A Michigan Bowhunting Adventure
by Gary Olsen
The dull gray shadows of night began to fade as the first red sliver of the rising sun appeared in the eastern sky. It was the beginning of a beautiful day as we drove along in the early morning light. It was a great start to our three week bowhunt in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Our hunt for white tailed deer and black bear would span the last week of October and the first two weeks of November. We would be hunting near the Ontonogon River. Little did we know that this first day would be one of the few where things went according to plan. We were embarking on one of those hunts where you're plagued by one problem after another, yet it would be one of our more memorable hunts.
My hunting partner Mike Misch and I, are both electricians in Muskegon, Michigan. At the time of this hunt we had been bowhunting together for five years, and had each taken a Michigan buck every year. We have also bowhunted successfully out west for pronghorn antelope, mule deer, and elk. I had just returned from Wyoming a few weeks before with a Pope and Young mule deer buck.
We planned this trip after Reg Smith (of Whitehall Michigan) suggested the area to us. He had taken some big-racked bucks while gun hunting in this region. We scouted the area in May and had found an old run-down cabin about two miles in the woods. It looked like a good spot to set up camp in the fall. The old logging road that lead to the cabin was too overgrown with brush to allow travel by car, so we decided to ride our trail bikes and carry our supplies in backpacks. We saw a lot of deer sign and some bear sign. It looked like the perfect spot to try for one of those big heavy-racked monsters that we're always hearing stories about. We were tired of chasing after those little yearling bucks. We didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket though, so we scouted an alternate area just in case. After 12 hours on the road, we arrived at the end of the two track road where we would leave the truck and proceed on the bikes. We had too much gear to carry on one trip, but we didn't have enough daylight left to make two trips; so we decided to take the food and camp gear in first and return for our bows and the rest of the gear in the morning. We soon realized the first fault in our plan. Due to an abundance of rain, the logging road was one mudhole after another. The overloaded backpacks made maneuvering difficult. I discovered this when I tried to negotiate a log that crossed the trail diagonally. My front wheel went over the log, but my back wheel just slid along it. The next thing I knew, I was sliding through the mud on my back, anchored to the ground by 80 pounds of camping gear, and my trail bike was popping and chugging on top of me. I felt like a turtle turned over on it's back. With great physical effort, I managed to extricate myself and discovered I had no broken bones, although there were no shortage of aches and pains. Finally we arrived at the cabin, soaked from head to toe with mud. We had hardly stopped the bikes when we heard a deer snort behind the cabin. Boy, this was going to be great. We put our gear inside the cabin, which somehow didn't look to be in quite as good shape as we remembered. The windows were gone, there were holes between the logs big enough to throw a cat through, and looking up at the ceiling, you could see sky peeking through in about 1000 places. The old wood stove was scattered all over the place, and there were spider webs hanging everywhere. The floor was dirt, and there were chunks of rotten wood laying about, infested with an exciting variety of little crawly things. Mike said, "I'm sleeping in the tent. I ain't sleepin' with all them spiders."
We chinked up all the holes, put plastic over the windows, reassembled the stove, and swept out the majority of the spider webs and little critters. We built a fire in the stove and watched the smoke ooze out through a multitude of holes. The stove had almost as many holes in it as the roof, but if we kept the fire roaring, it wasn't too bad. We brought a gas lantern and a one burner gas stove with us but left the gas back at the truck. However there was still a trickle of gas left in each of them. I told Mike we had enough gas to cook or give us an hour or so of light--take your pick. Mike said, I'm hungry." I carry a candle in my arrow case, so I got it out and we sat in the candlelight eating spaghetti and meatballs and watching the fire through the holes in the stove. Mike slept in the cold tent outside, but I slept in the warm smoky cabin with the spiders.
