by James Glaser
November 15, 2002

Last night the lake froze over so winter is here. The sun is bright and the reflection off of about a thousand acres of white snow between our house and the island can be blinding. It snowed all of yesterday and all the little birds were digging in the snow this morning on our feeder for seeds. That got to me so I had to go outside and shovel the snow and give them new seeds and they sat in the trees and called to me to hurry

There are thousands of deer hunters up here which is a shot in the arm for the local economy. The restaurant is full and many of the hunters are former residents or long time hunters in this area, so it is like a school reunion.

The best deer hunting story so far this year is the guy over by Jessie Lake that got the fourteen point buck. Maybe one guy in five hundred gets a fourteen point buck in his life time. This guy (who will remain nameless because his shooting of this deer was a tad illegal) is seventy eight years old and has waited all of these years for that deer to come along. He got up early in the morning and walked out to his field and waited all morning and saw nothing.

About noon he got hungry and went back in the house leaving his rifle in his pickup. Well as he was making coffee he looked out the window and saw this huge buck walk right up into his yard. The guy told me he got way too excited until he realized that his gun was in the truck and the truck was on the other side of that deer. He had to think fast and remembered his old 30-30 rifle in the back closet.

All the time he was looking for this rifle he just knew that deer would run away or somebody would drive up and scare it off. He found the rifle right off, but no shells and he had to go upstairs and look in his dresser drawer and found two. By the time he got back to the kitchen he was worn out, but that deer was still waiting for him. He was breathing so hard he had to sit down at the kitchen table to load the two shells he had found and looking out the window he saw that deer was now about fifteen feet from the window

With both shells in the rifle he opened that window and shot right through the screen and with one shot that deer laid right down dead. For over sixty years that man had been looking for that deer and now it walked right up to him as a gift. He told me he had never been that great of a hunter and most years didn't even get a deer. All of his friends would kid him about that, but were more than willing to share theirs, but he would have to listen to their story about the "Big Buck." He said the sad part is that most of his old hunting buddies were dead now and he wouldn't get to tell them his story.