How NOT to wade a steelhead stream

Larry Winans once posed for photos of an out-of-control angler.

 

Water is great stuff. It's wonderful to drink, the right stuff for showers, great to wade in, fun to fish in, and a necessity when hunting ducks in the fall.

However, it is not fun to swim in at cold times of the year. Here's what happened when I needed a story and photos on short notice for a newspaper story. It turned out to be a great column..

The Betsie River has strong currents in certain locations and dark water. High early spring  water complicates things even further because it dirties up once the spring run-off occurs. Seeing bottom can become nearly impossible.

Certain areas can only be waded with extreme caution. I knew where two early-spawning steelhead were spawning on a bed, and proper positioning had me in the key location to cast a wet fly. Time after time the fly passed their nose, and time and again the male and female parted to allow the intruding fly to swing past.

It may have been the 50th or 60th cast when the male separated early, moved toward the fly, and sucked it in. The hook was promptly set and the fish jumped once. It darted upstream, and fought hard until it began to tire.

The buck steelhead, his cheeks and gill covers the color of orange-pineapple ice cream, put his broad side to the heavy current and started drifting downstream. I was fishing a familiar area, one I knew like my backyard. Or, so I thought. I had forgotten to take in mind the higher water level and that brush could have washed in.

It was necessary to stick very close to the bank, and with the river swollen with run-off, I knew it would be tippy-toe as the fish tugged its way downstream. The first six steps took me into waist-deep water.

"Cool," I thought. "This isn't too bad. The bottom shelves up 10 feet from here."

 

That 10 feet was a real treat. Five feet into it my toe bumped against a submerged log that had washed in on the high water, and with the water pushing hard on my back, over I went with a mighty splash. I never felt bottom again for nearly 150 yards.

The strong current turned me upside down, rolled me around, sent me feet-first and then rump-first, down around the bend. The fish was still on, tugging at my rod as it was held up out of the water, but a one-armed breast stroke just wasn't cutting it. The river carried me another 100 yards around the bend, and as I came to a shallow gravel bar, I heaved my rod up on shore.

My waders were filled with water, and the current ground me into the gravel bar with considerable force, and finally I was able to get to my hands and knees and crab across the gravel to shore where I floundered like a beached whale. I grabbed a sapling, pulled myself to my feet, and bent over to dump out  some water.

My butt plunked onto the bank as I pulled my waders off, and emptied them back into the river. The temperature was in the mid-20s with a 10 mph breeze, and I had to get my rod and head for the car. Shivering had already set in.

My rod was pulled from the brush, and as I reeled in my slack line, the rod came alive in my hands. One hundred yards downstream the steelhead bolted into the air, flipped its tail like a farewell salute, and we came undone.

There was a steep hill to climb, and as I reached my car another angler stopped to ask about the fishing. He then noticed I was soaking wet.
"Fall in?" he asked. Here was a man with a magnificent grasp of the obvious.

"Nope," I said, "a big steelhead took me water skiing. The problem was he couldn't pull quite hard enough to keep me up on top. He got away, and all I got was a short but wet and wild ride down the river."

It had been a neat experience. Mind you, but it's not one I wish to try again anytime soon, but one that has carved a special niche in my memory.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Hunches Don’t Always Pay Off

My hunch was wrong when I missed a chance at this buck.

I've hunted my land for so many years that I know where the travel routes of big bucks are found, and sometimes I play a hunch and it doesn't pay off. Here's just one example from last year.

I had a couple of buddies visiting one day last season, and knew the bucks should be moving during the firearm and rutting season. I put each hunter in a great spot for  a rifle hunting in one of my nearby hunting areas, and we had moved a new coop onto a high piece of rolling ground in the middle of one of my big open fields.

I drove to it with several stops along the way. I had a Bushnell range-finder, and stopped at a dozen places where I knew bucks would cross the field. One location was 301 yards, another was 311, one was 266 yards, and all the others averaged 200 to 275 yards.

Someone asked if I would write down the yardage at each location, and I told them they are stored in my head. If I spot a buck at a certain location, I know it is 311 yards. My rifle is sighted in to be dead-on at 300 yards, and it wears a quality Swarovski variable power scope and I've had a bunch of practice shooting at long distances with it.