The next day we brought in the rest of our gear, and that evening we attempted our first hunt, and we both got skunked. That night it started to rain. Mike decided to sleep in the cabin since I had survived the previous night. I think the heat from the stove was the motivating factor in his decision. I found a nice dry spot at the south end of the cabin, but Mike wasn't so lucky. In the middle of the night he said, "Man, I'm gettin' dripped on." He looked like a worm on a hot griddle as he squirmed around on the floor in his sleeping bag trying to find a dripless spot. The roof let about as much water in as it kept out. We went to sleep to the soft pitter patter of rain falling on the roof and on Mike's sleeping bag.
The next morning when we woke up, we noticed that the rain had stopped. Mike said, "That's funny, its not raining, but the roof is still dripping." I looked out the window and screamed, "Look," and pointed. There was a foot of heavy wet snow on the ground. I said, "Well, at least we should be able to find the deer with all this tracking snow." We ate breakfast and then started scouting. I walked about five miles- according to our map- and only saw two deer tracks. Mike walked seven miles and never saw a track. Our enthusiasm was a bit dampened, but we figured that the early snowfall had frightened the deer and they were sitting tight. In a couple days they should be moving again. Mike said, "Do you mind if I sit by one of your tracks?"
I said, "naw, I don't want to hog both of them." So, we each sat by a single deer track patiently waiting for that big buck to come by, while the cold sucked the life-giving heat from our bodies. We both got skunked again. Those deer must have been lost when they made those tracks.
When we got back to the cabin and thawed out enough to speak, Mike said, "Have you lost any of your feathers?" I said, "Huh." He said, "The fletching is falling off my arrows." I said, "I've still got all of mine." However, the next morning, when I grabbed my bow from the nail on the wall, feathers rained to the floor like Maple leaves in October. "What is going on here?" I said. Mike said, "I've only got six arrows, and two of them have lost all their feathers."
Later, we discovered that our friend Ken Wolfe, of Nunica, Michigan, who had graciously fletched our arrows for us, had cleaned the shafts with turpentine because he couldn't find any lacquer thinner. The turpentine, which has an oil base, left an oily residue on the shafts, and the fletching adhesive didn't stick to it very well. The wet weather we were experiencing was loosening our fletching. I had a dozen arrows with me, but every time we took a fresh arrow out in the wet weather, the fletching would fall off. We would each take one fresh arrow to use as a lead arrow, and our back-ups would be shy of a feather or two or devoid of fletching altogether.
After six days of hunting in that slop, we had seen only two deer, and I had jumped those while walking. We decided it was time to switch to plan B, so we packed all of our gear. We knew we would get soaked on the ride back out, so we walked out with the first load in order to stay dry, and we rode the bikes out with our last load. We looked and felt like big, frozen icicles when we got to the truck. We saw more deer sign next to the truck than we saw during the whole six days where we hunted.
We drove to Big Bay, Michigan, and camped by the Yellow Dog River. There was about ten inches of snow on the ground. We discovered another error in our plans. Since we planned to stay in a cabin, we only brought one small backpack tent with us to replace the big 9x12 tent we usually use. Now we would have to stay in that tiny two man tent in all that snow, and we had nowhere to stow our gear, except for in the truck.
At night we left our clothes in the cab of the truck to keep them from getting damp and frosty. If there's one thing that will wake you up in the morning, it's standing outside your tent in your BVD's in 17*o. F weather with blowing snow. You get dressed standing on one foot at a time in 10-inches of snow.
We didn't have our white camouflage with us, so I took my pillow case from my pillow, slit it up one side, and pinned it to the outside of my camouflage jacket. Mike turned his fleece lined jacket inside out. We didn't look too stylish, but our tricks did break up our dark shapes against that white background.
Our arrows were in pretty bad shape by this time. Nearly all our arrows were featherless. You could tell where we had been by the trail of feathers in the snow. I dug an old practice arrow out of my arrow case to use as a lead arrow. It looked like it had been attacked by a family of hunger crazed mice, but it was better than arrows with no feathers at all.
