01-03-2005, 05:27 PM
[#ff4040]Sure Hope I'm still huntin at 99!![/#ff4040]
Still a straight shooter at 99[size 2][/size]
[size 2]
![[Image: Outdoors.jpg]](http://www.wisinfo.com/dailytribune/images/tiles/sportsbig/Outdoors.jpg)
Mosinee resident hasn't missed a season or a buck
By Jim Lee
For Central Wisconsin Sunday
John Koskey got his buck this year.
No big deal.
At age 99, Koskey 's accustomed to affixing his Wisconsin deer tag to antlers each November.
"I started deer hunting when I was 18," the rural Mosinee resident said. "There were no deer in central Wisconsin then. We hunted near Boulder Junction. I got an 11-point buck that first year. Shot it with a shotgun and buckshot.
"I've gotten a buck every year since. There ain't a year that I ever missed."
Until four years ago, Koskey climbed a tree stand on his property near the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir when the deer season rolled around. But he broke his hip three years ago and now has a disability permit to hunt from a vehicle.
He was in the car on his land opening day of the 2004 gun deer season when a buck with four points on one side and a broken rack on the other walked into view.
"Bang!" recalled Koskey. The deer went down, which they generally do when he lines up the iron sights on his 30-06 Remington pump.
"John knows how to hunt deer," said his son-in-law Bob Maciejewski. "He knows where to look for them, and he's patient.
"When he broke his hip, he never quit hunting. The doctor couldn't believe how solid his bones were. He said they were like a 60-year-old man's. He only quit driving about a year ago.
"He still goes hunting and fishing, but now we take him."
Maciejewski and his wife, Marcia, care for Koskey at their home, which is just down the road from a tavern Koskey once operated (now called Winter Haven) and from the Big Eau Pleine where "Koskey's Landing" and "Koskey's Bay" are local angling landmarks.
Born in 1905 on a farm north of Mosinee, Koskey matured during the lean years of the 20th century, farming, building a dam and working at several paper mills in addition to his run at the tavern business.
Times were tough for a man with a wife, four daughters and two sons to support.
"I trapped muskrats and mink during the Depression," Koskey said, slowly searching the files of a mind brimming nearly a century of memories. "I hunted fox and wolves (coyotes, actually, which were sometimes referred to as 'brush wolves')".
"I worked 11 years laying rock for the dam (on the Big Eau Pleine) at 35 cents an hour.
"I could get $16 to $32 for a mink and $2.50 for a muskrat. I made about $50 a day trapping during the hard times.
"There was a $5 bounty on fox and $20 bounty on coyotes. When I got a coyote, I was a rich man."
The tavern was a success every way but financially as customers often were as short on cash as the proprietor. "A lot of (the business) was on paper," Koskey said. "We couldn't have survived if I didn't have other jobs."
He retired at age 62, and his wife, Pauline, died in 1981, but Koskey never stopped being active. He's still a common sight in the Maciejewski neighborhood, though his legs are a bit unsteady and his preferred summer mode of personal transportation often is a riding lawnmower.
"He doesn't give up," said Marcia Maciejewski. "It's the Polish in him."
"He's like that Energizer bunny," said Bob Maciejewski.
Koskey plans to celebrate his 100th birthday on Oct. 4 next fall with friends at the landing and bay that carry his name. His 99th was held on the same site and drew plenty of well-wishers.
A wiry, slight man with a weathered visage and billowy white hair, Koskey walks to a kitchen table to take questions from a reporter. The handshake is firm. He is dressed neatly, wearing a plaid shirt and tie beneath a light plaid jacket. Questions must be proffered loudly and sometimes relayed by his son-in-law, but the answers come back deliberate and thoughtful.
Asked to recall memorable hunts, he tells of the 1979 season when he dropped three bucks (all eight-pointers) and the period around the late 1960s "when 10 of us killed 10 bucks a year for seven straight years."
Koskey readily recalls the events but requires help from Bob and Marcia Maciejewski to provide dates. Decades fly by when you're looking back 99 years.
When it comes to giving out hunting tips, the near-centenarian is leery.
"I used to tell people how I hunt, but they never follow my instructions," he said.
"I'd tell them where I sat to get a buck, and they'd sit there for half an hour and leave. If you walk and look for deer, you ain't going to get any. All you do is chase them into somebody else."
Recommended buck haunts are along the edges of thick cover where the terrain provides openings to shoot. "Then sit down by a tree," Koskey said. "Don't stand ...s it."
Marcia Maciejewski said her father sets high standards for his offspring.
"This family hunts and fishes," she said. "He's taught all his sons how to hunt. He's taught them to be sportsmen ... and now he's teaching their children."
One of Koskey's favorite activities in recent years has been to sit in the stands during the baseball and hockey games of his great-grandson, 10-year-old Bryce Hladovcak of Mosinee.
Though John hopes be around to see Bryce enter the deer hunting ranks when the youth turns 12, at this point he is looking no further than the 2005 gun deer season.
