‘A real sense of community’
People with disabilities can hunt for deer in theWisconsin woods before the regular hunting season begins
WILLARD, Wis. – Summer was only beginning to blend with fall inwest-centralWisconsin on the firstweekend of October last year. The corn had been harvested, with only random stalks still standing. But the trees in the hardwood forests still bore their green coats. The bursts of gold and red leaves that signal autumn had yet to appear.
Still, therewas orange in the woods: the blaze orangeworn by a few dozen hunters hoping to bag a deer a full sevenweeks before hundreds of thousands of hunters began arriving in the Wisconsinwoods. The state has the third-highest number of deer hunters in theU.S. (Illinois ranks 15th.)
With the regular hunt now underway across much of the Midwest, hunters with disabilities are already chowing down on venison and mounting antlers on theirwalls.
Last year on the morning of Oct. 5— three days into what the Wisconsin Department ofNatural Resources officially calls the “Gun DeerHunt forHunters with Disabilities”— about 50 guntoting men, plus onewoman, gathered for grub in the main hall of the Sunset Pines Resort in rural Clark County. Usingwalkers, wheelchairs and motorized chairs, they thenwere ferried to the nearby fields in which pop-up blinds had been erected to meet the needs of handicapped hunters, their rifles at the ready.
While the resort has been welcoming peoplewith disabilities year-round since 1998, 2019 marked the first time Rick Tomaselli, ofNeillsville, Wisconsin, who has multiple sclerosis, participated in the early hunt. On his first day in the field, he bagged a young buck.
“Itwas pretty cool … just fantastic,” he said.
“Hewas all smiles,” his wife, Carol, added.
Similar hunts are typically held in various places around the state, providing people with disabilities the opportunity to commune with nature, something that often isn’t easy for them. But the pandemic posed challenges for 2020, particularly for hunters with added risk factors. At least one event, a power company-sponsored hunt nearNecedahwas canceled because ofCOVID-19. Sunset Pines Resort, about a five-hour drive fromChicago, held its hunt, but with fewer hunters and without the typical dining and socializing in the main hall.
“My hope for next year is that we’re able to run the event as normal and that thisCOVID situation goes away,” resort managerMolly Luther said.
“We’ve had up to like 100 hunters in the past. We never say ‘no’ to anybody,” she continued.“We always like to see new faces
mixed in with the old.”
Sunset Pines’ hunt is remarkable, thanks to the large number of local landowners who each year allowpeople with disabilities to hunt on their land.
SamWheeler, a business executive who retired to theWillard area, has been allowing people to hunt on his 500 acres for more than 20 years.
“I knew I owed it to somebody to pay it back,” he said.
Each autumn, Wheeler sets up 15 to 20 deer stands on his land. He even created a particularly sturdy blind, one with plywood walls and a roof, on top of an old manure spreader.
“I’m not mechanically inclined, but I knowpeople who are,” he said of themovable blind, which he tows behind a tractor.
Every October for the past 22 years, KevenMarsh has been making the 100-mile round trip to Willard fromhis home in Chippewa Falls in a specially equipped van. A hunter since hewas a boy, Marsh has been in thewoods each fall except the year in which,
at age 29, an industrial accident left him a paraplegic.
“Iwas crushed under2½ tons of steel. I’m fortunate just to be breathing,” he said.
Nowa board member of Rock Creek Disabled Outdoors, the nonprofit organization that oversees Sunset Pines and the hunt, Marsh divides his days between hunting and administrative duties. He’s a volunteer, just like the people who cook the hearty meals and those who act as guides for the hunters.
“After the shot, the deer might be down across a swamp. I’m never going to get to it in a wheelchair,” Marsh observed. “There’s a guide that goes down there, gets it, field dresses it and drags it out.”
“There’s a real sense of community in this area,” he said of all the volunteer labor.
Marsh said the hunt is free, although hunters and their families must arrange their own lodging. The resort offers three cabins.
The two-bedroom units are fully accessible with features such
as extra-wide doors and hallways, and kitchens complete with chair-level ovens and roll-under sinks.
“Some people say it’s the first place that they’ve been that’s actually completely accessible for them,” Luther said, referring to hotels that consider a guest room with grab rails in the bathtub to be accessible.
“We’ve had people come here from California. We’ve had people come here fromFlorida,” Marsh pointed out.“We’ve had kids from12 years old on up. We still have a 90-something-yearold hunter who’s legally blind.”
“This year,” he added, referring to 2019, “I thinkwe only have one woman, but she’s been coming for years.”
For roughly a dozen years, Matt Cortright, ofWausau, Wisconsin, has participated in the hunt with help fromhis dad, Gary, who acts as the spotter. Matt has phenylketonuria, a rare metabolic disease that shortcircuits his nerves, causing seizures and reduced mobility.
With daytime temperatures in the mid-50s early in October last year, Matt could handle sitting on a chair in a blind for hours on end, waiting for a deer to appear. His body doesn’t dowell in colder weather.
“It is a lot easier than itwould be during the regular, lateNovember hunt,” he said. “(Cold) really limits what I can do.”
Matt’s father then offered his perception that the experience goeswell beyond hunting.
“Shooting a deer is only 10 percent of the experience. What they (Sunset Pines) are providing is just not an opportunity to kill deer. That’s really not what it’s about,” Gary Cortright observed. “It’s an opportunity to spend quality time in the outdoors watching all that goes on … squirrels coming and going, birds, sandhill cranes and geese, experiencing the whole thing.”
Howto participate
Hunterswith disabilities who want to participate in the 2021 hunt should contactMolly Luther by phone (715-937-5109) or email (sunsetpinesresortrcdo@gmail.com) to be put on the mailing list for next year.
Sunset Pines (W9210 Rock Creek Road, Willard, WI; 715-9375109; sunsetpinesresort.com) is open year-round. In thewarmer months, guests can enjoy swimming and fishing in the resort’s private, stocked lake. As is the case elsewhere on the property, the dock and rampinto thewater are fully accessible.
In the winter, there’s direct access to snowmobile trails.
Cabin costs vary. For two guests, the price is $120 a night or $720 aweek. Large discounts are offered to people who qualify for financial assistance.