|
Outdoor Wisconsin host Dan Small welcomes you to his special on-line sanctuary. Join Dan as he wonders whether it's time for a new blaze orange parka.  Awards Highlights
Store! Club
Theme1/15/98 Orange Fades Like a Roseby Dan Small
How many lives has Wisconsin's blaze-orange law saved in the 20-odd years it's been in effect? At first, hunters thought deer would see them too easily in their neon suits. You don't hear that complaint much any more. Even in blaze orange, though, in thick cover you may get awfully close to someone before he identifies you as another hunter.
The doe then dashed across the open field 100 yards in front of me. I blew on a fawn bleat call in hopes of stopping her, but she never slowed down. I passed up the running shot, a low-percentage opportunity any time and a joke with a black-powder rifle. On the second drive, Lee and I watched the same field while the drivers pushed another wooded hillside toward us. This time, two does came down the hill and angled across the field toward Lee. They stopped at about 40 yards when they spotted him, but stood there long enough for him to drop one with his Knight MK-85. Tim Grunewald shot the only other deer we bagged all day on that same drive.
We moved deer, but I suspect as many circled around behind us as ran out ahead. Even in orange, I had to call out from time to time to stay in line with my fellow drivers. Then, just when I thought we had another couple hundred yards to go, a stander materialized in front of me. He heard (and probably saw) me coming, but I was 30 yards away before I noticed him. His camouflage blaze orange hid him quite well in that thick stuff. I'm sure he'd have had no trouble getting a shot at a deer.
©2000 Milwaukee Public Television Previous Columns December 5, '97:
How Was Your Deer
Season? |
     |
At lunch in a Mequon
fast-food joint the other day, I noticed a woman walking out
of a dry-cleaning establishment lugging a blaze orange
hunting suit, freshly cleaned and wrapped in plastic.
Fashionably dressed in a fur-trimmed coat and cute little
hat, she looked silly carrying that bright orange outfit,
but I had to admit it was the orange that caught my eye,
just as it catches the eye of every deer hunter who hears a
noise and turns, gun in hand, expecting to see a buck, but
instead spots Uncle Leonard struggling through the brush.
I had a chance to rediscover
this during the recent muzzleloader season, when I hunted
with a dozen friends in Iowa County. With six bonus tags and
two hunter's choice permits among us, we made a series of
drives in the rolling oak hills above the Wisconsin River.
Most of the action occurred on the first two drives. While
others pushed from a nearby road on the first drive, Lee
Kernen and I watched a wooded hillside surrounded by an open
field, he at the base of the hill and I from the corner of a
patch of standing corn. Lee spotted a doe on the hill, but
from his position the deer was skylined and he wisely held
his fire.
When I took my turn as a
driver, I became reacquainted with the thorny flora of
southwestern Wisconsin. Prickly ash was the worst of it, but
after a half- mile of wrestling with head-high blackberry
vines and other spiny stuff I didn't recognize, I began to
suspect that even the oaks here grew thorns. I'm used to
hunting thick cedar swamps and other evergreen cover, where
you can usually limbo under the stuff and even get a better
view from closer to the ground. Here, the lower you went the
thicker and thornier the vines.
Later, Lee remarked that some of our coats
were quite faded compared to the newer ones. Some might no
longer be legal, let alone safe. I have always had a hard
time parting with old hunting clothes, but you can bet I'll
trade in my orange parka when it starts to fade. I don't
care if you see me coming out of the dry cleaners, but I
want you to see me in the woods. Know someone who needs a
new hunting suit?