Anderson: On Wisconsin opener, good times and deer

CUMBERLAND, WIS. — Not too far north of this town, 15 inches of snow greeted our bunch when the Wisconsin deer season opened at daylight Saturday. We were prepared for it, but everything was different nonetheless. Walking was more difficult, and footfalls seemed somehow not as quiet as might be expected. The advantage for the hunter sitting in a stand was that anything that moved showed itself readily against the white forest floor and bare-limbed trees.

As is our custom, 12 of us had gathered Friday night not far from our camp, at a restaurant in Barronett, Wis., Bistro 63. We like the place because the food is excellent and never once have we been thrown out. Years ago, one of our gang, Dave Berg, would bring his guitar and sing his good country songs. Now we mainly laugh our way through dinner, tell some stories, and toast those who have hunted with us before, and may again, but for various reasons have checked out for the current year.

Mark Berg of Edgar, Wis., is among these. A mishap earlier this fall while bow hunting placed him on the disabled list for the season. Billy Fergot is another. A legend in our camp, and getting on in age, Billy cut brother whitetail a break a few years back, and hung up his rifle. Also, we especially thought of Mark Bradley of Madison, Wis., a retired police officer whose similarly retired police officer brother died unexpectedly recently.

That said, hunting is about being thankful for those who managed to shuffle to camp once again, sometimes against long odds, and, come Saturday morning, we, each of us, arose optimistically — especially Charlie Berg, 13, and his brother, Oscar, 12, sons of Paul Berg of Mendota Heights.

Charlie is in his second year of deer hunting, while Oscar is making his debut. Some day, perhaps, they will be the old timers in camp, with many stories to tell. But for now, everything to them is new, or mostly new, and what they see in deer camp, and hear there, and experience, will carry over to the rest of their lives, at home and in school, with luck sparking a lifelong appreciation of wild things, and wild feelings.

Norb Berg, the camp's patriarch, raised four sons as deer hunters — Kevin, Mitch, Tony and Paul — and each was in the woods Saturday morning, greeted by temperatures in the low 20s and an at-times-brisk south wind.

Though I hunt with this gang, I stay in a shack the Bergs own about a mile from where they hole up in an old barn. Heated by a wood stove, with gas lights and an outhouse nearby, the shack is where my sons, Trevor, now 21, and Cole, 19, grew up deer hunting in Wisconsin, and where, every opening morning, I would make them French toast drenched in our homebrew maple syrup, and sausages, while we waited for the Rice Lake radio station to play, as it always did at 6:10 a.m., "Da Turdy Point Buck,'' by the prodigiously hip Bananas at Large.

Only when this ritual was complete did we scatter into the woods, the boys in their initial years hunting with me, then, soon, sitting in their own stands, and oftentimes, not long thereafter, excitedly reporting that deer were down.

Now for the first time, when I turned off the gas lights late Friday night in anticipation of a new Wisconsin deer season, I was alone in the shack. Both boys are in school in Montana, and now they send me — more often than I send them — photos of downed ducks, deer, antelope and elk.

Good for them, I say. Life is too often a conundrum, and you can do worse than rise early to wander the hinterlands, wide-eyed for the surprise of the day, gun in hand, or fishing rod — or not.

First among us to report a buck down on Saturday was Rick Battis, a Twin Cities resident, followed by Joe Sturdivant, also from the metro, and Dave Berg of Edgar, Wis. All took mature bucks.

Then toward the end of shooting hours, word came via text that Oscar, the newcomer in camp, had leveled his .30-06 in the direction of a fork buck, and squeezed the trigger.

"Good for him,'' I thought.

"We're going to give it a little time before we look for the deer,'' Paul messaged just after hunting hours.

Then, a short while later: "We found it!''

So it went Saturday in snowy Wisconsin, with a nod to the past, and good times being shared.

Dennis Anderson danderson@startribune.com