My Outdoor Year in Review

Well this year was the greatest I have ever had in the outdoors. It was not my most successful, nor was I able to get out in the wild more often but I had far more adventure than ever before with the time I did get to spend "outside." My trip to North Dakota was amazing and has sparked a need in me to go out West again and again. My bow season was pretty uneventful but I was able to uncover many new hunting locations that have me excited for the off season and next year. I was able to close the deal in the last hour of my only chance to get out during gun season on a decent Michigan Swamp Buck. I went up around Lincoln, Michigan where my Grandparents have had a house for a few years. Working midnights, I flew to my parents' house after work so I could hitch a ride with my Dad and brother so I could sleep on the way. We had a blow out on the way up which seems to be a theme in all my hunting trips this year.

We hunt some public land near there and have been pretty successful. This year was a little different. Very little deer sightings and not a lot of deer sign either. I had only seen a three point in 3 days of sitting starting November 15th. On my last day up there I took a walk with my brother out to a swamp we knew about a mile away from where we park. I carried the Classic Michigan Gun Season Firearm; Marlin 30/30 with open sights. I had many different options to carry but I figured with walking in thick woods I might as well have open sights for a quick shot. My brother carried his scoped super slug gun. We jumped a few deer on our walk and decided to slow down. We found amazing buck sign about 2 miles into our hike. I caught movement ahead of us on the trail and saw a good size buck with antlers outside its ears stepping out onto the path and stopped about 100 yards away. I dropped to one knee, cocked my hammer and yelled "Shoot it Robert!" I looked over to find my brother covering his ears with his gun leaning between his legs. I had to man up and took the shot. The deer was slightly quartering towards us but the old Marlin dropped the buck where he stood. Not a bad shot for such a long distance with open sights. He ended up being a very wide 4 point. A lot of celebrating took place after a LONG drag. I finally scored with literally minutes left on my season. What a great year.

Rose Oaks Oakland County Park

Well I have only been out twice in the past two weeks. Work is getting crazy and finding time is getting harder with this new class I'm taking. I hit Rose Oaks County Park with my fiancee last week. We mostly walked around so I could show her the area and how cool it is with all the lakes and trails. We tallied up about 3 miles of walking and finally settled in near a lake but didn't see anything. On the way out we bumped into deer about 6 different times. It was mostly a scouting trip since I have only been in that park one other time in September. I am one of the lucky few who's significant other is willing to enjoy the outdoors with them. She doesn't want to hunt and will not accept me even drawing on anything less than a mature buck but I we have the best time in the woods.

Tonight I hit the same park again this time alone. I got to the empty parking lot at 2:30pm and headed in to investigate the parts of the park I hadn't yet. It was very windy so I took advantage of the extra noise and movement of the environment. I probably saw 18 tree stands and one bait pile. One of the stands had 2x4 boards screwed into the tree about thirty yards away from another guy's stand. Pisses me off when people don't follow the law. Must have pissed off the other guy too because he left a message on one of the steps for the jerk.

I found a gut pile so somebody got lucky this morning.
I put on about 4 miles of scouting. I found two really good spots with awesome rubs on large trees and a few scrapes. I have the spots marked on my GPS so I can bring in a tree stand with me next time. On the way out there were 4 other vehicles in the parking lot. I talked to a guy who said he missed a giant 8 pointer.

My Dad and Brother have been seeing pretty good amounts of deer back in Croswell. My Dad even shot under the biggest buck he's ever shot at. Hopefully I can get there soon and show them how to put them down.

Week One of Bow Season Blows In

As any other Michigan hunters know the opener resembled videos of hurricane devastation rather than October 1st in the Thumb. I headed out in 40-50 mph gusts that seemed to freeze the rain before it stabbed my face. I got into my stand well before daylight. I was soaking wet and freezing even with multiple layers on. I knew as daylight hit that when I could feel the 12 foot around tree trunk I was hanging in moving it was time to go. I rain had not stopped and the wind killed all animal movement. I had a wedding to attend that night so I was not able to hunt opener night.

I did get back into the stand a few days later. I hunted in the morning with my brother in the same spot I tried on the opener. It is an oak/maple/apple tree line about 40 yards wide that runs between a bean field and a crp field. It is filled with acorns and apples but everywhere is right now. The morning started on a bad note as we entered the woods in complete darkness only to hear a deer take off from under our stand. We got into the stand and it was foggy! Raccoons, birds and hundreds of squirrels were very busy and noisy as daylight hit. Apparently we shared our tree with a family of squirrels who were very unhappy with subletting their tree to us.

