|
When watching most hunting shows,
you would think they had the same producer.
Somebody sits on a tree stand and
makes a duck soup shot on a buck that you and I could only dream
of having.
The hunter on the end of the lens
gives a thumbs up, and thanks the outfitter.
The host of the show most times
isn't hunting, but rather, is just making a shot similar to how
you or I just pick out a No. 2 value meal with a soda.
That style of hunting is just
what three hardcore deer hunters wanted to avoid.
Dan Infalt, Jarrod Erdody and Lee
Gatzke call themselves Blood Brothers Outdoors. Their new video,
"Hunting Marsh Bucks," is filmed on public hunting
grounds, wet ones, in Waukesha and Jefferson counties.
Infalt, 41, grew up in Sussex and
works at Quad/Graphics when he isn't knee deep in a swamp.
"Our video isn't about
someone killing huge bucks with an outfitter," he said.
"We instead are trying to teach hunters to get back to the
basics of old-school hunting. It's about scouting and putting in
some time and not about looking for some trick tactic."
Infalt grew up hunting on public
land, and has killed 10 of his 20-plus Pope and Young bucks on
public grounds.
"Our video is about hunting
in marsh terrain," he said. "Most people think that
these spots are too heavily hunted to produce trophy animals.
That is just not the case. Public hunting offers some of the
biggest deer around. People just don't realize that the deer are
there."
Infalt said people need to get
back to the basics, but also think outside the box to score.
"I rarely hunt a spot more
than once for the entire season," he said. "I like to
scout with a tree stand on my back. When I see a big buck sign,
I set up on it. Too many people think they need to find a spot
and let it calm down. That is the worst thing you can do. I
scout, and when I see a good big buck sign, I set up my stand.
It's simple, but it works."
Gatzke agrees, even though he
owns 200 acres in the famed Buffalo County area.
"I put way more time hunting
on public ground in the Jefferson Marsh than on my private
land," he said. "The reason is that I can be mobile
and hunt spots that most people leave alone, and there's so much
public land out there that I don't burn it up."
Gatzke says most public spots are
golden because weekend hunters think public grounds are too
pressured to produce big bucks.
"People are not hunting
public spots effectively," he said. "You have to set
up on spots that are hard to get to, or where people think that
big bucks are not present. Some of the best spots I have hunted
are just off a parking lot where pheasant hunters set up on. The
big bucks aren't in the big wood lots. They are in the thick
cover in the transition areas of the marsh, or even just where
people don't expect the bucks to be."
Erdody, a graphic arts expert, is
the tech guy for the film, and said he wanted to produce a video
from which anyone could learn - from the novice to the expert.
"Our video is meant to teach
people to learn how to hunt deer in ways they are not used
to," he said.
Erdody said they are producing
their video without sponsors because they didn't want to
"sell out."
"It's not that we don't want
sponsors," he said. "But we aren't about to take on
just anyone if we don't believe in the product. We're not about
gimmicks. By using our grass-roots strategies, people can kill
bucks on public land or private land. The key is to stay mobile,
and think out of the box. Our video doesn't have a bunch of big
buck kills with some outfitter. Our videos are for people who
want to learn how to hunt bucks that they never knew were
available to them on public hunting areas."
The three say the Vernon Marsh,
the Jackson Marsh and other public hunting grounds can be a gold
mine for record animals if a person is willing to spend some
time.
(Dan Durbin writes a weekly
outdoors column for The Freeman. Call Durbin at 644-7940, or
e-mail him at ddurbin@bastdurbin.com if you have a story idea.)
|
