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Warren Mohar, a civil engineer from Baraboo, has been hunting on Nature Conservancy land for more than 15 years. Warren has not missed a deer hunting season since 1971, and he enjoys hunting pheasant, duck and turkey as well. Warren also volunteers with The Nature Conservancy’s Baraboo Hills volunteer group at many of the monthly work parties.

Nature.org recently talked to Warren about his hunting experiences, the best way to cook venison and the importance of maintaining Wisconsin’s hunting tradition.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

I started when I was a teenager. My father hunted a little bit. My grandfather was a pheasant and duck hunter, and I used to hear the stories from him about his hunting trips out to South Dakota. Then a good friend of mine in grade school and high school lived out in the country, and he had the opportunity to hunt right out of his back door. I hooked up with him, and I’ve been pretty active ever since. I don’t think I’ve missed a season deer hunting since 1971. I bow hunt and gun hunt for deer and turkey hunt in the spring. I like to duck hunt and pheasant hunt as well.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

No. My dad was in the Navy, and we moved all over the country. We were from Illinois, and I moved up here after I graduated from college. I’ve lived in Baraboo for 30 years, and I’ve been hunting in Wisconsin since 1971.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

The main thing for me is being outside. When you first start hunting, you really just want to come back with your limit. As you age, I don’t think it’s as important to always get your limit. It’s more important just to be out and about. That’s where I’m at right now.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

I hunt alone quite a bit. I have two sons who have graduated and moved out of the house. One is in Madison and the other is in Colorado, and I enjoy hunting with them. I’ve gone to Colorado and elk hunted with my son out there. My younger son, who is in Madison, will come up here, and we’ll hunt turkey and deer together. I also have buddies here at work that I go with, but I would say 80 percent of the time I’m probably by myself.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

I’ve been hunting for 15 years on Nature Conservancy land, and Baxter’s Hollow is basically where I’ve spent my time. It’s so convenient for me to go and have 5,000 acres of land that I can access anytime I want for deer hunting. To me, it’s always been just a wonderful opportunity to have that kind of vast area so close.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

I still like to shoot a deer because I love to eat venison. You hear all these stories about venison being gamey and wild, but it isn’t gamey or wild if you prepare it right. For me, the prime way to cook venison is to debone the hindquarter, which would be the equivalent of a round steak or ham that you would buy in the store. Then take out one of the bigger individual muscles of the round steak. I don’t cut it thin like you would buy it in the store; I use the big, intact muscle. Then I roast it on the Weber grill until it is medium rare, take it off and let it sit for five minutes to reabsorb the juice. Then just slice it real thin and eat it hot with a lot of salt, just like that. No marinade, no seasoning other than salt, maybe a little pepper, no trying to cover it up or hide the taste or anything like that. It’s just the pure, almost raw, meat with salt.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

I’ve worked with the Baraboo Hills volunteer group. There’s a core group that is really very concerned and has a good, thoughtful plan for what the volunteer work should accomplish in the Baraboo Hills with invasive species control and tree planting, so I work with them when I can at the monthly work parties. I have done a lot of boundary posting too, which I really like because my background as an engineer includes surveying. I’m familiar with property boundaries and surveying, so it’s fun for me to go out, navigate through the woods and find property corners and remnants of old fences that determine the property lines.

nature.org:

Warren Mojar:

Yes, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are still a very rural state in a very rural environment despite the fact that we’ve got big cities like Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay. If you drive around the state, you’ll see that much of the state is rural. I live in Baraboo. We’re a small community, and we’ve got deer in our backyard. You don’t have to pay to go out to Colorado. You don’t have to go to Alaska. The hunting opportunities are here, so I think it’s important to maintain them.

Story by Kayla Jensen, Nature Conservancy writing intern.