HUNTING DEER IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

A GUIDE TO HUNTING DEER IN MICHIGAN WITHOUT BEING KILLED
By Mike Colin
Many people in Michigan look forward to hunting deer for fun and profit. The fun part is being able to look a fellow creature in the eyes and put a bullet or arrow through its lungs. Girls often do that to me. They look me in the eyes like they really care about me and then they shoot me through the heart when they say they just want to be friends.

The profit from deer does not come from the meat (called venison). The steaks on a deer are pretty good but the rest of the deer tastes pretty gamey and should be used for stews (add lots of onions for better flavor). Stews are what you feed your relatives and other people you don’t care about when they stop by at dinner time. I save my good meat to impress dates. I don’t actually cook it. Instead, I just open up the freezer to show off all the expensive steaks I keep. After I show off my expensive meat I always take dates out to eat. My cooking is not very good. I can’t make a slice of toast that I’d be proud of.

The real profit from deer comes from the hides. A lot of hunters will pay big bucks (LOL) to have their hide tanned. A lot of guys make a good living tanning deer hides but, sooner or later they come down with anthrax and then, they have to pass their business on to their kids.

Before you go out after the Michigan white tail deer, you need to decide how you want to kill the deer. In Michigan there are several approved of seasons for deer including bow (or crossbow for old geezers), rifle, shotgun, muzzleloader and, pistol. We also have some unapproved deer seasons like dynamite and, off road vehicle slam banging.

Once you have decided on the type of hunting you are going to do then you must purchase the appropriate uniform. For instance, during bow season most people dress in camouflage so that the relatives and spouses they hunt with can’t pick them off so easily. During firearms season, most people are smart enough not to go with their greedy and trigger happy relatives. Then, they can dress in bright orange suits so the other hunters can see them. Note: If you do go with your relatives during deer hunting season make sure you let them know that your life insurance policies have lapsed because of non-payment and that you don’t intend to make up the payments until deer season is over.

Once you have decided which season you are going to hunt in then, you must choose your weapon. I like a nice deer hunting rifle that costs less than ten bucks (LOL). I usually find a rifle at the U Steal We Fence Pawn Shop. These guns usually need some minor adjustments which can be held in place with duct tape. Instead of spending a lot of money for a scope, I just duct tape a pair of old binoculars to the top of my rifle. A regular scope reminds me too much of my high school science class. Not only did I get a black eye from the crappy telescope but I got a D+ in the class because I couldn’t tell an ameba from a protozoa. Like whoever needs to know that crap in the real world? I never talk about amebas or protozoa with any of my friends.


Once you are in the deer woods you need to find some proper protection. The best thing to hide behind is a big rock. Unless the other hunters are using grenade launchers you can feel pretty safe hiding behind a large rock. However, there are usually few large rocks in the deer woods so you will often have to protect yourself by hiding behind a large tree. The tree should be some hardwood variety like oak and be at least 20 inches thick. A lot of guys are using armor piercing bullets that can pierce a 12 inch spruce tree like a lawn jart can puncture your liver.

This year on opening day of deer season I went back to my favorite spot to hunt deer. I call it Fort Deer Camp since it is made up of a bunch of large logs that give me about three feet of cover on each side. Fort Deer Camp is an easy landmark to spot since on top of one side of the fort there are a bunch of dead limbs that look like a large 10 point buck from a distance. The big buck standing on top of my blind helps to get the attention of other big bucks that might be itching for a fight. A lot of guys swear that from about 50 yards away it looks like I have a real deer overlooking my little fort.

I didn’t see any deer on opening day this year since I was pinned down on my belly by rifle fire. This happens every year on opening day. I always have to wait until the tourists go home later on in the week before I can sit up and watch for deer. This year I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the woods but, my old man happened by my blind and laid down some cover for me with his 30, 06 rifle. I crawled on my belly out to the road where my old man was smoking a cigarette. He hadn’t seen any deer either that day but, he had gotten a nice buck the day before the season opened. Now he got the deer legally since he didn’t shoot it. Instead he hit it with his truck. He said it was an accident. He even told the deer and the game warden he was sorry.

Dad invited me back to his house where mom was fixing venison steaks and morel mushrooms for supper. The supper was super and it was a good way to end the day. Northern Michigan is a great place to live. Most people can even live through deer season. You just have to keep your head down low and hide behind some really thick trees.

