As 2025 winds down and a new year beckons, it’s a good time to reflect on your own successes and missteps both in the outdoors and in life.
I’ve reached an age where some achievements and details no longer matter. Wealth, trophy bucks, vast gun collections, an accumulation of souvenir spoons, Pokémon cards (do they still make those?) or birds on a life list all seem inconsequential when compared to watching a really bad B movie on Svengoolie with my wife or having lunch with my daughter.
Are you happy with your life? Are you pushing yourself in the right or wrong direction? Do you have special knowledge or skills that you can share with others as a mentor? If you own 52 Bart Starr autographed footballs, could you hand one to a niece, nephew or maybe someone you don’t know?
I recently mentioned the different stages of a hunter, and one of those is the sharing of knowledge.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is always looking for junior (younger than 18) and senior hunter education instructors, and I encourage you to consider joining those of us who love passing on our hunting heritage to the next generation. Your knowledge can help make the woods safer, and years from now, those young charges will become thoughtful, ethical hunters who will in turn share their wisdom.
If you would like to take the first step, go to this link: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/Volunteer/SafetyEducation/VolunteerInstructor.
I recently joined Hunter Nation, the group that successfully fought for and won Wisconsin hunters the right to a wolf hunt in February 2021. It happened so fast that many of us (including me) never realized there was a season or how to get a tag.
Hunter Nation spokesman Ted Nugent and others in the group stress one thing that I strongly support: the elimination of unnecessary, confusing and even silly game laws. I’ve written many columns about silly game laws in Iowa and Wisconsin, but there are certainly some in every state. Some of these laws are counter to sound game management and biology goals.
If you hunt in a Farmland Zone, you probably have plenty of antlerless tags. Depending on the county you hunt in, you get one to three free antlerless tags with your archery buck and gun buck tag. If you shoot a doe in Shawano County with a Waupaca County tag, you’ll get a ticket. And if you shoot a doe on public land in Shawano County with a private land Shawano County tag, you’ll also get a ticket.
What if I want to hunt both public and private land? You need both types of tags, specific to that area, but your buck tag is good on public and private land in any county.
Here’s a crazy idea. Why don’t we issue antlerless tags good in any Farmland Zone on public or private land, or even antlerless tags good statewide if that county or zone allows antlerless hunting? We need to reduce the doe numbers in most areas, so why make it a mish-mash of hassles to do that?
I know Dr. Deer and his trophy-based sermons that brought some of this mess to our state. If enough of us speak up, write our legislators and join groups like Hunter Nation, maybe we can fix it.
As a hunter from both Iowa and Illinois, I’m familiar with an either-sex tag. That means you can shoot either a buck or a doe with that tag. Genius. As a meat hunter first and foremost, I found myself short of doe tags once and had to drive to Kmart and pay $12 for same.
If a buck came past, I still had my unused buck tag, but dang it, without that doe tag, I couldn’t shoot a Big Mama or even a tender fawn. Silly. It’s not about the money but about the unneeded bureaucracy.
If we are going to thin the herd, why do some counties have a Holiday Hunt (antlerless only, Dec. 24 through Jan. 1) but not an extended archery season through Jan. 31? I don’t want to pick on county Deer Advisory Councils, because they have tried to bring some local control to deer hunting, but a few of them seem to be inconsistent.
As much as I think government often gets it wrong, I’d like to see the state say, if you get a Holiday Hunt, you get the extended bow season or just extend the bow and crossbow season until Jan. 31 statewide. Do you really think the 12 guys hunting in sub-zero temps on Jan. 22 are going to throw off the balance of nature? More hunting opportunities should be the goal all the time.
May your 2026 bring you much success afield. Soak up every precious moment outdoors, because you get it, and way too many people don’t.
Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.
