Wisconsin deer hunting is dying. That should worry you even if you don't hunt. | Opinion

I can see my dad’s gun. That old Remington .30-06, swinging from his side to his shoulder in pursuit of a deer bounding uphill through the trees. He looked through the scope and fired, and everyone — even a little boy like me — could see he’d hit his target.

This is when I first remember knowing how special November is on our farm.

If this memory does anything other than inspire awe (perhaps anger, fear, or disdain) then we need to talk about what hunting means to rural America as gun deer season starts Nov. 18 in Wisconsin. Because it’s not really about guns. Or even antlers on a wall. What deer hunting is really about is teaching kids self-worth, in a rural culture that society has cast aside in so many ways. And we should all care about that.

Number of Wisconsin gun deer license applications falling

I’m sure you’ve heard that good hunters teach safety, and care for the outdoors they depend upon. That’s true. But the lessons of this proud tradition run deeper, in ways everyone — especially non-hunters — have to understand if we want to close the rural-urban divide in our country.

The reality is kids today are finding a dying way of life, with the number of people participating in Wisconsin deer hunting dropping annually during gun season for the past two decades. And those kids who do hunt are told their opening morning excitement, rivalling Christmas and birthdays, is “cruel and unnecessary.”

If forces like that had kept me from hunting with my dad, uncle, sister, and so many others, it could have stopped me in my tracks in life.

When you grow up in a rural area or small town, it can be hard to see what you’re capable of in the big world beyond. Seeing my dad hit that deer that day is a memory of admiring my father I’ll always have. I’ll also never forget going with him after the biggest buck of his life, finding it below a parcel of woods that I would go on to explore on my own for years to come.

Ethical deer hunting teaches values for challenges of life

I never saw my dad do anything unsafe or cruel, just ethical hunting. What I learned along the way were timeless values that would help me face the challenges of life: the patience of sitting for hours; the discipline of hunting with iron sights on my new rifle, because my dad wanted me to make every shot count; the dignity of earning enough money to finally buy that gun a scope; the self-reliance of tracking my deer in the cold; and the generosity of working hard for my deer, then giving meat to someone in need.  

That gave me confidence in a world big enough to intimidate a kid where I’m from. Courage when I headed off to cities that scared me, for college and first jobs in journalism and public policy. Grace when Ivy League graduates made jokes about people from small places that made me feel like I didn’t belong. The alternatives to courage and grace: fear and resentment.

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I can’t say what hunting means for every rural kid, but I get glimpses. Like last year, when I took my nephews Roman and Paxton out. At 7 and 6 then, they were old enough to listen, but young enough to need constant shushing as we crept in the afternoon sun toward a spot behind my cabin.

It was there on a rock ledge overlooking the woods where I had missed my first deer — more special than any spot since, for what it taught me — that the boys saw a doe through the trees.

I raised my gun. The doe was running too fast for a clean shot, so I followed her with my crosshairs and let out a shoddy buck grunt from the side of my mouth. She stopped and I fired. My nephews cheered, and tracked their first deer with me.

That year’s legend was how “Uncle Brian talks to deer.”

I realized something later as I was looking at the antlers on my cabin wall, my dad’s 10-pointer still more beautiful than any mounter I’d shot since. I wasn’t showing those little boys what I could do — I was showing them what they could do.

That’s something we should all embrace, before it’s too late.

Brian Reisinger grew up on a family farm in Sauk County. He contributes columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel. Reisinger works in public affairs consulting for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. Previously, he worked on the U.S. Senate campaigns of Republicans Lamar Alexander and Ron Johnson, as well as Scott Walker's for governor. He splits his time between a small town in northern California near his wife’s family, and his family’s farm here in Wisconsin.

Editor’s note, Feb. 6: This story was republished to make it free for all readers.