We went out scouting and found a lot more sign than we had seen at the other place. It was only a half mile between sets of tracks instead of six miles- still not exactly what I would call thundering herds. We also found some bear tracks. Mike saw fresh bear sign one day and got all excited. He always wanted to get a bear with his bow, and now he had a chance to work on one. He found where the bear had been grubbing for acorns, so he decided to sit there and hope the bear would return. Meanwhile, I found the sign of a big buck, a fresh scrape, and a large set of tracks. I sat near the scrape in a large oak tree. About 5 PM. I heard a grunting noise. I looked in the direction of the noise but could only see about 20-yards because of the heavy snow clinging to the tree branches. I thought it might be a big buck chasing after a doe. I stood up and turned to face the noise and saw a dark object approaching fast. I was shocked when I realized it wasn't my buck but instead a big bear. The bear was coming at a dead run. I turned and drew my bow. When he got right below my tree he stopped and turned away from me, 3-yards from the base of my tree. I released and watched my arrow disappear into the center of that big black ball. The bear lunged forward and ran headlong into a tree. He bounced off and hit another tree right next to it, bounced off that one and charged down the hill. The snow turned red in his wake. I knew he was a dead bear. The whole episode- from the first noise until he disappeared- couldn't have taken more than 20-seconds. I thought to myself, "I've just killed my first bear! Mike will go nuts when he hears about this." I settled back down to wait for that big buck, but it never showed. At dark I climbed down and retrieved my arrow, which had gone all the way through the bear and was sticking up out of the snow. It was undamaged. This was lucky for me since it was the only arrow I had with all the fletching still attached.
Back at camp, Mike greeted me as I sloshed my way in through the snow. "Did ya git 'im?" "Yup." "Buck?" "Nope." "Bear?" "Yup." "I ain't believin' it. You lucky crud." He went nuts just like I thought he would. He was all excited because he was the one after a bear, and didn't see any. I shot one after saying I didn't care if I saw a bear or not and would rather see a big buck. That bear's number must have been up. We hadn't seen a bear track within half a mile of where I sat. Out of all the miles and miles of woods he could have run through, he had to run past one of the only two bowhunters in the entire area.
It rained all that night and most of the next day. We went out to look for my bear after the morning hunt. The blood trail was unbelievable. The rain had caused the blood to spread out through the snow. It was a solid red trail all the way to the bear. He had gone about 70-yards downhill. My arrow had gone through the heart and one lung. The bear was about 200-pounds and had a beautiful hide of silky black fur. Mike just couldn't get over my dumb luck.
We went to Marquette to register my bear and locate a taxidermist. We skinned the bear and boned out the meat. We packed the meat in two coolers and packed snow all around it.
With the work all done, we went back to hunting. Mike started working on a big buck. He found a line of scrapes and some huge tracks. He sat over one of the scrapes that the buck freshly scraped every day, but Mike never saw the buck. The buck would come and freshen the scrape every night, but it wouldn't appear during daylight hours.
I found where another buck was working. I was sitting in a tree overlooking his usual runway. About 6 PM, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. A nice six pointer was coming up the trail. I stood up and got ready, thinking this was going to be too easy. He would pass by me less than 15-yards away, and not a twig was in my way. I thought I would easily shoot him right through the heart. I drew with the same mangled arrow that I shot the bear with. After taking deadly aim at the walking buck, I released and watched in horror as the arrow skimmed his chest, shaving off some hair. The buck took a couple jumps and continued walking as if nothing had happened. I grabbed another arrow, which was missing a couple feathers, and knocked it. I drew and aimed at the walking buck, but as I swung my bow, it's upper limb pressed against a branch on the tree next to me. I had failed to clear it out of the way earlier. The further I swung my bow, the harder it pressed against the branch. I knew what was going to happen, and tried to compensate. I released and watched my arrow go in exactly the same spot as the first one. This time the buck totally ignored the shot and continued walking at the same pace. He was still only 30-yards away, so I grabbed another arrow and knocked it, but this arrow didn't have any fletching at all - a bare shaft. I drew and aimed then let it back down. I wasn't going to try a 30-yard shot with a featherless arrow. He had won his freedom, even if he was a stupid buck.
