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Welcome to another episode of “Whitetail Rendezvous.” This is Bruce Hutcheon, your host.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m privileged to have Gary Shear phone today with me, and we’re going to interview him. Gary’s father, Harry, was one of the men that influenced me into the world of the outdoors and specifically, hunting. Gary, say hello to the folks.
Gary: Hello.
Bruce: Gary, let’s just jump right into the tradition of the hunt, where that came from and what it means to you.
Gary: Well, a lot like you, Bruce, my dad is the one who got me started in hunting. I can remember back when I was four or five years old, he started me out tagging along squirrel hunting, and he always allowed us to go out and shoot. We were fortunate to grow up in a relatively rural area, so you just step out the back door, basically and go shoot your 22s and BB guns and things like that. And then as soon as I was old enough, 12 years old, he started allowing me to go whitetail hunting with him, and probably about the time I met you, Bruce, back at that time.
It took me a couple of years. I remember my first buck was up on the home farm over by Union Center, Wisconsin, and I got a little 8-point one day. Just ever since, I just have had the bug. It’s one of the most important things to me in my life. And I took up bow hunting back probably 35 years ago, and bow hunting has really become a passion for me as well. I spend a lot of time bow hunting.
I recently retired about seven months ago. That’s allowed me to [inaudible 00:02:07] focus and spend more time on the food plots and tree stands and all those things that go along with it. Whitetail hunting has really just been a very important part of my life, and I hope to have it continue to be that way.
Bruce: Thanks for sharing that, Gary. Listeners, if you haven’t read my bio up on the webpage, Harry and [inaudible 00:02:36] were the two gentlemen that introduced me to hunting, as I said on the lead-in. Harry is just a fantastic guy. He’s taught me so much. And obviously, he’s taught Gary a lot. What are a couple of things when you were just starting out that your dad taught you?
Gary: I think probably the number one first thing was the importance of being patient and making sure you remain still and things like that. Back when I started hunting back in the early to mid ’60s, or late ’60s I guess it would be, there weren’t a lot of whitetails. It wasn’t like you’d go out and every day and see 10 or 15 whitetails. You may go all day and not see a whitetail. So probably the number one thing was the patience.
The other thing, I think, was probably respect for the animal. You always tried to make a good main shot. And if you weren’t sure on that shot, you made sure that you did a good job of getting out and looking and making sure that if you hit it, that you tracked it. And if you didn’t hit it, you were sure of that. I guess those are probably the two main things about getting started that he taught.
Bruce: Let’s fast-forward and talk about your acquisition of the 40 you shared with Harry and then the 160 that you and your brothers and other family members hunt. Let’s talk about the evolution of owning your own land, and what you’ve done to it to make it a real productive piece of ground for whitetail hunting?
Gary: Back in 1982, my dad and I purchased 40 acres just outside of town. It was the same thing. I think that was one thing that my dad envisioned years ago, the difficulty of having access to property to hunt. Neither one of us were real financially secure, but we saw the importance of that. So we bought the first 40 back in 1982. We did a lot of different hunting on it. Since that time, we put in some food plots and tried to selectively cut some trees and do some things like that to improve habitat.
Then about, I don’t know, 10, 12 years later, my two brothers and I bought 160 acres about a half a mile from here. We’ve really focused on that piece of property. It’s a little larger and more fields. There again, we’ve selectively logged that to try to improve habitat. Developed some food plots. Right now, we have rented out some of the property to a crop farmer. He does a pretty good job of rotating crops and keeping hay, soybeans, corn, and then we supplement that some with whitetail feed and things like that.
We try to minimize our impact on it by certain areas. We’ve created what we call [inaudible 00:06:27] or whatever that we just don’t go into to try to allow a comfort zone, bedding areas, and stuff for the deer. On terms of tree stands, we try to minimize our impact that way as well. We pretty much leave stands up year-round. Of course, we check them every fall and make sure they’re safe.
We’re not in there a lot, and when the farmer goes in a couple of times a year, that’s about the primary impact. I do have [inaudible 00:07:04] cans out. I do go check those occasionally. It’s kind of developed over the years and then I bought another 40 a couple of years ago. It’s a ways away from here, about 15 miles away. That’s where we live now, and I’ve tried to do the same thing over there. Minimize impacts and we rent some of that land as well so the farmer keeps some crops in there. It’s turned out to be a pretty good piece of property as well.
We manage. We try not to shoot small bucks. We’ll talk a little bit about our kids. We do let the kids when they first get started shoot their first deer. But after that, we try to maintain more of a mature buck, hopefully, three-and-a-half or better buck, and it’s really improved by the quality of deer that we’ve been harvesting the last several years.
Bruce: Before you and Harry have . . . and the 160, just share with the audience what class of deer was on those properties when you acquired them quite a number of years ago?