Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s not so much about what it is, but when it is.

Fall is just a great time of year. Hunting, fishing, state championship high school football, the anticipation of Christmas and New Year’s, there’s a lot to be excited about.

Wisconsin’s nine-day gun deer season runs right across Thanksgiving. In the last few years, the weekend after the holiday has become, arguably, my favorite 48 hours of the hunting season.

Gun deer hunting is the foremost outdoors tradition in Wisconsin.

Each year, over half a million licenses are sold. During the nine-day season, the state’s gun deer hunters temporarily become the eighth-largest active military in the world.

It would be pretty hard for you to know a handful of Wisconsinites and not find some connection to deer hunting. With nearly 10 percent of the state’s population participating in the sport each year, deer hunting is engrained in our culture and that makes me incredibly happy.

Nathan’s note: This article originally appeared in Badger Sportsman Magazine my senior year of college. This was my Father’s Day gift to him in 2013. It was the first outdoors article of mine that was ever formally published.

Though there are some things I would change about it structurally in hindsight, I didn’t make those tweaks. I feel this is an accurate representation of where I was in my life and career at the time.

Everyone who hunts seems to have a father and son story, if only just one. I have been blessed with many.

I feel like there is a time in every man’s life where he becomes grown up enough to realize exactly how much he means to his father. With this realization comes the natural pondering of what a struggle it must have been to raise a son. This is typically followed by an appreciation for undertaking such a thankless task.

Sharing the outdoors with others is truly one of my favorite things about hunting and fishing.

During this past opening day of duck hunting in Wisconsin, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do exactly that. This turned out to be a hunt that I will remember for the rest of my life.