If they had their rifles sighted in for long-range shots (mine is usually three inches high at 100 yards, which puts me dead-on at 275 yards), they would be in business. If they hadn’t spent the time sighting in, they would be having problems.

The new coop had two major problems, and both needed fixing. One was that it was a hunting coop with windows on three sides, and those windows had screens on them. A hunting coop doesn't need window screens for any kind of hunting. It’s not a house; it’s a hunting blind. The guy that built the blind for me had not paid attention to my directions.

We quickly removed the screens. I tried to call a buddy to come and cut a door window in the coop for me. I couldn't raise him so we went looking, and found him finishing up a repair on another coop.

"I'm going to sit in my new blind tonight and see if I can spot that big buck," I told him. "I need a hurry-up window cut in the door, and a piece of Plexiglas installed."

He drilled four holes, connected the dots with a battery-operated saw, and the window was cut. He'll install the Plexiglas tomorrow, and the coop would be ready for me whenever it was needed.

After sitting there that night with my binoculars I thought that perhaps I'd need a hunting partner. There are so many areas from that coop where a 300-yard shot would be possible, but the major problem is being able to keep watch in all four directions at the same time.

That was last year, and a couple of those bucks seen at long range are still prowling around in that portion of Leelanau County. I seen several bucks bucks in a couple of places where I hunt but not the one I’ve been looking for, and quite a number of does were seen. The animals are freely feeding throughout the field, and were seen to all points on the compass.

I’ve learned that it’s unwise to try to cover too much real estate with just one person. One may be sitting in an enclosed coop, but if their head is on a constant swivels trying to cover 360 degrees, it’s easy to be spotted by deer. It’s also easy to miss seeing that one big buck you’re looking for.

We'll get the Plexiglas installed tomorrow for the door window, and I'll probably set there again to see what is moving through the area. While I was playing my hunch, and hoping to see the big buck move across the field, three nice young bucks were shot by hunters at places I'd picked for them to try.

One was a massive 11-pointer, another was a nice 8-point, and one hunter shot a thin but wide-beamed 6-pointer on that hunt last year. From the looks of things, this season’s hunting should be pretty good.

I put in two green fields for this year, and I sat out last night and watched for deer as part of my pre-season scouting regimen. It was one of those nights when the bucks seem to take the night off but the does and fawns were out in abundance. I’m trying to determine just how many antler-less are on my property, and I’ll probably play another hunch this year.

Over many years of playing hunches, listening to my gut feelings, and taking an occasional flier on a guess, I’ve learned some valuable lessons. Some of those gut feeling turn out to be wrong, but at other times, they can pay off..

One just has to take their chances, and try not to get too upset when they don’t pay off.

Love each day to its fullest and be happy

Walleye fishing was a joint adventure when we fished like this.

A number of people who have been near and dear to me may have taken life for granted at one time or another. Most of them, in the final days of their life, realized their mistake.

In other situations, some of us don't take things for granted, but life can still step up and blind-side us.

None of us are infallible, and none of us are invincible, no matter how strongly we believe it. Life can begin and end on a moment's notice.

My life has been blessed in many ways, and I took my vision for granted until I began losing it. Now, every day is a precious commodity to be wisely considered and lived with a fervent passion.
The problem is that none of us know how much time we have to live. My father, who died of old age, had prostate cancer for years. It didn't kill him but 94 years of life did.

Twin brother George lived life to its fullest. He did nearly everything in life he really wanted to, and learned on a Saturday that he had incurable cancer and he died the following Wednesday.

He didn't go to his Maker kicking and screaming. Hours before he passed away, he told me: "I have no regrets. I've lived a good life, and now I'm ready to go."

A good friend of mine died two days later in Oregon. He had made it through perhaps ten years in a wheelchair, and died after having lived a full life before a stroke kept him from walking.

Brother George had seven different kinds of cancer, and his pain levels were mild compared to that of others. Why does this happen? Why do so many people die of this disease in agonizing misery?

My aunt, who died years ago at the age of 84, was a very religious woman. She never smoked or drank, but battled cancer for many years. She attended church two or three times a week, and still the disease finally wore her down.

