Deer Camp Tickets Now Available

The Whitetails Unlimited Deer Camp Tour is ready to kick off January 14 and tickets for the first Deer Camps are already going fast!

Invitations for the early events have gone out the door from WTU national headquarters, and several thousand tickets have already been sold via the WTU website. New this year is the ability to print event tickets at home from the website, making the process even easier.

 

The first Deer Camp will be the Michigan Tri-Cities, on January 14 in Essexville, Michigan. The tour ends four months later, after 19 more events in nine states, with the Wisconsin Packerland Deer Camp in Green Bay on April 21.

There are single events in Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois and Texas. There are two Deer Camps in Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota, three events in Iowa, and seven Deer Camps in Wisconsin, where the events started.

A complete list of dates and locations, ticket information, and invitations in PDF format are available on the WTU website. Click here for more information. Deer Camps are held in great venues, with great food, outstanding prizes and once-in-a-lifetime hunting and fishing trips. Last year, at some Deer Camps one out of every seven people attending won a gun. Everyone attending will receive the 2012 Deer Camp Tour shirt.

Industry support of the Deer Camp Tour has been outstanding, resulting in high quality merchandise, travel destinations, and outdoor artwork being available in record numbers. There are custom-engraved firearms, art from the country’s top artists, merchandise that every deer hunter can use, and great adventure travel packages. Deer Camp sponsors are featured on the WTU website and on the Deer Camp invitations.

Twenty events, nine states, one great time. Attending a Deer Camp is a great way to cure the mid-winter blues!

Deer Camp dates and locations:

Tri-Cities (Michigan) Deer Camp, January 14, Essexville, Michigan

Western Iowa Deer Camp, January 21, Council Bluffs, Iowa

Wisconsin Northeast Deer Camp, January 28, Kimberly, Wisconsin

Minnesota Southeast Deer Camp, February 4, Red Wing, Minnesota

Missouri River Deer Camp, February 4, Sioux City, Iowa

Wisconsin East Deer Camp, February 4, Germantown, Wisconsin

Wisconsin North Deer Camp, February 4, Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Eastern Nebraska Deer Camp, February 17, Omaha, Nebraska

Michigan Deer Camp, February 18, Lansing, Michigan

Wisconsin Southeast Deer Camp, February 18, Kenosha, Wisconsin

Iowa Deer Camp, February 25, Pleasant Hill, Iowa

Mid-Missouri Deer Camp, March 3, Columbia, Missouri

Wisconsin West Deer Camp, March 3, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Minnesota Lakes Deer Camp, March 17, Alexandria, Minnesota

Central Ohio Deer Camp, March 17, Columbus, Ohio

Illinois Deer Camp, March 24, Peoria, Illinois

North Texas Deer Camp, March 29, McKinney, Texas

Big Buckeye Deer Camp, March 30, Cambridge, Ohio

Wisconsin South Deer Camp, March 31, Madison, Wisconsin

Wisconsin Packerland Deer Camp, April 21, Green Bay, Wisconsin

WTU's My First Deer Program Celebrates Hunting Success

Program celebrates a life-long memory – a hunter’s first deer.

A hunter’s first white-tailed deer is an important part of their personal hunting heritage, and Whitetails Unlimited’s My First Deer program is ready to celebrate that rite of passage with them. As deer seasons come to an end across the country, when you (or someone you know) take that first deer, remember to go to the Whitetails Unlimited website to celebrate a successful season.

The My First Deer program celebrates a life-long memory – a hunter’s first deer. While oriented strongly toward youth, the program acknowledges a hunter of any age entering into a very special hunting fraternity of sportsmen and women. This special group of hunters can trace its roots all the way back to the Native Americans and early European settlers in North America.

To participate, a hunter need only submit a photo of their first deer, along with a short narrative (250 word maximum) about the hunt that resulted in their first deer.

