MILWAUKEE — Deer meat processors are preparing for their busiest time of year: Wisconsin’s gun deer hunt. The nine-day event starts on Nov. 18 and runs until Nov. 26.
Bunzel’s Meat Market in Milwaukee has been helping successful deer hunts become meals since 1976.
Ethan Stockbauer has been a butcher at Bunzel’s for five years.
“The back strap is one of the prize parts of the deer that the hunters go for,” Stockbauer said. “We usually leave them whole for the hunters, or we cut them into butterfly chops, like a boneless pork chop kind of thing. This customer wants it cut in half so we’ll get it trimmed up real nice and then cut it into two pieces so they can cook them as roasts.”
While the archery and crossbow deer season has been steady business, Stockbauer said it gets a lot more hectic during the gun deer hunt.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “The opening weekend of gun season is probably our craziest. By the time we open in the morning, there’s a line of cars on Burleigh [Street] of hunters that got up bright and early and they are waiting to get their deer processed.”
Stockbauer said he has never gone hunting before but has always found deer processing interesting.
“It’s a unique way to help people,” he said. “Not a lot of people have the space or the time to do their deer themselves, so it’s great that we can get it all packed up and cut nicely for them.”
Chip Bunzel is a co-owner of Bunzel’s Meat Market. He said this is a very important time of the year for business.
“It’s a short season,” Bunzel said. “We do archery and crossbow season starting September and January. Then, gun season is the week of Thanksgiving and it’s a good part of our business that we look forward to every year.”