A buck he can brag about
PARKER— Hunting is a sport to some, a hobby to others. To Richard Blauser, it's a way of life.
Blauser, 79, of Parker, recently shot a 14-point buck with double-drop tines on his 650-acre farm in Eau Claire, using a crossbow.
Blauser has been hunting since he was 14 years old and has bagged a deer during each of the past 65 years. He has shot five record-book bucks and has bagged 16 bears during his lifetime, including one that weighed 350 pounds.
"Getting a deer with only one drop tine is rare enough,"said Blauser's 58-year-old son, Dick Blauser. "A double drop is extremely rare."
A drop tine is a portion of the buck's horn pointed downward. A double-drop tine is having such a horn on both sides.
"We've been hunting that particular deer all season,"Blauser said. "We knew it was around here because we'd seen it a couple of times.
"Dad shot it from the tree stand. He climbs up in there every day."
The elder Blauser shot 14 of his 16 bears in Canada, though he and his sons haven't hunted north of the border in 10 years.
Blauser has three sons — Dick, Steve, 55, and Bill, 53 — who have hunted with him over the years. He has been married to his wife Shirley for 58 years.
"He's been a hunter his entire life,"Shirley Blauser said. "Those guys have spent a lot of time in the woods together."
Bill Blauser is more of a fisherman and Steve is a golfer, though they've all hunted together over the years.
The Blausers do most of their hunting on their farm's property, which includes an 80-acre thicket in which the family allows no hunters.
"That includes ourselves,"Blauser said. "That area serves as a wildlife refuge and it's part of a deer management program we've had in place for 10 years now."
The elder Blauser doesn't venture into the woods anymore. But he does just fine from the tree stand.
"He'll be back up there again during gun season, that's for sure,"his son said.
