Adam Stankevich got to be there for one of the best moments a hunting dad can have. His son, Nolan, tagged his first deer, a buck, during Wisconsin’s Youth Hunt this past weekend in Marinette County.
The heat didn’t slow them down. Adam and Nolan sat the first morning and saw only three deer, so they took a break and headed back out for the evening. It was a long, boring sit until 6 PM, when this buck and a doe stepped out into the food plot. It took Nolan all of five seconds to decide he was taking the buck, and he made it happen with his rifle.
Three of them were packed into a small stand overlooking that food plot, which Adam says made for a great memory of his son’s first deer. As for Nolan, he’s hooked.
Adam is our Virtual Construction Manager at the De Pere Office. Congrats, Nolan, and thanks to Adam for sharing the story with us!
Every deer camp has that one buck everybody wants. This year at Jason Waligursky’s camp in Iron County, Michigan, he got it. The buck was a ghost for most of the season, only showing up on camera after dark and before first light. Then on October 7, while Jason was stuck at work, the big guy walked past his stand at 6 PM with plenty of daylight left. It was the first daytime picture of him, so Jason took Friday the 9th off and headed north.
Friday evening was a bust, just a doe and a fawn. With the forecast calling for 80° on Saturday, Jason figured the morning was his best bet and climbed into the stand at 5:45 AM on the 10th. Around 6:30, he heard a deer walking up behind him. Figuring it was the same doe and fawn he’d been seeing, he wasn’t too fired up, but he got ready just in case. Good thing, because when the deer finally stepped into view, it was the target buck, stopped at 12 yards to his left.
Jason let the arrow fly. The buck trotted off with his tail up like the noise had just spooked him, and Jason admits he wasn’t feeling great about how it looked. He gave it an hour before climbing down to check for blood. He found a couple of drops and barely any on the arrow, but the buck had only made it about 60 yards before he crashed.
As if that wasn’t enough, Jason also knocked down five grouse over the weekend and saw plenty more. In his words, an all-around great weekend at camp.
Jason Waligursky is a Shop Scheduler and Cut & Form Lead at our Wrightstown Shop. Congrats, on a great weekend, Jason!
It’s been a slow ten days or so in the buck pool, but we still have prizes to give out. This week we have a Tactacam Reveal X3.0 cellular trail cam along with a Leatherman tool and a Sitka hoodie. These were all donated by Jason Peters at Temperature Systems Inc.
This week’s winner is Brandon Lehmann! Brandon is an Account Manager at our Wisconsin Rapids location. Congrats, Brandon, and thanks to Jason at TSI for the great prize package.
No new bucks in the pool might mean a break from the weekly podcast, but we’re working to see if we can pull something together. Keep your eyes open for that. I have nothing else to report today. Enjoy these unseasonably warm evenings in the stand while we have them. The weather will turn to fall before we know it. Good luck out there!
If you’re thinking the TG Buck Pool is giving out a lot of cameras this year, you’re not wrong. It’s no more than usual, but we’re putting an emphasis on it right now because we figure if you get a camera early you can still use it this season. That said, this week’s buck pool prize is a Fusion Max Stealth Cam donated by Jesse Jansen at Motion.
Our winner is Chris Duban! Chris is a Service Plumber in Altoona. Congrats to Chris, and thanks to Jesse at Motion for the great prize. Can’t believe it’s October tomorrow. There’s always a lull this time of year in the buck pool, but things will be picking up. Stay tuned to outsidetg.com for all the info. New podcast coming later today…
Hats off to Nathan Coe, son of Tweet Garot Project Manager Nick Coe, who arrowed a unique 12-point Wisconsin whitetail this past weekend.
This one was earned long before the shot. Nathan did all of the prep for this season on his own. He got his gear ready, got his spots set up, and put in the work that most people never see. As Nick put it, “Seeing him take on all of the preparation himself made this opportunity even more rewarding.”
When the moment finally came, Nathan made it count. He stopped the buck with a well-timed grunt, made a great shot, and the two had a quick recovery on what Nick calls a “beautiful, unique Wisconsin whitetail.”
