Hunting and other stories.

[trailtwister]

Muzzle loader deer hunting in southern Michigan.

The man steps out the door on to the screened in porch to be greeted by the whines from the chocolate lab that sleeps there. He tells her not today girl it’s a different game we seek. Stepping off the screened in porch his sight is hit by the hoar frost shimmering in the bright moon lite like a hundred thousand diamonds spilled from a diamond peddlers pack. He slowly walks across the lawn to the trail that takes him to the deer blind he has chosen to hunt that day over looking the creek and the old creek bed. It is nestled in a clump of wild dog wood bushes this year loaded with berries.
Soon he settles in the blind and pours a cup of tea to cool as he watches the day light breaking about him. He hears a flock of turkeys deeper in the woods come off their roost then a rooster pheasant cackles Probably kicked out of its bed by another hunter.
Finally that huge orange orb starts peeking thru the trees and the first of the blue birds arrive to feast on the dog wood berries. Finally the first deer appears coming down the bank of the creek from the picked corn field next door. It is alert using its radar ears to listen to the sounds around it, licking her nose to gather fresh scent in to process for danger. Just seconds behind her is two more does a bit smaller than the first perhaps this springs fawns. They mosey along the creek going farther back in the woods where the pampas grass has a nice stand for the deer to bed in.
With in minutes 6 more does arrive and head for that pampas grass bedding area.
The radio the man carries cackles with the sound of his wife. She says there are two bucks out the living room window across the creek. One she says is a nice 4 point eastern count, the other is huge but she can’t say just how huge. The 4 point decides to go up stream and cross the road the bigger fellow she says is heading for the corn field.
Soon the man sees the big buck he is at the edge of the corn field private property. He watches it as it slowly travels in the direction the does have went but not on the creek bank. The man knows that soon that buck will be down as he has watched another hunter go to a blind about 200 yards down the fence along the corn field. He waited for the report of the gun as he watched the buck work his way along. By this time he had gotten a good look at the rack, not one with huge long tines but huge beams like the arms of a tackle on a foot ball team with 5 short tines about 2 inches long.
The report never came as expected, did the other hunter fall asleep? Was he texting his buddies or a girl friend perhaps.
That buck lived to show him self to the man one more time in the 15 day season but once again not allowing the man a shot.
Such is muzzle loader deer hunting in southern Michigan.

   Al

[FinsnFur]

And the other guy is S T I L L sleepin in his stand   

[trailtwister]

Sept. 15th 1963

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At one time Sept 14th would have me all aquiver like it was Christmas eve.
Sept 15th 1963, sunny, slight breeze ruffling the golden leaves in the second growth popple’s as Robb, and I slide thru the thick brush and berry briers. I have my Wards Western Field 16ga. With poly choke set on Imp. Cylinder, Rob with is 20ga. Wards Western Field.
Rob and I had spent all day in school all antsy to get away to hunt the opening day of pat season. It is Friday afternoon so the next day will be a full day we can hunt. We don’t have a dog that hunts just a mutt that is with us for company maybe possibly help find a fallen bird. I am not a very good shot at moving targets that twist and turn thru the brush so many pats escape the fry pan on my account. My best luck is on a dusty logging road where the pats are dusting themselves and I can be ready for the flush.
Fast forward 15 years I now carry an Ithaca feather lite model 37 Mod choke. Dad is along also carrying an Ithaca Feather lite in 20ga. And Rob has a SKB Ithaca but a SxS 12ga. We now have a dog, Skunk the best hunting dog I’ve ever had the pleasure to hunt with. We are working an area along a older abandoned beaver pond and having good luck flushing pats and even hit a few which Skunk retrieves for us. A pat flushes just ahead of Skunk Rob shoots and off Skunk goes to retrieve it bringing it back to me.
Dad says It is Robs dog, I've been feeding her and she brings the bird to Al, what is wrong with this picture and laughs.
We spend many a fall day off from work in the woods with dad and our shot guns in Our woods and the woods around our place. Rob and I also spend lots of time on state land hunting the pats with Skunk. The early leave we have decided to combat with quick swinging 20ga.’s with more open chokes. Mine is a Beretta Silver Snipe, Ray at the gun shop told me was chokes Skeet and Skeet but years latter I found the choke code and it is a Mod and improved cylinder. Rob had a Savage/Stevens 311 that we chop a couple 3 inches off the barrels, Rob seem to like looking down those twin culverts I call them. We are shooting bunches of Clays at the farm in the summer and at the state range near our work and where we live during the work week. We shoot clays at our cousins home placing the Red Devil thrower behind the barn so we have to listen for it to go off and watch for the clay bird which may be a high flyer and ground bouncer, and something in between. We got very good on those flushing pats that scare that bejabbers out of you. Isn’t any wonder we got good, we would shoot a couple hundred rounds on a Saturday go home and reload the hulls then do it all over again on Sunday. I will say I was very good and got picked on a bunch that I was shooting birds out of trees and off the ground.
The last 4 years Rob and I worked together we had a couple of friend from work who would take a week end to bird hunt with us some weekend near the 25th or Oct. Of course we would not just hunt the pats but rabbits and squirrels also. Normally It would end up Rob Jim and I hunting Saturday afternoon and Sunday as JD would claim sore hips and set and visit with my dad all week end.
Two things I miss today is the Pat population and a great hunting dog like Skunk. She just spoiled me.