We hunted a couple more days but didn't see any more bucks. We had been hunting for 12 days so far and had only seen 13 deer and one bear. The temperature had risen and most of the snow melted. We decided we should take care of the bear meat, so we packed up and headed home. On the way home, Mike tormented me constantly about my luck with the bear. I told him that the bear knew that he didn't stand a chance with a great bowhunter like me in the woods, so he just came and gave himself up. Mike said, "If you're such a great bowhunter, how come you missed that buck?" I said, "Well, aside from the fact that I had mangled fletching, I neglected to compensate for the earth's magnetic field- which is much stronger this far north- and since my broadheads have steel blades, the magnetic attraction must have pulled my arrow down. Also, the extra weight of the snow, which had fallen on my arrow, contributed to the drop." Mike said, Ah yes, but the reduced drag from your lack of full feathers would make your arrow faster and would have more than made up the difference." This line of conversation continued all the way home.
When we got home, we cut up the meat and treated ourselves to much needed showers. We spent one night at home, packed our big tent in the truck and headed out again. After all, we still had ten days left to get our bucks. We hunted near the Muskegon River just a few miles from my home. I saw a four pointer but couldn't get a shot. One night we experienced a violent wind and rain storm. In the middle of the night our tent collapsed on top of us. There we were at 2 AM, running around in our BVD's in the pouring rain trying to pitch our tent. One of the main support poles buckled in the wind, so we tied a wooden pole to it like a splint.
The next morning, after returning from hunting, a dog showed up in camp. Mike fed him a pancake. I told Mike that mutt will never leave if you feed him, but he did it anyway. He couldn't refuse those sad eyes. He changed his mind that evening though. The dog followed him into the woods and sat under his tree--howling. When I returned to camp, there was the dog--tied to a tree with a rope that would have held a mack truck.
After three days of nonproductivity, we decided to try a spot located near the Sleeping Bear Dunes north of Beulah. Mike's father-in-law told him about the spot. We packed up again and headed north.
We arrived about noon and started scouting. I was walking along looking for sign when I heard a noise. I looked up to see two deer running toward me, a spikehorn chasing a doe. They ran right past me, but I didn't have an arrow nocked. About 50-yards past me, they entered a big clump of junipers; then they ran around in circles. I nocked an arrow and began creeping up on them. Suddenly they burst from the junipers and ran past me again--going too fast for a good shot. They both looked as though they would collapse from exhaustion any minute. But that buck wouldn't give up, and the doe wouldn't give in; so around and around they went. They streaked by me two more times before heading back in their original direction. I never did get a shot.
That night I sat beside two fresh scrapes. I saw eight deer including a four point buck. The buck came out about a half hour before dark. He checked the first scrape and then turned and started coming up the trail that went past my tree. When he was about 20-yards away and broadside to me, I drew and released the same arrow I shot the bear and missed the six point with. The arrow hit high, midway back in the ribcage and zipped out the other side. The buck crashed away with the classic death run, low to the ground, and straight through everything in his path. I waited ten minutes or so, climbed down, and walked back to the truck.
I was lighting the lantern when Mike returned. The first thing he said was, "You got one didn't you?" I said, "Yeah. How did you know?" He said, "I can't think of any other reason why you would be lighting the lantern."
We went back out with the lantern and followed the blood trail. The four pointer went only 55-yards. The arrow had gone through his liver and lungs. We dressed him out and hung him in a tree for the night.
We were hunting in a state park, so we couldn't camp within the park boundaries unless we stayed in the campground. We didn't want to pay to stay in the campground, so we found a spot outside the park boundaries to make camp.
The next morning, we dragged my buck out and hung him in camp. That evening, when we returned from hunting, we were greeted by a park ranger. He said we were camped illegally on park property. We told him that our map showed that we were outside the park boundary. He said that this park is now part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and it was expanded to include this area. Our map was a bit outdated, and we had a 25$ ticket to show for it. We asked where we could camp, and he said we could camp in the campground, since the camping season is over there's no charge. "No charge," he says, after giving us a 25$ ticket. We collected our gear and moved into the campground.