"If I live that long," Koskey vows, "I'll be there."
Bucks beware! [/size]
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Still a straight shooter at 99[size 2][/size]
[size 2]
Mosinee resident hasn't missed a season or a buckBy Jim Lee
For Central Wisconsin Sunday
John Koskey got his buck this year.
No big deal.
At age 99, Koskey 's accustomed to affixing his Wisconsin deer tag to antlers each November.
"I started deer hunting when I was 18," the rural Mosinee resident said. "There were no deer in central Wisconsin then. We hunted near Boulder Junction. I got an 11-point buck that first year. Shot it with a shotgun and buckshot.
"I've gotten a buck every year since. There ain't a year that I ever missed."
Until four years ago, Koskey climbed a tree stand on his property near the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir when the deer season rolled around. But he broke his hip three years ago and now has a disability permit to hunt from a vehicle.
He was in the car on his land opening day of the 2004 gun deer season when a buck with four points on one side and a broken rack on the other walked into view.
"Bang!" recalled Koskey. The deer went down, which they generally do when he lines up the iron sights on his 30-06 Remington pump.
"John knows how to hunt deer," said his son-in-law Bob Maciejewski. "He knows where to look for them, and he's patient.
"When he broke his hip, he never quit hunting. The doctor couldn't believe how solid his bones were. He said they were like a 60-year-old man's. He only quit driving about a year ago.
"He still goes hunting and fishing, but now we take him."
Maciejewski and his wife, Marcia, care for Koskey at their home, which is just down the road from a tavern Koskey once operated (now called Winter Haven) and from the Big Eau Pleine where "Koskey's Landing" and "Koskey's Bay" are local angling landmarks.
Born in 1905 on a farm north of Mosinee, Koskey matured during the lean years of the 20th century, farming, building a dam and working at several paper mills in addition to his run at the tavern business.
Times were tough for a man with a wife, four daughters and two sons to support.
"I trapped muskrats and mink during the Depression," Koskey said, slowly searching the files of a mind brimming nearly a century of memories. "I hunted fox and wolves (coyotes, actually, which were sometimes referred to as 'brush wolves')".
"I worked 11 years laying rock for the dam (on the Big Eau Pleine) at 35 cents an hour.
"I could get $16 to $32 for a mink and $2.50 for a muskrat. I made about $50 a day trapping during the hard times.
"There was a $5 bounty on fox and $20 bounty on coyotes. When I got a coyote, I was a rich man."
The tavern was a success every way but financially as customers often were as short on cash as the proprietor. "A lot of (the business) was on paper," Koskey said. "We couldn't have survived if I didn't have other jobs."
He retired at age 62, and his wife, Pauline, died in 1981, but Koskey never stopped being active. He's still a common sight in the Maciejewski neighborhood, though his legs are a bit unsteady and his preferred summer mode of personal transportation often is a riding lawnmower.
"He doesn't give up," said Marcia Maciejewski. "It's the Polish in him."
"He's like that Energizer bunny," said Bob Maciejewski.
Koskey plans to celebrate his 100th birthday on Oct. 4 next fall with friends at the landing and bay that carry his name. His 99th was held on the same site and drew plenty of well-wishers.
A wiry, slight man with a weathered visage and billowy white hair, Koskey walks to a kitchen table to take questions from a reporter. The handshake is firm. He is dressed neatly, wearing a plaid shirt and tie beneath a light plaid jacket. Questions must be proffered loudly and sometimes relayed by his son-in-law, but the answers come back deliberate and thoughtful.
Asked to recall memorable hunts, he tells of the 1979 season when he dropped three bucks (all eight-pointers) and the period around the late 1960s "when 10 of us killed 10 bucks a year for seven straight years."
Koskey readily recalls the events but requires help from Bob and Marcia Maciejewski to provide dates. Decades fly by when you're looking back 99 years.
When it comes to giving out hunting tips, the near-centenarian is leery.
"I used to tell people how I hunt, but they never follow my instructions," he said.
"I'd tell them where I sat to get a buck, and they'd sit there for half an hour and leave. If you walk and look for deer, you ain't going to get any. All you do is chase them into somebody else."
Recommended buck haunts are along the edges of thick cover where the terrain provides openings to shoot. "Then sit down by a tree," Koskey said. "Don't stand ...s it."
Marcia Maciejewski said her father sets high standards for his offspring.
"This family hunts and fishes," she said. "He's taught all his sons how to hunt. He's taught them to be sportsmen ... and now he's teaching their children."
One of Koskey's favorite activities in recent years has been to sit in the stands during the baseball and hockey games of his great-grandson, 10-year-old Bryce Hladovcak of Mosinee.
Though John hopes be around to see Bryce enter the deer hunting ranks when the youth turns 12, at this point he is looking no further than the 2005 gun deer season.
"If I live that long," Koskey vows, "I'll be there."
Bucks beware! [/size]
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