  Al

[trailtwister]

First bow buck

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October 1981 can’t remember the day but know it was the afternoon. I had always been hunting with my brother somewhere in the same woods but since we had both been laid off from our jobs in August we never seemed to have the time to hunt at the same time any longer. I had entered college in hopes of a better job when I finished and he was doing odd jobs here and there plus had met a woman and moved in with her.
So here it is a sunny afternoon and I’d had morning classes so decided to take the bow out for a spin. I had my Baker climbing stand the big one with the 24x36 platform as I am not at all comfortable with being high and on a little 18x24 platform like my brothers Baker. There are a few huge popple trees on the edge of a grove of birch trees a low area with high grass and scrub shrubby brush on the north side. Good heavy deer trails thru there and some not so heavy use looking trails. I get the stand set up to climb, tie the bow off to the cord I use to raise it then I go up. Once up the platform is not level due to the taper of the tree. I have laid on the seat part of the stand a hundred times and removed the wing nut and moved the bar to level out the stand. Doing it this time and I drop the wing nut and don’t have a spare (have ever since then) I was able to get the cord the bow was on and tie it on a branch on the back side of the tree, kicked the stand loose from my feet and let it drop then shimmied down the tree to the ground. Looked in the leaf litter for that wind nut with no luck. Decided to work my way thru that scrubby shrub brush to a permeant stand we had built in a z shaped tree about 200 yards from that disaster with the climber. What a racket it made going down empty.
I got to that stand, pulled the bow up and waited about 15 minutes when a buck appears from where I had come from but about 30 yards west from the trail I had used. I get set and he soon stepped behind a big maple tree so I drew, as he came from behind the tree I set the sight just behind the front shoulder and let the arrow fly. He just stood there for a bit and I had the sudden thought I had missed when he exploded down the trail going around a hill where I could not see him. I get down and go over where he had been and find blood. I decided to go pick up the climber and take it to my truck. When I get to the truck my brothers jeep is there so I know he is in the woods, probably in his favorite stand we call the pent house. I go back to where the buck had stood and start trailing him I got about 70 yards and there he lay a nice 6 point. Just as I go to field dress him I hear my brother call for me from the pent house. I walk over where he is about 200 yard away across a logging trail. He had shot a doe and hit the spine and was kicking around. He wanted help to get to where he could cut her throat I got in front of her while he came in from behind and got the job done. We went and dressed out my buck while his doe bled out then when and drove my truck up the logging road to pick up my first ever bow buck. Then we drove around to dress out Rob’s doe and load her up. Couple days later we had a butchering party and put them in the freezer.