The next day, Mike had his chance. He was sitting in a tree in a well used area with a lot of buck sign. He had only one good arrow, the rest were featherless. About an hour before dark he heard a noise and noticed a nice eight-point buck coming up the trail. Mike stood up and awaited the approaching buck. When the buck reached an opening, Mike stood up, established his lead, and released. At the same instant that Mike released, the buck stopped. Mike's arrow zipped harmlessly in front of the buck's chest. He couldn't believe it. H watched as the buck melted into the underbrush. Just then Mike looked up to see another buck approaching. He grabbed another arrow (the featherless variety). The buck, a nice six-pointer, stopped broadside at 20-yards- a perfect target. Mike drew his naked arrow, took careful aim, and released. He stared in disbelief as his arrow turned completely side-ways and wrapped itself around a tree. Mike was dumbfounded. After all this time waiting to get a shot at something, he had two good bucks in front of him and they both escaped unscathed. Mike retrieved his arrows, desperately needing the one with feathers. Back at camp Mike said, "Boy, featherless arrows sure fly crummy."
As we slept that night, snow started to fall. The next morning I awoke with a strange feeling of being closed in. It was deathly quiet. I reached for my flashlight, and when I turned it on, I noticed the lantern sitting on the floor. It had been hanging from the ceiling the night before. Then I realized that it was still hanging from the ceiling. Now the ceiling was only 30-inches from the floor. We were sleeping on cots and the ceiling was now hanging only a few inches above our noses. About six or seven inches of snow had fallen during the night, and the weight of the snow had collapsed our already crippled tent. The ceiling was resting on top of our table. If it hadn't been for the table, the whole tent would have been on our heads.
We got up, cleared the snow off the tent, and set it back up again. We repaired the tent frame with some wire, rope, and wooden poles. As we started out that morning, we realized that we had only two days left for Mike to fill his tag. Later that morning while mike was sitting in his tree, two bucks came by, but they passed too far back in the brush for a good shot. Mike was more discouraged than ever. Another opportunity had passed him by. That night he got skunked again. He had only one more chance.
We planned to hunt in the morning and then pack up and return home since it was the last day of the regular bow season. The gun season would open the next day. We knew that by the afternoon the woods would be crawling with gun hunters who would be out scouting for places to hunt opening day.
In the morning we walked to Mike's spot. I would sit in a tree about 50-yards to the east of Mike's tree. Two bucks walked through there the day before. If they came through again, I might be able to divert them toward Mike. I told Mike, "Good luck, it's now or never."
I climbed up my tree easily without my bow. I was still settling in when I heard, Thwang, Crack, Clackity, Clack, Clack. I looked over and saw a deer running down through the brush away from Mike's position.
Mike had just nocked an arrow when a spikehorn appeared under his tree. The buck was quartering toward him, but it was only a few yards away. Mike drew with his only good arrow and released. The arrow hit the buck in the middle of the back. It grazed the backbone and didn't penetrate very far. It didn't look or sound like a very good hit. The clackity clack noise I heard was the arrow hitting the brush as the buck ran away.
We waited about an hour, climbed down, and started following the blood trail. We were lucky to have snow on the ground, because the blood trail was pretty poor. Mike stayed on the track and I circled ahead. I crossed the trail again but didn't see any blood. Mike caught up to me and we kept following the trail. Mike said, "It doesn't look too good, does it?" I glanced up the trail and said, "Oh, I don't know. Look." I pointed up the trail. There was Mike's buck. We did a little dance right on the spot to celebrate.
We got some sour looks from arriving gun hunters as we headed down the road the day before gun season with two bucks lying across our truck.
We survived the snow and cold, the rain and mud, the spiders, the smoke, the collapsed tents, the howling dog, the park rangers, and the featherless arrows, and we still managed to come home with a couple nice bucks and a bear. We really had a great time even with all the adversity. I just hope things go as smoothly next season.
The End.
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