My first wife died at the age of 40 from cancer. She didn't visit the doctor as often as she should have, but no one should die such a painful and undignified death.

Three good friends died early. Two had families, but died of self-inflicted gun-shot wounds. Only one was physically ill, and he had inoperable cancer and chose his own time of death.

All of these people, with the exception of the two suicides, had cancer. It wreaked havoc on their bodies, and in the end, the pain and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and radiation probably hastened their demise.

My good friend, Fred Houghton, a friend since childhood, died quietly. He loved to fish for walleyes and yellow perch on Saginaw Bay, was married the second time about four years ago, and kept himself in great shape.

Physical conditioning doesn't bar the way to cancer. It can come calling, as it did with him, and now my old friend is gone. I remember many fishing days from when we both went to Clio High School, and we spent many days over many years hunting ducks and geese.

He lived a good life, retired fairly early, and had everything going his way except for a cancer he didn't know he had until it required surgery. He was pronounced cancer-free, as he told me several months before his death, but the disease took him from us all too soon.

I attended a birthday party for a friend who just turned 90 years old. I've thought about him and another 90-year-old friend all day, remembering their contributions to my success as a photographer and writer.

I remember while duck hunting on Wigwam Bay near Standish in the late 1950s, when brother George and I were hunting from a sneak boat. My childhood buddy was hunting in the cattails, got cold and tried to climb into our boat.

It didn't work, and the boat finally sank beneath the waves as he tried to clamber aboard. I was the only one without waders (who knows why) but I went down with the ship, and got soaking wet and cold during an early November storm.

My buddy always had a much different version of that story, and we argued long and hard about the merits of his or my version. But the boat went down, and in a good-natured way, I always told him it was his fault. He blamed me, and we both had a good laugh about me getting wet.

That story, now that he is gone, was part of the glue that held us together as friends for over 60 years. As is so true with all of us, one day we will all have run our race.

Fred's race sadly ended early, and I shall cherish his memory and that of my brother and father. He was a good man, a kind and considerate friend, and cancer took him much too early.

I will miss my dear friends, family and relatives. They are gone, and those of us who remain, are stuck with memories. Enjoy them for memories are meant to be cherished, and leave the sadness behind where it belongs.

Finish up preseason work and lock everything up

One way to save tree stands and ladders is to use climbers.


My ultimate goal is, and always has been, to be ready for bow season by September 1.

That means I have a full month for my hunting areas to settle down before I crawl into a tree stand or ground blind.

My fall food plots are planted, and there is a fairly lush green growth. We needed a rain bad, and last week the plots got a nourishing drink. Even more rain would be good to keep it growing.

What we don’t need is any more 90-degree weather. It’s time some cooloer weather and some more rain.
Deer are moving through the food plots, and after tomorrow, there will be nothing left to do but bide our time. Some long-distance scouting can be done but I don’t plan to spend any time walking through my hunting areas.

We’ve got deer spotted, tree stands are up, our coops are almost all ready, and all I need to do is spend a few hours putting chicken wire around the bottom of the coops to prevent porcupines and other critters from chewing holes in the wood.

Two ground blinds are complete set in place. The fencing around the bottom has be in place, and the coops are locked. Are locks necessary? To my way of thinking, I’m beginning to believe my father was right.

“Locks keep honest people honest,” he used to say. “If you don’t lock things up, and exercise certain precautions, given the opportunity to steal something, some people will take advantage of it.”

I’ve had people take advantage of me when they thought that leaving coops unlocked was fine. So, in the past I’ve had people climb into my coops to hunt when I can’t get away for one reason or another. I’d find the coop doors unlatched and blowing in the breeze, a larger shooting window cut to their liking, and a chair stolen.

Another time I spent two days fixing up tree stamds. I went to one stand, and some fool had stolen the bottom two sections of the ladder stand. The seat and foot rest was still attached to the tree with a good chain and a heavy-duty lock.

Now I stand the sections together, duct tape the chain to the ladder, and lock it. The cost of two good padlocks for the ladder section and another lock and chain for the seat is certainly cheaper than replacing a complete tree stand.