  Al

[trailtwister]

The squirrel hunt

Deer season 1995 I took a stand in the oak woods of the UP deer camp. One evening I was watching a whole passel of squirrels working the area for acorns. They were busy little critters then as dusk came about they started going hither and yon to their night’s home. One big old oak tree had a knot hole about 3 to 4 inches in diameter about 20 feet up. I watched 6 squirrels go in that hole and heard the ruckus in side that hole as they settled in for the night. I made a note in my mind that there sure were a lot of squirrels in that woods and would be a good place to have a squirrel hunt. I went back to work at the end of deer season to a job I was tired of doing, I had been doing it for 10 years at that time.

I resigned as of January first and took a long week vacation before I started on at my new position January 1st 1996. I took my Ruger 77-22 and headed to the UP deer camp. It was a very cold week there, so cold I couldn’t get the pull start gen set to start so running the furnace wouldn’t work all night. I hooked the truck up to the travel trailer and let it idle a couple hours every night while the furnace ran and disturbed heat thru out and charged the battery enough to run the furnace till about 2:00 AM. At 2:00 AM I would get cold and light the oven on the range and open the door to allow heat. It got down to a negative 18F the first night and it was the warmest of the 7 days I spent there. I would get up fix a hot breakfast fill my thermos with hot coffee dress grab the 22 and go fire up the ATV for the ride to the woods I had planed on hunting for the day. Leave the ATV on the edge and sneak in to a likely looking spot and sit. Usually took about an hour for things to get back to normal and the squirrels would move around. I would hear the ice on the bay expand with a loud pop then like a semi running down a wet HI way. Kept doing that all day long. Finally the squirrels were running about . I would pick off a couple then collect them and find a different spot to sit and wait again for them to get busy. At lunch time I had a few nice ones so returned to the ATV for the ride back to the travel trailer. I would start the truck to renew it’s battery and the trailers and get heat moving around in there. Once that was done I would clean the squirrels and put them in freezer bags. I only had to leave them in the shed to freeze up. I would fix a hot lunch and drink coffee to warm up before going out in the afternoon. What I got in the afternoon I usually would clean and cook for my supper that night. I even slow cooked them during the day while I was out and deboned them and put them over rice and biskets. By the time I was ready to come back home and go back to work I was pretty much tired of eating squirrel, I had squirrel for supper dinner and even breakfast. A negative 18F was the warmest day the coldest was a negative 22F.
As soon as I got back home on a 30F day the gen set fired right up to get set up to be put away till we lost power or next deer season. I made up my mind I was going to get a electric start gen set as soon as I could afford one but ended up waiting 5 years.. Also decided I need to start getting ready to build a cabin and get out of that travel trailer which took another 4 years.
Here at home I need to do a hunt for squirrels to thin them out some I figured. Then last fall they planted wheat next door to my woods. Sighting a squirrel became some thing harder to do than to see deer.


  Al

[trailtwister]

Robs hunting dog

My brother wanted a hunting dog, as fate would have it he went to the Wexford county humane animal shelter. They told him they didn't have the type of dog he was looking for but to leave his phone number and they would call him when one came in.
He didn't even have time to make it home when they called and said they had forgotten about one they had at a foster home.
My brother called and got directions to go see the dog.
It was at a preachers home and was glad to see my brother as he said the dog would get the chain tangled up and start a ruckus barking.
She was a white speckled Springer Spaniel with a big black strip down the middle of her back. My brother liked what he saw so he loaded her up in his 1972 (the small one) Bronco took her into town and did the paper work. Once he got her home he let her out of the Bronco, she started smelling around the place so brother went inside to tell every one to come see his dog. We all went out and the dog was missing and wasn’t coming to the calls of here dog.
I jumped on my dirt bike and started riding the fields and pastures then the road I finally found her just down the road a little bit, picked her up and gave her a ride back home. She enjoyed riding on the dirt bike and the snowmobiles a bit latter.
My brother named her skunk. She is the best dog I have ever had the chance to hunt behind. Many would not care for her because she was a hunting dog not a bird dog or a rabbit dog or a squirrel dog.
Deer season came and went. I was going to college so didn’t have much time to hunt at all. My brother every day would load that dog up and go hunting . I have seen her with balls of snow attached to her chest she could hardly walk let alone run. Brother would lay her on a old hunk of carpet in front of the wood burner to get those balls melted off.
Now is the part that my brother having a Bronco comes in. One morning I was off school so brother and I decided we would go do some snow shoe hunting at a 3 year old clear cut project on state land.. That brat dog growled when I went to set in the right front seat of the Bronco, that was her seat and wasn’t going to allow me to set in it. Brother finally got her in the back seat and made her behave.
We got around six of those big old snow shoe rabbits. I could hardly believe it when I saw her retrieving one we had shot. Dogs only retrieve birds right.
Another time after we had went back to work from a lay off we went partridge hunting with my dad one week end. One of us had shot a pat and the dog went and got it. She brought it to me. My dad said, Isn’t that some thing. I feed her twice a day now you guys are at work Robb owns her and has hunted a bunch alone with her and she brings the birds bad to Al.

