BY Andrew Munger - of The Northwestern

For deer hunters Nate Kahler and Kevin Heisler, of Oshkosh, the hardest shot on the Sportsman Channel’s Battle of the Bow season 2 did not involve a bow.

Instead, shooting the hunt with a camera proved to be more difficult than lining up a shot at a deer.

“When you have a camera, there’s more pressure running the camera than there is shooting the deer,” Kahler said. “How many deer have I shot? That’s not a problem, I can do that. How many deer have I videoed? Not many.”

Kahler and Heisler were one of 10 teams that spent the first half of the 2010 Wisconsin bow deer hunting season filming for the show Battle of the Bow season 2, which premiers on Dec. 28 at 7 p.m. on the Sportsman Channel.

The two will appear between five and seven times throughout the 13 episodes of the show’s season. Throughout the 13-week season, fans and friends have the opportunity to vote for their favorite team, with the winners coming back for season 3.

Although Kahler and Heisler wouldn’t mind winning the vote and participating in season 3, the experience of season 2 was enjoyable.

“The coolest part is we go hunting so much and we are away from our families and now they can see what we do,” Heisler said.

Getting the deer in frame and on camera wasn’t the only problem that cropped up for the duo that has been hunting together for eight years.

Dealing with the pressure of having to perform on camera was another hurdle that needed to be overcome.

“It seemed like it was forever (before we got a deer),” Kahler said. “We tried not to let the pressure in on us, but you’re trying to produce for them. I think in the end both of us cracked a little bit.”

For Kahler and Heisler it didn’t take long before the pressure relented, as the team was the second team to shoot a deer.

The team put in a ton of work before and during the filming for the show.

They had to do the normal setting up of stands and bait piles and cutting down shooting lanes, not to mention learning to use the camera equipment. But on top of all of that, Kahler and Heisler leased land in Waupaca County from an older woman who, instead of cash, wanted work done on her house.

“We framed in walls, put closets in, drywall ceiling, flooring, electrical,” Heisler said.

Doing the show was an experience the two will not forget, but if they are selected to come back for season three, they have a way to make the experience memorable by hunting in a friend’s junkyard.

“If we come back I think we are definitely going to try and get a junkyard deer,” Heisler said laughing.