To mark the occasion, Whitetails Unlimited will provide the successful deer hunter with a personalized color certificate, suitable for framing, and a Cabela’s shooter’s cap to wear with pride. In addition, everyone who participates will be entered into a drawing for one of three gift cards, generously donated by Cabela’s. First prize is a $300 Cabela’s gift card, second prize is a $200 Cabela’s gift card, and third prize is a $100 Cabela’s gift card. The drawing will be held January 3, 2012, with winners posted on the WTU website.

“This is a great way to mark this special deer hunting experience, and provide the successful hunter with a permanent reminder of that memorable day,” said Kevin Devault, WTU’s manager of conservation funding. “It’s a day and a moment in a hunter’s life that I promise they will never forget.”

Whitetails Unlimited introduced My First Deer as a pilot program in the last part of 2008, and it was an immediate success. As a result, WTU has run the program every year since then.

“Just ask any deer hunter, young or old, about their first deer and they will relive the entire experience as if it just happened yesterday,” said Devault. “Responsible hunters today, as in the past, continue to play a vital role in determining the fate of our nation’s deer population and the sport of regulated hunting. Honest, ethical hunters are the true conservationists in today’s society.”

For complete details on the My First Deer program, visit the WTU website at www.whitetailsunlimited.com.

Spicy Tomato Juice and a Great Bloody Mary

By Nancy Brabbit-Davis

I’ve got a real problem with people who drink alcohol and then go hunting or shooting. It’s stupid, an invitation to disaster, and I don’t do it, or tolerate anyone around me who does. Alcohol and firearms do not mix, period.

The skewers are obviousely upside-down, but are arranged here to show
the range of possible garnishes. From left: pickled mushrooms,
pickled pearl onions, shrimp, garlic stuffed olives, dill pickles, peperoncini
peppers, pickled okra, and pickled garlic. Photo by Jeff Davis.

However, I understand how many people enjoy a drink after the guns have been cased, or other times when it’s appropriate. I like bloody Marys, but ordering a bloody Mary is like ordering chili, you never know what you are going to get.

Years ago a friend wrangled the secret recipe for the best bloody Mary mix I’ve ever found from a restaurant where she worked. It took a lot of work to convert the formula for making 64 gallons of the stuff to a quantity suitable for a small group.  At the risk of dating myself – this was before calculators.

My Dad and I painstakingly cut the mix down from 64 gallons to 32, to 16, to 8, to 4, and finally 2 gallons – an amount that we felt was a reasonable batch.  It has been modified and improved over the years.  We get the base ingredients in plastic jugs, mix it up and then just put it back in the original containers for dispensing.

Properly refrigerated it will easily keep for a week or more, and with us most of it is consumed without any alcohol, just as a spicy drink anytime.

If you’re serving friends or family, use your imagination with the garnish. The standard celery stalk or kosher pickle spear are fine, but you’ll get a lot of smiles when your guests see their drink with garlic or blue cheese stuffed olives, pickled onions, asparagus, green beans or okra, or my favorite, a skewer of cooked shrimp or crawdad tails. We’ve recently discovered that a strip of beef jerky, a slim sausage stick, or skinny string cheese also make great garnishes.

There are a huge number of variations, so try it out, make some adjustments, and come up with your own favorite mix.

Northwoods Bloody Mary Mix

1 bottle (32-ounce)  Clamato Tomato Cocktail Juice

1 bottle (64-ounce) Tomato juice

1 cup                      Worcestershire sauce

3 tablespoons         Celery salt

2 tablespoons         Black pepper

1/2 cup                   Lemon juice

1/2 cup                   Horseradish

Mix ingredients in a large pot, and adjust to taste. Start with a smaller amount of horseradish, mix well and then taste it. Add more horseradish as needed, but remember that many people don’t appreciate a screaming hot drink. You can always add more to an individual glass, or even the whole bottle. The taste will mix and become more complex the longer it is stored. It is easy to mix a day ahead of when you will need it, and it does taste better the second day.