The family farm rests atop a range of hills above the Cass River. Whenever I had any free time as a farm kid during the summer, my favorite fishing holes were only a 10-minute bicycle ride away. My fishing gear was on the simplistic side, featuring a Zebco 202 spin casting rod and reel and only a couple red and white Eppinger dardevle lures, one small and the other medium sized. Nothing more was needed to catch rock bass, smallmouth bass and northern pike. A beauty of dardevle lures is they offer the perfect weight … Read More
The Legends Ranch dedicated to passing on promoting wildlife conservation and the hunting heritage to future generations
Featuring over 2000 acres of very diverse woodland habitat, including cedar-shrouded swamps and rolling terrain cloaked in a mix of dense conifers and hardwoods, the Legends Ranch near Bitley, Michigan, is the brainchild of a worldwide hunter, Arthur Gutierrez Sr, who wished to create a well-managed whitetail hunting paradise in 1998. The property is surrounded by high-fence to assist in developing and maintaining great genetics in very large-antlered whitetail bucks, and the Legends Ranch has become well known for its outstanding trophies. Due to the very spacious and mixed-habitat terrain, this is not a typical … Read More
Dramatic and very timely changes are in place for Michigan’s 2026 Firearms Deer season
During the early 20th century, deer hunting had been put on hold in southern Michigan for quite a while to allow whitetail deer numbers, which had previously been decimated, to rebound back. Its first deer season occurred in 1948, and because state officials believed too many hunters would be crammed together on the smaller state game areas found in southern Michigan, it was determined to establish what would become known as the “shotgun zone” for what they thought were safety reasons. The first couple of seasons allowed only buckshot to be used, but eventually shotgun … Read More
A spring gobbler rendezvous
It was 5 am on May 2nd, the opening morning of Michigan’s recent 0234 spring turkey season in Arenac County. Stars sparkled in a clear, predawn black sky and frost covered the ground. We quietly eased our way through dense cover to a hunting blind placed there the day before, and there was no wind to speak of, which was blessing after having a steady supply of strong winds statewide this spring, not to mention plenty of rain as well. Once in the tent-blind, we sat down to patiently wait for daylight to slowly ease … Read More
The feathered harbingers of spring
In my opinion the robin gets too much credit for being the harbinger of spring. Sure, most robins migrate each fall from Michigan to warmer places for the winter, but a few do remain behind in brushy creek and river bottoms and make an occasional appearance like a single bird or two here and there to confuse folks as to whether we are in for an early spring. I saw a couple robins on my farm a couple months ago feeding on small crabapples in our yard, back when the sugar maple sap began flowing … Read More
The kayak – today’s king of Michigan’s bountiful waterways
The kayak is a very specialized canoe which was first invented about 5,000 years ago by indigenous Inuit, Aleut and yupik people. It was constructed using a driftwood or whalebone frame that was covered with animal skins waterproofed by animal fat. Called a “qajak” (hunter’s boat), it was used to hunt sea mammals in frigid Arctic waters and was major means for survival in a harsh and often unforgiving environment. They were tailormade to fit the user who wore a special waterproofed skin jacket called a “tuilik” that was attached to the kayak and prevented … Read More
Connecticut Valley Arms – celebrating 55 years and going strong with continual new products and innovations
Connecticut Valley Arms (CVA) was first formed in 1971 to manufacture traditional sidelock muzzleloaders that were offered fully assembled or in DIY kits, both of which became immediately popular with American shooters. The timing couldn’t have been better because the revival of using muzzleloaders for hunting was gaining a steady following. Thompson Center Arms (T/C) had come out with their “Hawken” rifle in 1970, and being none too pleased with shotgun slug performance back then for local deer hunting in the shotgun zone (where muzzleloading rifles were allowed), I had opted for a .54 caliber. … Read More
Silence Can Be Golden
A growing trend in the shooting world has been the use of suppressors to quiet matters down and be a bit easier on the ears. Suppressors reduce sound intensity and are often called “silencers” which is a misnomer, because depending upon the ammunition being used, matters aren’t totally silent. It relates to whether the ammunition is supersonic which will feature a loud sonic “crack” exiting the barrel, or subsonic which will lack the noticeably sharp crack. While a couple of “silencer” patents by Swiss inventors appeared during the 1890’s, the first commercially successful introduction was … Read More
Michigan’s Sweet Flavor Of Spring
The typical timeframe for gathering sap from tapped maple trees, at least in my neck of the woods, is March 1 to April 1. This year, however, folks I know in the maple syrup world were tapping their trees by mid-February. I’ve also seen times when maple sap hardly ran at all, so it is pretty much up to fickle weather conditions. Last year, the early sap-flow in February caught many folks by surprise, and due to the ensuing balmy weather, which caused maple trees to start budding out sooner than expected, sap-gathering ended in … Read More
Murphy Lake’s 16 th Annual “Pike Pull” ice fishing contest
Located near Millington in southwestern Tuscola County, (manmade) 209-acre Murphy Lake has long offered some bountiful fishing opportunities. It was created during the 1850’s by lumbermen to be able to float logs down Goodings Creek to the Cass River near Vassar. Small creeks were vital during the lumber era to readily access the forest and more easily remove winter-harvested logs. Damming the creeks was a common practice to build up enough water depth to send a flotilla of large logs in a controlled downstream rush when the dam was opened in the spring. Goodings Creek … Read More