One year we were living on my uncles farm in the UPPER during a lay off while they went of a vacation and visited their out of state kids. We got skunk one morning and rode the snow mobile to the back of the uncles farm where the cedar swamp was . Nearing the noon hour we decided to work our way back to the snowmobiles and go up to lunch. My brother got a bit behind with skunk as I got to the sleds. I was standing there when my brother shot then yelled he had missed and skunk was bringing it to me. As it crossed the open area I fired and decided I had missed too. Skunk went charging by me before I had time to even think about catching her. I started calling her back then my brother chimed in once he got to me. We had about decided to leave one of our coats there and go for lunch, water the cattle and come back for her when we saw her coming thru the cedars. Some thing looked wrong at first but soon we saw she had a snow shoe rabbit . Latter that day when we cleaned them we found one BB in that rabbit.

Skunk got really old and lived the rest of her life at ease on a old rug in the family room next to the fire in the winter. She would still get real excited when we brought out a gun or one of our hunting coats. Then one morning she wasn’t hunting with us any longer she is waiting for us to join her a the hunting grounds some day

  Al

[Okanagan]

Enjoyed the dog story.  Every man should have at least one good dog in his lifetime. 

Got a kick out of her retrieving birds to you.  My late uncle was the best dog trainer I ever knew and he kept superb bird dogs for quail hunting.  No matter who hunted with him nor who shot birds, his dog brought every bird to him.

[trailtwister]

