Making an honest buck with hunting products, wildlife feed 

Matthew Day

Staff

August 25, 2025

TWO RIVERS – A line of locally made products is giving hunters and wildlife enthusiasts in Northeast Wisconsin another way to attract deer and bears.

Jamie Herman – who co-owns Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats with her husband, Chad – said she’s been making and selling deer blocks, as well as bags of feed and mineral, since 2023.  

The couple – both avid hunters – said they started with the simple goal of creating effective and nutritious attractants. 

“We were dabbling in it already in 2022, making our own deer blocks and stuff like that for ourselves,” she said. “Then it just exploded and transpired from there.” 

Working from their Two Rivers home, Herman said Papa’s Buckin’ products are now available in more than 15 stores throughout the region. 

Encouraged by the successful distribution, sales and feedback from the deer attractants, she said, this year, the company launched a new line of attractants for bears. 

Herman said in only its third year, and in a competitive industry, no less, Papa’s Buckin’ has begun garnering interest more widely, including a recent wholesale inquiry from Canada. 

“We’ve been shipping some things down to Tennessee,” she said. “Customers down south are just now starting to hear about our brand name.” 

That name, Herman said, is a reference to Chad. 

“He’s actually the ‘Papa’ in the Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats,” she said. “We have 10 grandbabies – they all call him ‘Papa.’” 

Buckin’ the system 

The inspiration for the company, Herman said, hit several years ago, when she and Chad were watching a hunting channel on television. 

“They were advertising for a particular [deer block], saying, ‘This is going to be the best [block] you’ve ever used,’ etc.,” she said.

Enticed – “it had just hit the market, and they were swearing by it” – Herman said she and Chad immediately drove to the store to buy the product. 

After placing the block in the field where they sought to attract deer and using cellular trail cameras to monitor the block for signs of activity, she said over time, disappointment set in.

“The deer never even touched it,” she said. “We said, ‘Well, that was a waste of money.’” 

Herman said it was hardly their first poor experience with attractants, as they’d found many of the available blocks too hard for deer to eat. 

This final disappointment, she said, was enough for them to take matters into their own hands. 

“It was just one of those things – we were up north and we’re all talking about it, saying, ‘[It] can’t be that hard [to make our own deer blocks],’” she said.  

Though Herman said the process proved more difficult than anticipated, she and Chad jumped into research and experimentation. 

“We started playing with different formulas and finally started developing a deer block the deer were actually eating and getting nutritional value from,” she said. 

Achieving ideal hardness for the blocks, Herman said, was a matter of “working with different presses and pressures” to compact the feed. 

Opting for less compaction, she said, doesn’t just make the blocks easier for deer to eat – it also makes them easier for people to carry. 

“Our blocks are shaped smaller, rather than those big, heavy, [20-30-pound] ones,” she said. “[Ours are] 12-pound blocks. A lot of times, I will go out hunting by myself before my husband gets home, and they’re small enough that I can either throw one in my backpack or wheel it out and carry it out to the woods, where I’m not killing myself trying to carry it out, either.” 

In addition to correct compaction, Herman said she and Chad prioritized proper nutritional content. 

“Herd health has always been important to us,” she said. “We obviously want to make sure the deer are healthy.” 

Herman said does require extra nutrients while nursing fawns, and bucks (according to “Bowhunter” magazine) can travel up to 10 miles a day during the mating season or “rut.” 

“Even if you’re not harvesting that particular buck that season, and you want them to grow and develop into something [bigger], getting them that extra nutritional value and taking care of your herd so they can also survive the winters is also important,” she said. 

Herd through the grapevine 

Learning from “trial and error,” Herman said they conducted initial product tests in their backyard.  

“It was crazy to watch [deer] keep coming in,” she said. “It’s nice to be sitting there at the dining room table and all of a sudden the deer are coming in, checking [a block] out and eating it. The grandkids just loved it, and it caught on from there.” 

Word of her and Chad’s new deer blocks, Herman said, began to spread beyond their family. 

“It started with [making our own], and then some of our friends started asking, ‘Hey, what’s that?’” she laughed. “It kind of spiraled from there…, [as more and more people asked], ‘Can I get one?’ Then, we thought, ‘We’d better check into the licensing for this.’” 

Herman said they soon attained necessary licensure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and registered Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats as an LLC. 

She said they also sought verification from professional nutritionists, and “made sure we sent all our products in for guaranteed analysis.” 

“In the beginning, we were just playing with the formulas,” she said. “[Then we started] working with nutritionists for [confirmation of] the value of the deer blocks. That’s where everything started to fall into place, and we became a business, rather than just doing it for ourselves.” 

Rather than simply allowing deer to get full on corn, which Herman said lacks full nutritional value, they add a mix of protein pellets, roasted soybeans, oats, seeds, grains and more. 

A variety of flavors, she said, can be added for further enticement, as options including molasses, apple, caramel-butter or custom flavors (per request) can help to mask the bitterness of the mineral. 