I once had an excellent tree stand, and the deer always came from behind me and on my left side to present a perfect broadside or quartering away shot. The person who would occasionally sneak into my tree stand always left his signature behind.

He was left-handed. He would try to reposition the stand so it was easier for a left-hander to shoot from. The stand was in a cedar tree, and I had fine boughs conveniently placed to break up my outline. Those boughs were tied with twine to suit me.

I went to this tree early one morning, and waded into the cedar swamp and hid. My presence kept the deer from moving that morning, and right about daylight I heard brush cracking as he walked to the tree.

I let him set there, and both of us could hear deer giving the area a wide berth. I snuck up behind the stand, and pulled out the two lower ladder sections. The guy looked down at me, and yelled “What do you think you are doing?”


I said I knew what I was doing. I was making it difficult for him to get down.


He was in my tree, I was on the ground with two ladder sections, and he’s whining about how he’s going to get down. So we had us a little heart-to-heart chat.

“You’ve been hunting my stand illegally for a week or more, and we’re going to settle this now. You either agree to quit sneaking in on my leased property , and stay away from this area, or I’ll call the cops right now. It’s a long ways to the ground, and too far to jump, so either agree to stay away or I’ll press charges.

“You’ll still be up the tree when the police come. Then we will have a chat with the landowner. What’s it going to be?”

He quickly agreed that he wouldn’t come back. OK, I said “Toss me your wallet, with driver’s license and hunting license so I can make a few notes in case I find you’ve been hunting my spot.”

He whined and carried on but I convinced him the two ladder sections wouldn’t be replaced until he complied. I added that while he was at it, he could lower down his bow on my haul rope.

I asked him if he was the one who was hunting out of my blinds. He said he just hunted the tree stand, which was obviously difficult to deny. I took notes, learned he lived nearby, and threatened to walk away.

He gave in, complied with all my wishes, and I asked if he was going to be aggressive when he came down. I didn’t want to fight him, but I wanted him to realize the errors of his ways.
“No, no more hassles,” he said “I’ll leave and won’t be back.”
So that episode ended peacefully, but I’d learned my lesson as well Ladders and tree stands were chained together, and to the tree, and I never lost anything again.

It’s a shame that everything needs to be locked up, but I have a great deal of equity in my food plots, coops and tree stands. All of the work and time is for my satisfaction, and having fools ruining my hunting isn’t something I feel like going through again.

Mr. Nice Guy doesn’t live and hunt here anymore.

George and I hammered the Chinook salmon

My late twin brother, George Richey, leads a big king to net.

Years ago we had an early cool snap, a cold rain fell, and suddenly the Betsie River was awash with fresh-run Chinook salmon. Everywhere one looked were fish moving upstream, their backs creasing the surface.

Brother George and I were fishing two small holes 30 yards apart, and he was casting a wet fly while I was pitching a copper No. 2 Mepps Anglia spinner. It was midweek, and we seemed to have the river to ourselves.

George hooked a fish on a pattern he devised for dark-water, and it was called The Crick. It was basically a black fly with a bit of color, and he was bouncing it along bottom when it stopped and the line switched sideways. There is nothing delicate about setting the hook on a big river salmon. It is a happening!

Hooking two big kings was a special treat for us.

I could hear him grunt as he muscled back to pound the hook home. I took two turns on the reel handle, and a king salmon tried mightily to wrench the rod out of my hands. I urged him into a fighting mood with a hard double hook-set, and there we stood, 20 yards apart, the Richey twins, each one tight to an angry king salmon.

My fish started downstream, and jumped almost into his back pocket, and George spun around, glared at the fish heading out into midstream as his fish ran upstream away from the splash. His fish jumped out in front of me, and we both had to get moving to avoid tangling our lines.

He shuffled upstream while I moved down, and we had the two fish separated by 20 yards when his big king swapped ends, and headed downstream behind me as I scrapped with my fish in the deep hole. I stepped backwards, stepping over his line, and then we stood there, our backs almost touching, as we tried to beat up on those fish.

"Having fun yet?" he asked, knowing I was.

"Nothing better than a 25-pound king trying to rip the rod from your hands," I replied. "Waited a year to do this again."