One squirrel repeatedly tried to climb into our pockets. As he was barking in our faces a flash of brown came crashing into the woods. A hawk had grabbed the squealing squirrel and in seconds pinned him to the ground and ripped him to shreds. It was an amazing sight. We saw no deer while in the stand. As soon as my brother's feet hit the ground to head in I turned to see 5 does running into the bean field behind us. Something had spooked them out. They stopped only for a second to wind us as they came out directly into our wind. They again took off. That was the extent of the deer action for the morning.

In the evening my hunting partner stood me up so I headed out alone. I didn't see anything while in the stand except for our favorite squirrel friends. Somehow the population has boomed even though we hear coyotes in large packs most summer nights. I climbed down a little early to peek into the bean field. I spotted two deer at about 200 yards. I zoomed in with my video camera to find it was two decent bucks fighting. It seemed weird for this time of year. They were going at it pretty hard for about fifteen minutes. That is when a monster buck stepped out. The two bucks who now seemed small took off further into the beans. I watched the large mature buck through the video camera as it tried to fight the oncoming darkness which made zooming and focusing nearly impossible. I don't know how big the deer was but I could tell he was very mature and his ivory rack reflected what was left of the daylight very well.

The best shot I could get of the two bucks fighting.

Last minute scouting trip.

I found some places locally, about 8 of them that are county parks with small pieces open to archery hunting. Best part is they only allow bucks with 3 points or more on one side and spreads outside their ears to be taken. Even better, all of them are within an hour from my apartment, the closest one being 12 minutes. So I decided to check out the two closest ones to see what kind of traffic they get and what kind of deer sign they held. I had to buy a parking permit for $32.50 just to get into the parks which sucked. I thought that was what I paid extra for with my license plate but I guess not. The first place was pretty decent. No buck sign that I could find. Lots of water.

All these places have multiple lakes and creeks running everywhere. I did not see any obvious hunter sign which was good. But, I did not find any kind of honey hole. The second place I went is much smaller than the first and I figured it would not be that great. Within the first mile I found a monster rub!

I also found tree stands. One blind stand which was confusing since it didn't look as though a bow or crossbow could be shot from it. I found many ancient stands and one newer one. The second place also had apple trees and oaks kicking out acorns everywhere. The newer stand I found had some corn thrown out for bait. I also saw a deer cane sack hung from a tree.

I did not see any deer which was strange since I covered a lot of ground and it was raining and windy. I did see two turkeys and a massasauga rattle snake. I looked all over North Dakota for a rattler and low and behold I spotted one in a rock pile pretty much in my own back yard. I still want to try to hit a few of the other areas before the opener but I am running out of time. Some awesome places though for sure.

North Dakota DIY Muley Trip A Success!

No, I am not dead. I have been back from my trip hunting Mule Deer in North Dakota for a little over a week but have been busy trying to catch up with things. It was an amazing adventure that I will never forget. The story is far too long to tell on here but I will try to sum it up in a nutshell. Here is how it went down;

We packed the truck and trailer to capacity and left on September 1st at 7am from my parents' home in Croswell, Michigan. We decided to go through the upper peninsula and travel through Wisconsin and Minnesota instead of fighting with traffic in Chicago. Little did we know 20 hours into the trip a Twins game would be just ending and we hit the traffic around St. Paul. We ended up making it to Fargo, ND where we hit the Loaf and Jug gas station where we gassed up for the 4th or 5th time before going about 40 more miles and taking a power nap at a rest stop. After about 2.5 hours of restless sleep we hit the road again in dense fog. It would be the ONLY precipitation we would get all week.

Our first view of the Badlands happened as we hit highway 85 North just before Medora. We had to stop and snap some shots as it was the greatest thing we had ever seen.


Our first taste of Badlands!

If you have never seen the Badlands before it is definitely something straight out of Red Dead Redemption. It is something everyone should experience sometime in their life. We headed into one of the biggest non-motorized areas of public land we could find to try to find a decent place to camp. My fiancee had seen on the internet that a man had strangled his wife to death and was hiding right where we were. We saw many and talked to a few police officers and fish and game personnel that were driving around looking for the guy. They gave us a picture of him in case we saw him.

Dirk Huber - Choking Hazard

We never did run into him but early in the week we were passed by about 10 police vehicles moving pretty quick so we assume he was picked up. We drove around for most of the first day we were in North Dakota and saw no deer. I did however spot my first Antelope and I was pretty excited. By the end of the trip however with hundreds of false mule deer sightings that ended up being speed goats I was not amused with them any longer. We saw way more antelope than deer and there is no season on them this year due to "low numbers." Kind of hard to believe.


Pronghorn Bucks Everywhere

We made camp near an oil rig that had an open flame longer than our truck that lit up the valleys that surrounded camp at night. This was our night light even though the stars and moon could have been mistaken for day light some nights.



Our camp at night.



Inside the tent.

The whole area was awesome so many places to hunt and for game to hide.


