80 Years of Wisconsin Deer Hunting

 

Bob Ringstad at his Wisconsin home since 1953. 

Bob Ringstad never missed hunting deer in Wisconsin for 80 consecutive deer seasons, from 1945 to 2024.

This correspondent became friends with Bob Ringstad a few years ago. At 92 he is intellectually very sharp. His knowledge of history and North American archeology is impressive. His knowledge of hunting and firearms, accumulated over eight decades, is marvelous.

This correspondent has talked with Bob a number of times and interviewed him about his long hunting experience in the Wisconsin deer habitat of the North Woods.

Bob’s father was a veteran of WWI and the first state forester in the North District of Wisconsin. At a point in his career, he shared an office at the ranger station in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, with the district game warden. The game warden confiscated many guns. Accountability was less formal in those days. The Warden’s boss in Madison told him he did not want inexpensive guns to be shipped to the headquarters in Madison. He told the Warden: If the gun is worth less than $15, just break off the stock and throw the rest in the trash. $15 in 1945 would be worth $250 – $1,800 today, depending on the method of calculation.

If you are a thrifty person, this would be a difficult assignment.  It might have been borderline illegal, as a waste of official resources. Guns tended to accumulate in the office. Bob’s father asked the Warden what he was going to do with all the guns cluttering up the office they shared. Bob was with his father at the time. Bob was 12 years old.

The Warden said: How many do you want? You can have them all! Bob chimed in: I’ll take them! His father said: No, no, and no! The Warden said a deal is a deal. The compromise was Bob took home a lever action model 94 Winchester in .30-30.

The year was 1945. Bob shot his first deer, a forkhorn buck, that deer season. His father beamed with pride.

A few years later, Bob wounded a buck in the morning and followed the blood trail for miles, nearly all day. As sundown approached, Bob came across a master hunter and woodsman, Louie Surley. Surley asked him: What are you doing, kid?

Bob replied: “Following a wounded buck.”

Louie replied: You are late. The buck went through here about 3 p.m. Louie took him back to his camp and sent him home. He told Bob: Come back before 8 a.m.  I will show you where the deer went, and we will get him.

It snowed 8 inches that night. Louie knew the swampy area the buck was headed for. With 8 inches of fresh snow, they never found the deer. Louie became Bob’s deer hunting mentor, as he had with several young hunters in the area.

Bob married at 20. His wife, Joan, was 19. Bob was running raccoons at night on the weekends with a pack of dogs. They had rented a house in town. When the moon came up, the hounds would bark and howl. Bob was working in Minnesota. Joan got the complaints. Joan told Bob the dogs had to go. Bob said he would find a solution.

Bob mentioned the problem to a friend. The friend knew an older couple who were thinking about selling their farm and moving into town. After a 65 hour week’s work in Minnesota, Bob knocked on the farmhouse door, about suppertime on a Friday night.

He purchased the 80 acres and farm, for $7000 in 1953. He borrowed the money from a credit union.  He could have had another 40 wooded acres for $200. He decided to take a tractor instead.  He lives in the farmhouse on the farm today.

Bob always took deer season off from work. He was a highly skilled large crane operator, in demand. In 1960, he was hired by the firm he was with for 20 years. When he was hired, the agreement was, with the owner, he would always take off deer season.

Several times, the owner’s sons tried to push him to work during deer season. He always told them no. Once, he understood he was fired, so he applied for unemployment after deer season. The owner called him and said: What is going on?  When Bob explained the situation, the owner told him: Get back in here, and get back to work!

The evening before the start of the 2024 Wisconsin deer season, Bob was considering which rifle to use. His son suggested Bob use Bob’s left handed Savage model 110 chambered in .243. Bob had used the rifle effectively for many years. Bob looked and looked for ammunition. He found ammunition for other rifles but not the .243. Bob went to his reloading set-up and reloaded five rounds of .243, using one of his favorite recipes for the rifle. He finished before midnight. In the morning, from a stand on his farm, he shot a buck between 300 and 325 yards away. It took one shot. This correspondent told him he has enough ammunition for another four deer seasons.

Bob estimates he shot 40-50 deer during his 80 Wisconsin deer seasons, all of them bucks. He says he could have shot many more deer, but limited himself to bucks with noticeable antlers.

Bob is a marvelous friend with a keen intellect. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of many subjects. He lives alone in his house, but actively mentors some of the neighbor children. He is an active supporter of the Second Amendment. He is often on the Internet, running a Linux system computer set-up, or talking to people on other continents with his HAM radio. He could easily shoot four more bucks in another four deer seasons, with the ever reliable and accurate Savage 110  chambered in .243.

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2025/03/80-years-of-wisconsin-deer-hunting.html