By: Tom Lounsbury. Certain memories stick with you, no matter how many years pass by. It was in the winter of 1974 I thought I’d buy myself a Christmas present and travelled to Williams Gunsight in Davison. My goal was to purchase a .44 Magnum Ruger Super Blackhawk revolver, which was referred to as the “New Model”, since Ruger had upgraded all the Blackhawk models in 1973 to have a transfer bar system which allowed revolvers to be safely carried fully loaded. For safety reasons the “Old Model” required an empty chamber to be under … Read More
Foul Weather Bow Hunting – Being Prepared Is Key
By: John Eberhart. Tomorrow mornings weather forecast calls for near freezing temperatures, heavy winds and rain. You set the alarm in hopes that the forecast is wrong. It goes off and as you reach to shut it off you can hear rain hitting the roof. You look out the window to see a steady rain and the treetops swaying with the wind, and checking the outside thermometer, it shows 34 degrees. You think about the last miserable hunt on stand when it started to rain. On that hunt the temperature was in the 50’s not … Read More
Remembering Michigan’s only documented wolverine – The wonderful visitor of the Thumb
By: Tom Lounsbury. There are some theories of how Michigan became known as the “Wolverine State”, but the most plausible, in my opinion, relates to the “Great Toledo War” during 1835-36. This was regarding the boundary, called the “Toledo Strip”, entailing 468 square miles, between the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan, which was in the process of petitioning for statehood. Both were claiming the “strip”, and militias of both sides, were called out and even confronted each other on opposite banks of the Maumee River, near Toledo, although there fortunately was no … Read More
Wolf Shot In Self-Defense !
By: Richard P. Smith. Brian Krupla from Newberry, Michigan has a good reason for wanting wolves in the Great Lakes Region removed from the endangered species act. Last summer, he was forced to kill a wolf to protect himself and one of his dogs and he’s concerned about the safety of his daughter. Krupla could have been the state’s first instance of a wolf attacking a human in modern times on August 2, 2019, if he had not armed himself before trying to rescue his dog from a wolf about 10:00 a.m. that morning. … Read More
Natural Destination Areas
By: John Eberhart. As bowhunters we oftentimes tend to make things much more difficult than they need be. For instance from the late 60’s through the mid 80’s the amount of hours I spent on stand per kill was much higher than what it’s been since. In fact, since the late 80’s the amount of time I’ve spent on stand has steadily decreased whereas my success rate has significantly increased. How did I hunt differently back then compared to now? I used to hunt the standard short crop field edges, perimeters of marshes and swamps … Read More
The Colorful History Of Michigan Deer Hunting
By: Tom Lounsbury. Humankind certainly has a way of changing the face of the world, especially in the name of progress, and Michigan is a prime example. When Europeans first made their appearance in the Great Lakes State, the southern Lower Peninsula featured more open areas, including prairies and bogs, which was ideal habitat for whitetail deer and elk. The northern Lower Peninsula and Upper Peninsula entailed a very dense, unending old growth forest which allowed very little sunlight to penetrate through. This was ideal habitat for woodland caribou and moose, and detrimental to whitetail … Read More
Deer drives – an ageless and very effective hunting technique – Especially when whitetails go nocturnal and are hard to find.
By: Tom Lounsbury. A couple muzzleloader deer seasons ago, I was on a deer drive with friends and happened to be a “stander” at a likely location on the corner of a briar-infested woodlot bordering a hayfield. It was high noon (a good time to do a drive when deer are usually doing their daily “siesta”, often until dark in heavy cover) and according to all the deer sign, there were clearly plenty of deer seeking refuge in the thick and snarly cover, and I was anticipating plenty of action, which can be the case … Read More
Michigan’s U.P. Deer – “not a ground ball”.
By: Adrian Zarantonello. Despite the favorable conditions, opening day didn’t yield any activity for me. My father-in-law Jeff shot a nice 8-point on opening day, his first deer in 5 years. Jeff could care less about antler points and would equally have someone else have success as himself, so as he regaled us with the story, of his first 8-point, I was glad that someone so selfless had found some personal success. With the wind changing to the southeast the next day, a location change was in order. The morning of the 16th, we were greeted … Read More
The Rompola Buck
By: Dan Schmidt. The Rompola Buck. If you’ve been around the deer world as long as I’ve been, a few names need no introduction. That one is perhaps the most infamous. Was it real or just an elaborate fake? And, if it were real, how could it just seemingly disappear almost as fast as it appeared? Let’s back this up. This story starts back in November 1998. The world was a lot simpler then. Relatively few people had computers (no, not tablets) with Internet access. Fewer had cell phones. Most of us were still … Read More
A Fine Opening Day For Michigan Pheasants
By: Tom Lounsbury. In the gray light of dawn, the pheasant hunters on my farm had released their bird dogs in the yard in order to get the kinks out before the hunt. The growing light in the eastern sky let us know we were in for a splendid day weather-wise, and that certainly worked for me. You name it, and I’ve seen it on Michigan’s October 20th opener for pheasants, including blizzard-like conditions with driving wet snow, gully-wumper rainstorms, and even driving, painful, hailstorms that had both hunters and dogs seeking whatever cover could … Read More