By: Tom Lounsbury. There is no question that the whitetail deer is the most popular big game animal in North America with a big following of avid hunters. Michigan itself has more than 500,000 deer hunters in the woods by daybreak on November 15, a day I personally believe should be a state holiday. Until the 15th arrives however, I start being real serious about pursuing bucks from Halloween on, with archery tackle, due to the whitetail rut which is kicking in and peaking over that early to mid-November timeframe which I quite literally live … Read More
The Hunter, The Dreamer
By: Bob Morgan. There is movement. Rich bronze against a maze of greens The muscled neck swings gracefully upward and intelligent eyes search the difference. Nose raised to the air, a search for unfamiliar scents. A slight snort, sharp hooves paw the earth and the whitetail moves back into the maze of green, completely obscured. I, too, am obscured. From my stand high in a tall oak, I have watched the buck reveal himself, then once again hide. His wariness, his wiliness impress me. I did not move, I could not have been seen or … Read More
Freelance Hunting – with a plan in hand
By: John Eberhart. Grabbing my bow, backpack and freelance pack I set off through the public land timber to a patch of white oaks I’d hunted the previous season. To my disappointment none of the oaks had acorns, the two scrapes from the previous season were inactive, there were no nearby rubs and the heavily used runways from the previous season were barely noticeable. It was late October and the mature bucks were beginning to break their nocturnal habits in search of early estrus does which I term as the pre-rut and because of that … Read More
“Just Play The Wind…?”
By: John Eberhart. Before scent reducing and eliminating products and garments hit the market “just play the wind” was the only number in town. Even today the vast majority of hunters claim there is no way to completely fool a deer’s nose and dismiss wind direction, basically meaning they believe scent control doesn’t work or doesn’t work well enough to negate the wind. To put it bluntly, that is absolutely not true. You can fool a deer’s nose and I’ve done it dozens of times each season for the past 17 years. Please allow me … Read More
Handgun Hunting Memories
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
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
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
Active Scrapes, #1 Natural Hunting Location.
By: John Eberhart. As you likely know by now the Michigan NRC has banned baiting in 12 counties for the 2018 deer season and in Michigan’s entire southern Peninsula for 2019 due to issues with chronic wasting disease or better known as CWD. For at least a generation and a half (30 years) a pretty high percentage of Michigan bow and gun hunters have been introduced into the deer hunting world by exclusively hunting over bait and have known no other method for taking deer. Also many hunters that began hunting without using bait have … Read More