“I always try to introduce our customers to different things and think outside the box,” she said. “So many hunters… are just stuck on apple. [I’ll say], ‘Let’s try apple-butterscotch, or a peanut butter or persimmon block.’ You’d be very surprised by the number of deer and the curiosity of them coming in, [acting] like, ‘Hey, what is this?’” 

While expanding the flavors and styles of Papa’s Buckin’ products, Herman said she appreciated all the success stories and pictures from happy hunters and herd managers. 

“I’ve heard a lot of good feedback, [with customers] saying, ‘Your blocks are a game-changer,’” she said. “I’ve had some who come back and they’ve shot the biggest buck of their life, or feedback saying they’ve never seen anything like this…, seeing different changes and antler growth.” 

Herman said Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats are “not just for hunters,” having gained popularity with older customers – including former hunters – who simply wish to feed and watch the deer, as well as businesses seeking to attract wildlife. 

“We have customers who have friends who have resorts up north, and they come and buy a bunch of blocks and bring them up to that location so they can put them out,” she said. “Then, patrons of the restaurants can sit and view the deer. That’s kind of cool, too.” 

What the market will bear 

With such great feedback on the deer products, Herman said she and Chad felt encouraged to expand into bear attractants. 

Though the couple doesn’t personally bear-hunt, she said the request to create bear attractions came from their friends who do. 

“With all our flavorings and offerings, as we were mixing different things up for feed, etc., I’d have a couple buddies who [had drawn bear-hunting tags] and said, ‘Hey, can you make me up some bubble gum[-flavored version] of your blocks?’” she said. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’” 

Learning to attract a totally different animal, Herman said, was “tricky,” but she and Chad worked throughout last winter to have Papa’s Buckin’ bear products ready for spring of this year, including blocks, sprays, smears, powder, gel balls, liquid flavorings and pucks. 

Like its deer products, she said the bear attractants are available in a range of flavors and can be customized by special order. 

“Just putting that extra scent out there – it helps,” she said. “It’s not even just scent. It’s extra flavoring. So, if something went stale on you when you’re out there bearbaiting and you want to freshen up your bait, you can spray that all over – spray it on the foliage, spray it in trees and just add an extra scent and flavoring out there.” 

Any customers with questions or concerns regarding attractants or feeding wildlife, Herman said, should check with the local DNR. 

New blocks on the block 

The hunting products industry, Herman said, can be very competitive and “cutthroat,” therefore she’s all the more grateful to Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats’ early, new and continuous supporters. 

“I’m surprised by the number of people who will drive far distances to come and get our product…,” she said. “I guess if you’re serious, your product is good and the word gets around, they’re going to come to you – and that’s exactly what we’re finding out.” 

Part of the enthusiasm, Herman said, stems from Papa’s Buckin’ being a local company, and the sense of connection that entails. 

“We’re personal with the customers, to where we spend some time with them,” she said. “It’s not just always ‘sell, sell, sell.’ [We’ll] talk about the day, talk about the hunting. [I ask them to] ‘tell me about your hunts, share your pictures with me.’ We want to see – we want to hear about it.” 

The popularity of the relatively new products, Herman said, also comes from her and Chad’s willingness to supply them. 

Though the two of them continue to work full-time, she said they’re willing to deliver Papa’s Buckin’ products within a reasonable distance of Two Rivers. 

Or, Herman said, if customers don’t have time to order from papasbuckindeertreats.com or can make it to a retailer (as can be the case with Illinois customers), a pickup at the Hermans’ house can be arranged, likewise within reason (and preferably after hunting hours), via contact information available on the website. 

“If you need something, just give me a call or send me a text and we’ll accommodate you the best we can,” she said. 

For more retail options and to continue to spread awareness for Papa’s Buckin’, Herman said they’re constantly seeking new distributors, either from customer recommendations or simply paying a visit to suitable retailers. 

“We might be traveling north, [for example], and we might see an outdoor sports place that has fishing and hunting stuff, and we’ll stop in, talk to them and introduce ourselves and products…,” she said. “We want to go and introduce ourselves to the manager… I just feel that’s the best way.” 

Herman said this year’s orders are currently ramping up – “some dealers already are on their third or fourth restock already, and the season hasn’t even hit” – which is a good sign for a business aiming for growth. 

“We don’t want to get to the point where it’s too much, but we are looking at putting up a larger shed here, where we manufacture [the blocks],” she said. “We definitely have grown, but we still want to keep [the operation] at our place, in our residence. It just makes it easier to still be family-oriented, and that’s what we are about.” 

Herman said Papa’s Buckin’ Deer Treats “wouldn’t be here without” its regular customers, whose repeat business and success in attracting wildlife add to her confidence that “once [new customers] find out about the product, they’re going to continue to buy ours,” too. 

Bear attractants, she said, are just the latest addition from her and Chad’s ongoing experimentation and brainstorming. 

“We’re always adding new, different things and creating new things,” she said. “I always have customers of ours asking, ‘Hey, what did you guys create this year?’ And I’ll say, ‘I’m not telling you yet – you’re going to wait.’ It’s always fun as we work on developing new things.”