By: Adrian Zarantonello The Smith family has been traveling to Michigan’s upper peninsula for the whitetail deer gun season for well over six decades. When I married into the family I became part of that tradition…a tradition I embraced and hold near to my heart. This year, 2016, ‘our opening day’ began with the first weekend of the season. Saturday and Sunday were marred by a snowstorm that had 20-30 mph winds and gusts of 45 mph. This storm dropped 2-4″ of snow on the eastern UP as well as drive temperatures down into the … Read More
Black Bear Hunting in Northern Ontario
By: Tom Lounsbury The older I get, the more choosey I am about who I go on adventures with in the “wild country” because if the chips are ever down, you need to know they will be right in there covering your “six” or enduring matters with you in a skillful manner. That is why when fellow outdoor writer Jay VanHouten of Midland wanted to know if I would be interested in going on a northern Ontario black bear hunt with him, it was a no-brainer for me to come back with an automatic “yes”. … Read More
A Way To Jump Start Kids Into Hunting!
By: Tom Lounsbury. The recruitment of young hunters into hunting is definitely quite important in regards to the future of hunting, especially in today’s high-tech society where kids can easily be drawn to multiple interests other than the outdoors. This is why I had strongly supported lowering the age to allow kids to go hunting, and then finally (after much debate) having a certain age requirement being dropped entirely was a definite no-brainer for me. I fully support the “Mentor” hunting license which allows kids of any age to be able to hunt with adult … Read More
Old Tyme Hunting Adventures
By: Tom Lounsbury. I must admit that I have a strong passion for reading, and when it comes to reading material, I have a real soft spot for that relating to history and if it entails matters associated to the outdoors as well so much the better. I came across a real jewel some time back, “The Hunting Expeditions of Oliver Hazard Perry”, based on his hunting diaries from 1836 through 1855. An article in an outdoor magazine brought this literary work to my attention, and I first located it through my local library. After … Read More
Leave The Tracking To The Pros.
By: Laura Scharich Dave and I were heading back to a favorite bear hunting camp for my third bear hunt. I was so excited. I got hooked on bear hunting in 2013 even though it took seventy five hours in the bush to get my first bear. I had managed to get some video of small bears and had a bear destroy my ground blind the first night so it was still an eventful, memorable, and long hunt. Dave chose to do some fishing up there instead of bear hunting and our friend, Jeff was … Read More
The Biography of a handcrafted knife
When there is a need to track and/or retrieve a big game animal in camp we usually find an entourage of helpers hoping to tag along. I remember one such time a hunter-client had made a nice shot on a black bear in Michigan’s UP. He returned to camp from hunting earlier than expected. He parked his Jeep a little cock-eyed and had a bounce in his step as he walked to the front porch. It was the first time I hadn’t seen him wearing his Stormy Kromer…whoa! I shouted to my fellow guide … Read More
“That Can’t Be The Bear I Shot!..?”
“Ground Shrinkage” is a term that black bear hunters become all too familiar with because bears often look bigger than they really are, especially to hunters who have seen few, if any, bears in the wild. It’s common for bear hunters, even those with plenty of experience under their belts, to shoot bears that they think are big only to find out they are smaller than they thought when they recover the bruin they shot. Is there a way to avoid ground shrinkage when bear hunting? There are no guarantees, but one of the best … Read More
High Noon Gobbler
By: Tom Lounsbury. Atlanta, MI hunting guide John Jones (left) prefers to use a Woodhaven conditioning stone to “sweeten up” his (Rod Benson Calls) Cherry Poppin’ slate call. Time flies when you are having a good time because it sure doesn’t seem like I’ve been hunting springtime wild turkeys in Michigan for over 45 years. In the early days this all took place “up north” and there was a chancy lottery that had to be dealt with, and you could only hunt in the morning. I was quite fortunate on the draw for a spring … Read More
Simple Stick and String Fishing
“The ever dependable cane pole” – By Tom Lounsbury Primitive humans probably first began fishing with spears and nets. Somewhere along the way, someone figured out a convenient way to catch fish, especially in deeper waters, was to use a baited hook and line. This was in the form of hand lining (just plain hanging on the line with bare hands – a method actually still used today). No doubt it was learned that attaching the line to a tree limb hanging out over the water took a better, shock absorbing beating than bare hands. When … Read More