SNOWSTORM BUCK

Author's note: As a reminder, I'll be in bowhunting camp through next week. I may post an update about mid-week, but no regular blogs will be posted until I return.

By: Ray Hansen

The “rifle season” (now the “centerfire rifle” portion of the firearms hunting season) for whitetail deer in Michigan has been from November 15 – 30 for many years. This means that opening day is often during the week. Other states start their rifle seasons on different dates each year – usually something like “the second Saturday in November”.

This insures that the opening day will always be on a weekend – something that many hunters prefer. If they are working a job that allows only weekends off, they can at least get out for opening day of the deer season each year. This may provide the greatest number of hunters an equal footing in the deer harvest, since by far the greatest number of deer are taken on opening day of the season – no matter what state they are hunted in. After that, the herd wises up fast, and fewer deer are seen.

I remember being somewhat frustrated at occasionally not being able to get out in the woods on opening day while hunting in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In fact one year, I debated about going at all. A new job kept me from getting there for the first weekend. I had only a few days around Thanksgiving to take a last-minute shot at finding a deer.

Well, the holiday came around and the Upper Peninsula was socked with two-feet of heavy, wet snow that fell for two days non-stop. With the truck in four-wheel drive most of the way, I made the drive. Deer were not moving during the blizzard, and all I could do was stick it out in camp to wait for the storm to break. During that time I thought long and hard about where they were holed up and what they might do when the snow quit falling.

I talked to my friend Duane Deno of Gladstone, Michigan – who lived near the hunting area. He said: “they’re holding in the cedar swamps now and will not eat much since snow covers the ground eighteen inches deep or more. When the storm breaks, I think they’ll head for the edges of the old hayfields where weed tops are sticking up out of the snow. When the snow stops you should probably take a stand off one of the fields – maybe a hundred yards or so into the powerline that crosses through the cedar swamp a mile south of here. I’ve seen an eight-pointer in that area. It’s a good buck”.

He was absolutely right. The following morning dawned sunny and without snowfall. I had been watching the powerline for about two hours when the eight-pointer showed up, sneaking along the edge of the cedars, heading for an abandoned field. A single shot from my bolt-action .308 took the deer at forty yards. For all the fretting I had done about missing opening day, and the agonizing wait for the storm to break, this was one of the easier bucks I’d taken!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008