The beech tree

1979 I had got to running around with a woman who I was spending a lot of time with. Soon it was almost deer season and I had not done any scouting to pick out a place where I wanted to have a stand for the season. I took a quick walk thru a woods across the fence from my Uncles place near the road where I had permission to hunt and liked what I was seeing. Opening morning I parked in my uncle’s driveway and made my way to the woods just as day was breaking. Crossed the fence and stood by a tree. Decided that wasn’t the place to be so I worked to the west deeper in the woods away from the road more. Going up a long gentile sloping hill I still couldn’t seem to find that just right spot to park my body for the day. Being on private property and near the road kept me from running into any other hunters. I finally reached the top of the hill and found a spot I fell was good and sat down on the boat cushion I carried to keep off the damp ground when sitting. Soon I hear the neighbor’s tractor coming along the south board of the woods to enter the woods on a trail that would take them deeper in the woods near a cedar swamp. Wasn’t long and I hear deer running thru the frosted leaves making a racket really. Finally they stopped and started taking it easy as they slowly worked my way. They were now close enough I could make out the brown hair and outline of their bodies as they disappeared into a depression on the hill about 75 yard out from where I sat. I could hear them shuffling thru the frost coated leaves moving away from where I was to my left. Soon I no longer could hear them so I poured my first cup of coffee of the day. As I sipped at that hot coffee I looked about and decided I still wasn’t in the proper location to see about me very well. When I had finished the coffee I gathered my things and moved a tad higher on the hill. I had not been to the new location more than 10 minutes when I started hearing deer or a man shuffling thru the leaves. If it were a man he was older and had studied deer movements in dry or frost covered leaves. Men tend to walk slowly thru the leaves without stopping to listen about them as deer do. Deer will walk a very short distance then stop to test the air for danger and to listen. Soon I see a deer appear just at the crest of the hill to my left. It was a doe that angled away from me to an old over grown logging trail passing by me about 30 yards away. Shortly after she passed another deer came following the same route as the first one almost. Then a third deer appeared at the top of the hill but more in line with me. It must have seen me or smelled me as it stopped at the crest of the hill and began to bob its head then stomp. I could not tell what sex it was because of the brush it was in and how it was standing. It would move back over the crest of the hill then reappear again even farther to my left nearly behind me. It disappeared again only to pop up again more to my front then I saw the horns. I brought the scope on my Remington 700 chambered in 308 to bear and squeezed the trigger. The buck ran down the hill in front of me and dropped just a few feet away.
I field dressed it then started the job of getting it to where I could load it on my jeep to take up to the barn to hang. As I got it to the fence my brother and cousin Norm came So getting it on the jeep was a breezes. It was Norm’s first year of hunting with us and was acting funny I asked what the trouble was? Said he had only seen does all morning, so I told him to set on that hill and pointed out where I thought would be an even better place than I had been sitting. I took The buck up to the house and got my mom to go with me to town to the DNR off to get my buck aged and a patch they were giving out. When I returned to the woods I didn’t see Norm so I whistled for him. He then called out me and said where he was. I walked over there to find him with his first deer, a buck. I dressed it out for him then we got it to the fence and on my jeep. We took it into town for his patch and get it aged. When we got back from town I still had my second license to fill so I again went to the hill. I still hadn’t found the spot I felt was perfect so began to search for that place. It was starting to get late and I felt I had better just sit down and finish out the day. I choose a big old beach tree to sit against near the top of the hill. That tree was perfect with roots far enough apart to cradle my rear like a nice form fitting bucket seat. That spot became my favorite hunting spot for the next 8 years when the land owner’s son in law started causing me troubles. By 1990 I had had enough of the neighbors and my dad’s friends who seemed to want to always be walking in to my hunting spots and shooting lanes. Kare and I bought our UP property and closed Nov 3d 1991. I didn’t start deer hunting there till 1992.


  Al

[trailtwister]

Da UP deer camp.

We took a vacation In the Up in 1990 in the early spring. We were taking the Kids to all the normal tourist traps, like Castle Rock, Soo Locks and such. We camped all alone on the shore of Lake Superior one night just west of Brimley. We enjoyed the walks on the beach and being all alone in this camp ground that in just a couple of months would be crowded with people. We decided that in the morning we would break camp and go to Paradise for breakfast. Like many UP restaurant’s they had fliers in a rack with all kinds of stuff for trolls to do and see. While waiting for breakfast I decided to look at what all they had that was close to the area we would like to see in the short time we had. I saw a flier for property on Lake Superior for sale at what I thought was a reasonable price. My Brother and I had spent many a vacation day in that area of the UP and I liked it and most of the local people so it struck a cord. I took the flier back to the table and told my Kare that here was a place to retire where I could do all the stuff I liked, hunting fishing and snowmobiling. She said that If we were going to buy land on a lake in the UP it was going to be one she could swim in in June and September.
I figured that was the end of that story and we would find that special place to retire when I did retire. But we still had that I want my own place to deer hunt problem to deal with. That desire had started in December of 1990 when I returned from deer hunting at my dad’s. I was really unhappy with how the later part of the season there had gone. I had people who just didn’t want to listen to persons who had hunted there for nearly 30 years on how the deer travel and the routes they take and stay PUT.I kept having people invade what I considered my shooting lanes. Trying to sneak thru the very spot I had picked many years ago as my spot, just as Robb had picked the spot by the cedar swamp and the narrow alley the deer traveled thru.
The summer came and then came Labor Day week end which seemed so quickly. Kare said we would go look for Property on Lake Michigan or some of the bays Like the De Noc’s. We started In Wisconsin on th4e Door Peninsula On Saturday Morning. Taxes there seemed to be about the same as Michigan as the property prices seemed to be also. Problem was the restrictions that seemed to be on all the property on the lake and many parcels were just to small. Saturday afternoon found us back in Escanaba Michigan with our list of property for sale along the hiway to Marinette Wisconsin. On the phone with realtors got us a narrowed down list to just a couple of places. Those places didn’t pan out Sunday morning so we headed east past Gladstone past Rapid River to the Stonington Peninsula. We found the perfect place on Hunts point. Met the owners who said to call one them on Monday to get a price for the property we decided we wanted, they had just close the deal on the whole parcel Friday. Turned out we were too late to get anything other than a get rich quick run around from those people. I started bowing out of week end over time every other week to go to the UP and search for Property. I was really getting tired of all the reasons Kare didn’t want this place or that one. The week end the Yogo Jumped off the bridge we went up to look at a parcel we had looked at before that was 56 acres on the garden side of Big Bay De Noc. The realtor In Manistique had called me on Friday and said they had sold 11 acres of that place. We looked at it Saturday afternoon. I was tired of eating at the Big boy in Manistique I told Kare so lets go to Jacks in Rapid River. Driving down US 2 to get there I see a side road going down the west side of the bay. I tell Kare we haven’t been down that road yet, so we do a U turn and go down that road. We get down to a place near the bay and there is a 4x8 sign For sale by owner 1/2 mile of frontage. I tried calling the number before we ate at Jacks, I tried again when we got back to the motel, and then Sunday morning with no results not even an answering machine to leave our number. We went to the property for a little while Sunday morning to try and figure out just what the property lines were. We both liked what we were seeing. Hard woods cedar swamp a beach with sallow water for some ways out. I finally got the owner on Monday Morning. We talked a deal, we closed on Nov 3d 1990. I wasn’t ready to hunt it that year but was the next. That is a story in its self.