Nathan’s own play-by-play of the moment:
“Dad, I gave him the ‘meh’ and stopped him just perfect!”
For Nick, it was more than a successful hunt: “A pretty special moment and a memory we won’t soon forget!” Days like this are what hunting is all about. They take patience and preparation, and they’re even better when you get to share them with family.
Congratulations, Nathan! That’s a buck to be proud of and a hunt you earned from start to finish.
Sunday evening, I was set up along the edge of a field on private land in Shawano County when I suddenly heard a deer coming in from my downwind side.
The deer stopped right at the base of my tree, giving me a brief moment to take in what was happening. It then took off again, running directly in front of me. As it moved, I caught a glimpse of velvet on one side and what looked like a 5-inch kicker on the other.
It didn’t take long to realize I was seeing something unusual. What I thought was a kicker was actually the buck’s G2, which had broken off but was still hanging in place, held together by the velvet.
The buck continued on, and on his second leap, I drew back and settled the shot. At just 12 yards, I made the shot and watched my Sunday evening hunt come to an unforgettable end.
Remington is a steamfitter from the De Pere/Wrightstown location. Congrats!
The albino possum I shot Monday morning while leaving for work
Every once in a while a hunt comes along that reshuffles the record books, and Monday afternoon in Waushara County was one of those times. Brady Weidman arrowed a buck that taped out at 159 0/8″ — a score that, if it holds, lands him the 3rd largest buck in the 10-year history of the TG Buck Pool. That also makes it the largest buck ever taken in the state of Wisconsin in Buck Pool history.
Brady was settled in between a bean field and his brassica plot, with an east wind working in his favor for what turned into a wild afternoon. Early on, a good buck was working through the food plot when a bobcat came barreling through chasing fawns, scattering everything and running the buck off. Just when it seemed like the action had fizzled, Brady caught movement out in the bean field — and he knew right away who it was.
“I had been watching him all summer and hoping he’d give me an opportunity,” Brady said. He ranged the buck at 33 yards, settled his pin, and let the arrow fly on what felt like a perfect shot.
That’s when the hunt took its strangest turn. Instead of finding its mark on the buck, Brady’s arrow found a support cable on the field’s irrigation system instead. “The arrow definitely didn’t hit the mark, but thankfully, it hit a mark,” Brady said. “I guess there’s no other way to explain it — that arrow must have been heat seeking.”
Between the east wind, the freshly hung set, a bobcat stirring up the whole property, and a summer-long target buck finally stepping into range, Brady called it one heck of an afternoon in the woods — even if the ending didn’t go quite the way he drew it up.
When he’s not chasing giants in Waushara County, Brady works as an HVAC Service Technician out of our Wisconsin Rapids office.
The tape doesn’t lie — Brady just set the bar high for the 2026 Buck Pool. This one’s going to be talked about for a long time to come. Congratulations to Brady on a truly historic buck!
Our next Buck Pool prize is something new. This week’s winner is getting a bag of GXM Outpost Doco Buck Dust. This is a local product grown, harvested, produced, and packaged in Door County, Wisconsin. It was donated to us by Randy Schopf from GXM Outpost. They do not have a website, but if you’re interested in learning more click here to view their Facebook page and give them a follow. Also, for what it’s worth, the picture doesn’t do the size of this bag justice. It’s a large bag.
The winner of the Buck Dust is Darin Tuschy. Darin is a Local 400 steamfitter foreman currently working at Resolute. Congrats to Darin and thanks again to Randy and the people at GXM Outpost for the cool prize. It’s been a slow few days in the buck pool, but look for a new podcast today where we discuss the final results of the 2026 TG Walleye Tour.
For our first prize of the 2026 deer season we have a pair of Reveal Tactacam Pro 3.0 cellular cameras donated by Cole Cupit at Packer Fastener. A great early season prize that could help out a hunter trying to scout out his or her property for the upcoming season. Two cameras means we’re drawing two names.
The first name drawn was Alex Bishop. Alex is a Safety Coordinator in our Tomahawk shop/office. The next winner is Brad Davister. Brad is a Service Technician in our De Pere location.