Our view from camp.

The temps were in the high 80s all ten days and it felt more like 120s cooking in the rocks. Mornings were decently cold which made it hard to get out of bed. 


Dying in the heat after one of our 9 mile hikes.



Enjoying my sleeping bag in the cold morning.

We glassed some valleys behind the camp the first night unsuccessfully and it took about 3 or 4 days before we got the hang of glassing, finding deer and what time the deer moved. We had a lot of help from the elk hunters we talked to!

We saw a lot of coyotes, prairie dogs, one bull elk, tons of antelope and bison oh and a badger as well. Not to mention 4 different snakes but no rattlers or cougars. Just some cougar mother and cub tracks that were pretty fresh.

The first deer we saw was from the truck. It was about a two year old 8 point whitetail in velvet. Probably 70 yards from the road just taking a stroll. We finally jumped a doe on the way out of one glassing spot and that got us a little pumped but we both did not find what we expected with this hunt. We had no idea of the climbing and hiking. I was told it would be a lot and our inexperience probably made us go a little farther (MILES) out of our way than necessary a few times. I had also pictured more deer. We saw no small bucks and only a few does. We probably saw roughly 5 mule deer bucks all of which were wall hangers even in Jim Shockey's trophy room. One night we finally said we would hike deep into the valleys in front of camp where a kid said he and his dad had seen some deer. We would sit there until dark glassing and then hike out. It was a long hike and even a longer sit and I started to feel hopeless as I stood up to stretch. But, I looked out over the valley and all of a sudden I saw a deer. Now to this point I had had this feeling about 10,000 times and Joe had slammed on his brakes at least that many times because everything in this country looks like a deer. But, this time it was for real. We glassed him and it was what we thought was a 4x3 buck. He had super tall tines and he fed about 700-1000 yards away from us. We watched him until dark then backed out and headed to camp. I don't know if our boots touched the mountain until we hit camp. Since this hunt was my idea Joe let me have the first stalk so the plan was to get up at 3am to get to that glassing spot before daylight and find him in the morning, watch him bed then go in for the kill. In the morning we had to walk a little farther. Joe spotted him walking away from camp into the deeper valleys so we hit the next peak and then the next. Finally we stopped in a clump of pines and decided to wait for him to come out, all day if needed. Luckily, I somehow spotted him deep in the crack of the end of a valley and we watched him bed. That is when the shaking started. As we watched him bedded we realized he was actually a 5x4 since he had eye guards. We're not ones for naming deer but we had to with him. He became the TALL TINE NINE and my nemesis.


TALL TINE NINE

Well I won't draw out the story of the stalk. I literally climbed two rock facings just to get to within 231 yards of this beast as he spotted me. There was a hole behind him that we didn't know he had view of. There was no wind all week so I was the only movement in the entire world to this deer and he bolted. We gave chase and actually jumped him bedded again at 60 yards and he ran out of our lives after that.
Joe ended up taking a nice doe out of a coulee that I ran decoy on. Our plan worked perfectly and he nailed her at 41 yards. I had another big deer a 5x5 bedded at 60 yards that I drew on but he bolted and never looked back.
We had fresh venison for the rest of our stay as we quartered her up and iced her down.

We put one more day in on the TALL TINE NINE but never found him. We did stalk about 4 does that last night and I gave a monster coyote a hair cut at 65 yards on the last night but I never filled my tag. 
That was the extent of our trip. An awesome success and an experience that I wouldn't trade for the world, tag soup or not.

 

Some overlooked details of the story:

Joe's bumper covered in guts.

1. The grasshoppers were horrible. At least a dozen would blast out of the grass with every step. I don't know if Joe's truck will ever come clean.

2. Cows are everywhere so if you plan on taking such a trip be prepared. I will post a how to video on how to clear a path someday.

3. We had a blow out on the trailer within the first half hour of our trip home. 99% of vehicles on the North Dakota roads are oil trucks. It made changing the driver side tire very interesting.

4. I will be back to try this again someday and I can't wait. Probably with a rifle next time though.

Trail Cam Check.

I checked my cams again for the last time until I get back from North Dakota. I set one up over a pond close to my stand. Had to fight off two giant beavers and 3 pterodactyls. When I got to the cam it was covered in mud which was not the way I left it. I figured I would have a bunch of beaver pics but there were none.



 

 

 

These are the two good pics from the pond cam.

Here is the pond. Its only 5 feet deep in the middle. Like I said it is home to countless waterfowl and two massive beavers.

Suspiciously covered in mud.

I checked my other camera too and got pics of the same spike and a four point. Not really seeing any good bucks this year which is strange.

The bow is still shooting well. Here is a 40 yard group that was decent. Less than two weeks away from the trip now.