  Al

[trailtwister]

More UP deer camp

We closed the deal for our UP deer camp Nov 3d 1990. The former owner wanted to meet us at the property on the morning of the 4th to show up the property lines the lawyer at the closing said. Paul got there about 10:00 Am, he was 86 years old and a spry old fellow. He offered to walk me thru the cedar swamp to make sure I knew the boundary marks we in there. I declined that walk not due to his age but due to how I was dressed in low shoes and slacks rather than Jeans. After he was satisfied we were happy with the place and knew the boundary’s he left. Kare and I walked around a point on the south west end of the property full of hard woods Maples and oaks for a while discussing where we would build the house and where I would put my work shop ( the cabin for starters.) . Finally we had to go so we could get home to pick the kids up from grandma and grandpa’s Just as we got to the east property line a flock of snow geese came soaring over the road on their way to land in the bay.
The property was 37 acres and had a black top road running thru it so some was on the bay side of the road and some on the inland side of the road. It is nearly surrounded by federal land. One 10 acre chunk has a corner against our line and there is a 40 acre piece that touches out line on the north thru the cedar swamp.
I deer hunted at my dad’s in 1990 for the last time. I had a fellow at work who was going to go to the UP with me for my first season in 1991. I was getting excided the closer Nov 15th 1991 got. I also had a fear of that huge area with no roads and getting lost somehow. I’ve never had any thing like it to hunt in my life. I had 2 ½ miles square as the biggest area. I didn’t even know any one else who hunted an area like that to talk to. So 3 days before we were to leave the fellow at work backed out. Said he found out there were no doe permits for that area. I went home getting there as Kare was getting ready to go to work. I followed her around talking about going alone and not really wanting to. When she left I went to bed and had a fit full sleep. This took place before our day or internet searches and such. Kare called me before I left for work and said she had got some time off from her boss so she could go with me. She doesn’t hunt but would be there if I didn’t get back to camp after dark to honk the truck horn and get a search party if I still didn’t return.
I should point out we had bought a 22 foot travel trailer to use as our housing while there. I would come in at lunch time and Kare would ask how many deer I had seen then laugh when I would say none. Kare would tell me she had x amount laying in the low spot to the east of the trailer all morning. As the years went by I learned if you saw 10 deer a day you had seen a bunch. Average was 4 to 5 a day. After 4 days Kare got to hacking and had a fever so I took her home and to the doctor for meds. I returned to the Up alone for the rest of the season my fear cured. I had tag soup that year.


