Wells admitted to "being too picky."
"I only saw one I would have shot at," he said, "but it was too far away - not a good shot. And I let one go."
The one he let go had a 16-inch wide set of 8-point antlers. He was looking for "something nice."
Department of Natural Resources' regulations on the bow and gun seasons can be confusing for the uninitiated, but Wells knows them almost by heart.
Bow and gun seasons have always overlapped in Green County, according to Wells, who uses a handgun for deer hunting.
"Bow season doesn't close in CWD (chronic wasting disease) areas," which includes Green and Lafayette counties and most of southern Wisconsin, he said. In other parts of the state, bow hunting is suspended during gun season.
In CWD areas, hunting regulations are set up to help reduce the herds, Wells said, so the area has two 9-day gun seasons for bucks, and a four-day antlerless season in October. All of Wisconsin gets an anterless season starting Dec. 8.
"Earn-A-Buck was eliminated; now you can shoot a buck first, but you need to get an antlerless to get a second buck," Wells explained.
Antlerless tags for the area are almost unlimited, with the DNR issuing up to four tags per hunter per day for either bow or gun.
Maurer, owner of Hunting Woodland Company, Inc., where hunters can buy the tags, said he has no customers "that extreme."
"The average is two or three a year, if that," he said.
One new change the DNR announced in particular this year, is not a problem for Wells or Rieder: Bow hunters will be required to comply with the blaze orange clothing requirement any time a firearm deer season is occurring in the area of the state where they are hunting.
As gun hunters also, he and Rieder have all the blaze orange gear a hunter could ask of Santa.
"You need it all," Rieder said.
"I got it all," Wells teased.
But even having it all didn't stop these two hunters from contemplating some equipment upgrades for Christmas.
For hunters of the trophy antlers, the first 2011 gun deer season begins Saturday, Nov. 19. A second season begins Dec. 24.
The excitement is almost palatable when hunters meet and finish each other's sentences about the upcoming event, even if they have been bow hunting for the past two months.
"It's what you wait for all year," Tony Wells of Browntown said.
"... like a kid waiting for Christmas," added Mike Maurer, Monroe.
"... big boys' Christmas," Nick Rieder of Monroe finished.
Both Wells, 58, and Rieder, 22, have been hunting since age 12; both use bows and guns; and both hunt on private land.
But in the art of the hunt, they agree luck plays heavily in the success.
Rieder took down a bow-season doe from about 32 yards, but Wells admitted to "being too picky."
"I only saw one I would have shot at," he said, "but it was too far away - not a good shot. And I let one go."
The one he let go had a 16-inch wide set of 8-point antlers. He was looking for "something nice."
Department of Natural Resources' regulations on the bow and gun seasons can be confusing for the uninitiated, but Wells knows them almost by heart.
Bow and gun seasons have always overlapped in Green County, according to Wells, who uses a handgun for deer hunting.
"Bow season doesn't close in CWD (chronic wasting disease) areas," which includes Green and Lafayette counties and most of southern Wisconsin, he said. In other parts of the state, bow hunting is suspended during gun season.
In CWD areas, hunting regulations are set up to help reduce the herds, Wells said, so the area has two 9-day gun seasons for bucks, and a four-day antlerless season in October. All of Wisconsin gets an anterless season starting Dec. 8.
"Earn-A-Buck was eliminated; now you can shoot a buck first, but you need to get an antlerless to get a second buck," Wells explained.
Antlerless tags for the area are almost unlimited, with the DNR issuing up to four tags per hunter per day for either bow or gun.
Maurer, owner of Hunting Woodland Company, Inc., where hunters can buy the tags, said he has no customers "that extreme."
"The average is two or three a year, if that," he said.
One new change the DNR announced in particular this year, is not a problem for Wells or Rieder: Bow hunters will be required to comply with the blaze orange clothing requirement any time a firearm deer season is occurring in the area of the state where they are hunting.
As gun hunters also, he and Rieder have all the blaze orange gear a hunter could ask of Santa.
"You need it all," Rieder said.
"I got it all," Wells teased.
But even having it all didn't stop these two hunters from contemplating some equipment upgrades for Christmas.