Big Buck 411 Blog

Cleats vs. Boots

Cleats vs. Boots

By Mike Handley

Worried football practice might cut into his time in a treestand, Loyal High School’s freshman quarterback almost passed on team tryouts during the summer of 2017.

He wound up making the team, which by the way kicked conference butt that fall, but 15-year-old Wyatt Dietsche would’ve traded his gray uniform and cleats for camo and boots in a heartbeat. That he could wear both is why he swallowed his reservations.

The Wisconsin teenager takes deer hunting very seriously, and he doesn’t rely on trail cameras to tell him what the whitetails are doing on the family’s 280 acres. Even if he can’t take a bow with him, he’ll spend hours in a treestand, taking note of every deer he sees.

He began his treetop vigils in July, and he continued going two or three times a week for four weeks, until football practice took over his life.

Later that summer, when the state lifted its ban on baiting, Wyatt put out minerals at two stand locations. He couldn’t wait to hunt them.

After bow season opened Sept. 17, Wyatt hunted every weekend. And when the football season was finished, he also hunted every day after school.

On Oct. 3, the ninth-grader created three mock scrapes with Tink’s Mock Scrape Starter. He’d never tried it, but he’d read about the technique over the summer.

“After I did that, I had deer in front of the camera all the time,” he said.

Twelve days later, a camera yielded 10 one-minute video bursts that rocked his world.

“I’d never seen a deer that big,” he said. “When it put its head down, I saw 17 points, and that buck went right to the top of my hit list.

“I was speechless when I watched the clips. I didn’t know what to think,” he added.

About 3:20 on Nov. 11, Wyatt lugged a climber into the woodlot and jacked himself up a tree about 20 yards from a scrape. An hour later, he saw a large buck at 100 yards and pulled out his grunt tube.

The deer paid him no attention, at first. After making a scrape, it headed for a cornfield. Before it reached the corn, a doe popped out between the buck and Wyatt, and then she ran back in the stalks. The buck saw the in-and-out, and walked to where the doe had emerged.

The hunt might’ve ended with the buck following in the doe’s footsteps, but a 4-pointer walked out at just the right moment, and the big one saw it.

“As soon as the big one saw the little buck, it’s like every hair stood on end. He really puffed up, and then came straight in,” Wyatt said.

This is the boy’s 11th deer – his third buck – by bow. It hasn’t been taped for the BTR yet.

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