  Al

[trailtwister]

With a year in the UP deer camp under my belt and a want for someone to go with me I called my cousin Rick and asked if he would like to hunt up there with me now that his boys were grown and doing their own thing. He asked where the place was at and said he would call me back some time in the near future. Kare and I went up there the Spring of 1992 and planted a bunch of white spruce and white pines along the road so when we got around to building a house and retiring there it would block the noise of the road put, not  that there was that much but we just wanted it that way. While we were there I put a big sign up on the gate post with our last name so if Rick came to explore he would know it was our place. Just a day after I got home from that trip I broke out in a horrible rash all over my chest, legs and butt. The doctor asked if I had been bit by Lyme ticks. I lost count of the blood test and other test I had at 12. This rash would resurface every time I went up there when it wasn’t deer season. After 5 or 6 years we decided it was Posin Ivy and I would somehow get into it. Never did figure out why I didn’t get into it during deer season.
Any way Rick called me up some time in July and said he would go and we made some plans. We both worked second shift he in Lansing and I in Lake Orion. My second shift was much later than his. He was usally home by 12:00 AM and I didn’t get home till after 2:00PM if I didn’t work over time. I would call him from home very early about 3:00AM and let him know I was on my way there to pick him up. I had my truck packed with food, water, genset, clothing, and hunting equipment the day before. I’d drive the Daughters car to work the evening of the 13th. Rick would have a pot of coffee on when I got there and fill up my travel mug as we loaded his stuff in plus some propane tanks. He was to drive as I slept some, but that never worked out. He would drive never the less just in case I wanted to catch a few winks. That first year the road (I 75) was fine till we got north of Gaylord. We got off on an exit ramp and locked the hubs up just in case. We made the west bound turn on to US 2 about 5:30 AM with very slick roads. The traffic was doing about 35 across there we figured out 2 ½ hours to Manistique at that rate. We were getting close to Nubinway when the traffic came to a total halt. We sat there for maybe 30 to 45 minutes before we could go again. We saw what was the worst wreck I have ever seen any place as we got closer to Nubinway. What had been a mini van looked like a tan fridge that had fell off some ones trailer. A Snyder semi off in the trees on the east bound side. Can goods clothing and other hunting stuff scattered for some distance and a pickup truck on its side part way in the west bound lane. We learned latter 7 guys died in that wreck.
We made it to Manistique sooner than expected as the road had gotten plowed and sanded outside of Nubinway. We fueled the truck up there then drove to tylenes at the top of the bay for breakfast and call home with a we made it message about 8:30 AM. Just 10 minutes more and we were pulling into the drive way of our UP deer camp for our first of 14 seasons together.
Although we had deer hunted together for many years before when his boys were young we had never gotten a buck the same year together. We both got a buck the 4th day of the season that first year he a 6 point and I an 8 point just minutes apart time wise. I can still see him coming across that hard wood lot and I calling to ask if he had got one and the hand plus one finger going up. I was just finishing field dressing mine. We both were using 243’s also, I poured a cup of coffee as he was and told my story then he told his and said he couldn’t find it. We were both using different hand loads. We finished the coffee then went to look for his deer I knew was down as he just didn’t miss. He used to come to dads where we would shoot rifles, he and my brother would start betting on who could hit the milk jug cap 175 yards out, Who could shoot off the ear of corn 300 hundred yards across the corn field and that sort of stuff. We got back to where he had been sitting on Federal land on a big hill by some huge Hemlocks. I walked about 10 yards in the directions he said the deer was and there it laid.
We loaded them in the truck to hang in the oak tree in front of the trailer. We still had two tags yet to fill. On the 6th day it rained , we got soaked. Not must room to hang wet hunting clothes in a 22 foot travel trailer but we did manage to dry them enough to hunt the last day Rick could stay. I hunted the last week of 1992 alone there. That was the way it went for 10 years.

  Al