Gary Barenz isn’t a trophy buck hunter, despite living in one of the best areas of the country to see and kill giant whitetails.
Barenz has seen them in his 40-odd years of hunting, but he’s never really dialed into the trophy mentality. He just enjoys hunting near his home in central Wisconsin, which is loaded with healthy, huge bucks. So when Barenz decided to go out for an afternoon hunt on Oct. 25, 2016, he had no illusions of grandeur. It was just another great autumn afternoon and he had a few hours to hunt. What happened next, and pretty quickly at that, blew him away.
“I’ve been hunting this property since 1998 and only have gotten one out of there earlier that was better,” he said. “That was a 138-inch 8-pointer back in 2000. Other than that, I see them but haven’t gotten a shot at them, or I get butterflies and miss.”
We’ve all been there, right? We see a great buck and don’t get a shot, or come down with a knee-knocking case of buck fever that gives us the willies. Such is part of deer hunting. Barenz, who is 55 and was hunting in Waukesha County, is humble enough to not worry about admitting it.
CHANCE ENCOUNTER
He still has a hard time believing how things transpired, though, when he saw and then got a shot at the 18-point buck. He had been to the stand a few days earlier to replace a seat cover and knew the buck was in the area. His game camera photos showed it, as did images from a friend’s camera on land about five miles away. The big buck was roaming…