LEADING NORTHERN MICHIGAN OUTDOORSMAN GOES OUT WITH A BANG

By Mike Colin
The greatest outdoorsman I have ever known has died in a tragic underground explosion. I am of course talking about my Great Uncle Oslo. Uncle Oslo was a hunting and fishing maverick. He invented new ways to hunt and fish faster than the government could pass laws to ban them. Thanks to Uncle Oslo you can no longer hunt geese using lawn jarts or, use horse shoes to hunt chickadees. His electric chair for the snow shoe hair was once featured in “The Alternative Hunter Magazine.” He was also on 60 Minutes before he went to jail for helping his friend, Dr. Kevorkian.

The local police believe that Oslo was blown up by a still he kept hidden in an old bear cave. My aunt told me that in fact, Uncle Oslo was getting ready to go fishing and was busy making up some home made dynamite when the explosion occurred. My dad said Uncle Oslo would be alive today if he had only stuck to the old family recipe for making dynamite instead of downloading one off the internet.

There is some good to come out of the tragic death of my uncle. It seems that Uncle Oslo never told anyone as to whether he wanted his remains cremated or buried after he died. Well, since his body was instantly vaporized in the blast and then the ashes were buried when the bear cave caved in, one way or the other my uncle’s final wishes have been carried out.

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Back when we were young, my brother’s and I used to love a summer picnic. We had squash blossoms, road kill burger surprise and yard salad. Yard salad was made up of dandelion greens, wild onions, twigs, weeds and, grasses we found in the yard. We used to mix ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, vinegar and, orange tang together to make a dressing to put over our yard salad. Dad also used the dressing as a cure for his hangovers. Overall, the food was pretty good.

After a filling meal, we would often have to burn off some energy by playing summertime games. We sometimes would play horseshoe. This got to be kind of boring since we only had one shoe. We found the shoe when we went down the road to investigate a nearby summer music camp. The camp had horses for the kids to ride and evidently a horse left one shoe behind. It was “finder’s keeper’s loser’s weepers” so; we kept the shoe to play horseshoe.

Horseshoe was not our favorite pastime and, it was not the game we played the most. My family enjoyed a good game of lawn jarts just about every time we had a picnic. I remember us kids were really excited when dad found a set and a half of lawn jarts while we were foraging at the local land fill. Rich kids would go with their families each week to the K-mart store to shop. My family went to the local landfill every Sunday after the tourists dumped off their garbage and went home. We would just sort of look around for stuff. We would find household items like dishes and broken clocks. We would also find things like tools, cloths and when we were lucky, we would find toys. The land fill did take some getting used too. It looked like a big mess but, it smelled just like grandma’s kitchen. This smell put us at ease. When it started to get dark, dad would tell us to get a move on. He said that the bears would be there soon. There are of course no bears in Michigan. People always mistake Big Foots for bears.

Lawn jarts was such a great game that even mom and dad would play. We kids would play each other for Petoskey stones. Mom and dad would play for shots. Whenever one of them scored a point, the other one would have to drink a jelly shooter as a penalty. These shooters were like Jell-O shooters only we couldn't’t afford Jell-O. However, the relatives gave us lots of homemade jelly at Christmas time.

How do you play lawn jarts? Well, lawn jarts are like short spears with a long point on one end and a weight up near the point. The other end of the jart had a handle on it and just a little ways past the handle were plastic fins like the fins on a regular indoor dart. You would divide into two teams and each team had a plastic yellow ring that would be laid out several yards from each other. Each plastic ring was about two feet across and the way to score points was to stand at one ring and fling the jarts toward the other ring. Each time your jart stuck in the ground within the opposite ring, you would score a point. The first team to score 20 points or, the first team to have a parent fall to the ground and go to sleep, lost.

Because dad started downing penalty jelly shooters long before the game started, everyone wanted mom on their team. His team very seldom got to 20 points. We all piled on top of him to wake him up but, all he did was snore. If the next day were a work day he would always call in sick.

Lawn jarts, like the ones we had as kids are just about impossible to find now. I guess there was some sort of safety recall. It seems some people might have had accidents with the points of the lawn jarts. Instead of throwing the jarts at the yellow rings, people would accidentally toss the rings at the people standing near the yellow rings. We had our share of close calls, accidents, trips to the emergency room and near death experiences but, no one ever had an eye put out. I did get stabbed in the kidney and my brother Mike was stabbed in the foot. My brother Ted had one stuck in his head for a week before he finally had the gumption to pull it out. These were just minor injuries that bandages and duct tape took care of. Overall, lawn jarts was great summer fun. If I ever have kids, lawn jarts will be the first toy I find them at the land fill.