Congrats to Alex and Brad, and thanks to Cole and Packer Fastener for getting our season started with a great prize. We’re only a five days in, but the action is already heating up in the pool. We have a podcast coming later today and we’ll keep adding more deer and winners as the season continues. Keep your eyes on this site for more.
I shouldn’t editorialize or play favorites here, but if anyone deserved a good story to kick off the season, it’s Jeff Blohowiak — the man behind the TG Buck Pool himself. On the evening of September 15th, Jeff headed out to his stand in Kewaunee County with modest goals: get out, get the season started, and see what showed up. What he came home with was one of the best bow bucks of his hunting career.
Jeff set up on an intersection of two fence lines, corn on the west side and alfalfa to the east, with a westerly wind putting the odds in his favor for deer moving out of the corn as evening settled in. He didn’t have to wait long for things to get interesting. “I heard a sound that was like something tearing a cob off the stalk, so I got ready,” Jeff said. A solid 9-pointer stepped out first, but Jeff had a specific target in mind: a 10-pointer he’d been watching on camera.
Five minutes later, that buck showed up, making the same sound working the corn. “I immediately knew this was my target buck,” Jeff said. He drew back as the buck started to angle east, and let the arrow fly on a quartering-away shot. The hit was a bit farther back than he wanted, and the buck made it about 50 yards into the alfalfa before going down. “It happened so fast,” Jeff said.
Shortly after, an 8-pointer emerged from the same spot and wandered over to check on the downed buck, sticking around for about 15 minutes before finally moving off into the next woods. Only then did Jeff climb down and make his way over for a recovery.
Jeff, who put the tape to it himself, came up with a gross green score of 138″ — his first bow buck ever taken in September, and one he calls “bittersweet” now that his Wisconsin bow buck season is officially in the books. With his tag filled, Jeff says he’ll spend the rest of the bow season behind the camera filming buddies’ hunts to pass the time until gun season arrives, and he’s not ruling out an out-of-state bow hunt before it’s all said and done.
When he’s not in a stand or running a pool full of 300+ hunters, Jeff works as an Account Manager out of our De Pere office — and as the founder of the TG Buck Pool, it seems only fitting that he’d be the one to set the bar early this season. Looks like we have a lot to talk about on the podcast tomorrow.
Congratulations to Jeff on a great buck and a great start to the season.
Cody Dziekan connected on the buck of a lifetime this week in Buffalo County, Wisconsin — if by “buck of a lifetime” you mean a fawn so young it still had one hoof in the birth canal.
Hunting with a crossgun on September 15th, Cody says the magic ingredient wasn’t skill, patience, or years of scouting — it was Larry Legend’s mineral. “Boy does that stuff work,” Cody reported, still buzzing. “It will make antlers grow on anything, thanks Larry! This fawn came running in with her mother and I couldn’t resist. Never saw such a thing.” Wildlife biologists have since requested a sample of whatever Larry is selling, mostly out of concern.
Cody says he’s already lined up a full body mount for the harvest, noting it “should be pretty cheap as the body is the size of a small dog.” The taxidermist reportedly asked if he meant to say “chihuahua” and Cody said no, bigger than that, more like a “medium dog.”
Cody credits the whole setup to a food plot he planted with Domain seeds this spring, which he swears the deer “couldn’t resist” — a claim that checks out, seeing as the deer in question was still small enough to be nursing.
Cody’s message to the rest of the Buck Pool: “Good luck this season, everybody!”
Michigan’s early antlerless season got off to a great start for Brett McAdams, who connected with a doe in Manistee County this past Saturday, September 12. Hunting with a rifle, Brett made the most of the state’s early opportunity to fill the freezer before the fall rush gets going.
But the real story of this hunt might be the tracking crew. “My daughter Emma loves to do the tracking for me,” Brett said, proving that the kind of hunt that sticks with you is not just the one with the biggest harvest, but also shared with the right people. There’s nothing like watching a kid catch the hunting bug early, and having Emma along for recovery duty is the kind of tradition that turns a single hunt into a lifetime of memories in the woods.
When he’s not in the woods, Brett works as a Service Technician out of our Traverse City location.
Congratulations to Brett on a successful hunt, and to Emma on some A+ tracking work.