The silence of the moment was hushed by splashing fish, and then George's fish headed upstream, and our two fish were as close together as we were, and both were struggling upstream, fighting the river current and our heavy rod pressure.

Fighting both salmon, with each going its own way, was a hoot.

"Could get a bit tricky soon," he noted. "If both of them come down together, it will be interesting to see if we can get out of the way while keeping them separated."

The Chinook salmon apparently read his mind or heard his voice, and like two submarines heading for two troop ships, here they came. One fish stayed deep and mine was near the surface, and I pulled from one side to upset his travel pattern. George and I always seemed to read each other's mind, and he did the same except he pulled in the opposite direction.

The fish hit the air, both in half-hearted jumps, and it was as if we were in a ballet on water. We reacted in unison without discussing it, and his move and mine complemented the other. The kings, reacting in a somewhat predictable manner, responded in kind. This was a battle of two twin men, working on two adult Chinook salmon of equal size, and it couldn't have been choreographed any better.

My fish cut between me and shore, spinning me around as it charged downstream. George's fish peeled around him in midstream, and now both fish were wallowing on the surface.

My fish was just half-a-shade lighter in coloration than his but it played out faster on the spinning tackle. I led the fish to shore, grabbed it by the caudal peduncle (the wrist-like narrowing just ahead of the tail), lifted it out, reached for my long-nose pliers, and twisted the treble free and released the fish.

Tailing a big Chinook salmon is easy if you know how and hang on.

I grabbed my camera and began clicking photos of George as he landed his 25-pounder. There was a bit of color in the background, and he held his fish aloft for two or three photos.

He bent over, released the fish with the dignity it deserved after putting up a valiant fight, and we were off looking for another adventure.
Those were the days when George and I lived our lives to the fullest, guided fishermen, and traveled Michigan's rivers together as we did everything else ... together, and as a team.

Today I was on the Betsie River again, and my thoughts of George were wonderful as I looked for fish below the old Homestead Dam. I found a few fish but they weren't hitting. The river water is still warm, and oddly enough, there were no people where I was at.

I cast to several fish but the fish were really spooky. One cast, and they would head into a timber-lined hole. The last thing they seemed interested in was flies or spinner, but it was a good day for remembering my twin brother.

I still think of him daily after almost eight years since his premature death, and although we hunted together as well, it was on those early salmon and steelhead trips that we became almost welded together, inseparable as two peas in a pod. I miss him, and just remembered this story today as I tried to recreate that day, and it's one of my favorites.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Scout now for an October’buck

Start Preseason Scouting Soon

Anyone who greets the dawn in the field is getting a big jump on the day, and will most likely find game animals and birds moving about. Do it just right, and it can be a kick-off to your preseason deer scouting.

I visited one of my hunting spots two days ago, and it was fairly cool. It felt good to be a bit chilly, and I walked in to a high hill where I could watch for whitetails without being spotted or winded.

The sun was still blushing the eastern horizon when a doe with two fawns wandered by, stopping here and there to nibble on alfalfa. They walked along the edge of a nearby winter wheat field, and sniffed at some new green growth, apparently to see if it was ripe enough to eat.

Scouting means finding bedding areas, food, sanctuary and water.

Two bucks, both fuzzy-antlered with velvet, cut the corner of a fallow field, dipped down into a gully, came out the other end and disappeared into the woods. They were quickly followed by a spike-horn that had got sidetracked along the line, and was now playing catch-up with his buddies.

The sun was above the horizon when I spotted a veritable gold-mine of turkey gobblers. Six gobblers were moving like a combat platoon as they came across the top of the hill and crossed within 20 yards of me. I was sitting on the ground, knees up and Swarovski binoculars to my eyes. I had to lower the binoculars to better see the gobblers.

Look for deer crossing fields & through bottlenecks.

One bird had an honest 12-inch beard, and two had 10-inch beards, two had 7 1/2 to 8-inch beards, and the other was a jake. The sunlight glistened off their feathers, turning the colors from russet to gold to black and back again. They didn't know I was there, and they passed within 20 yards and headed down into an open field where they were out of sight of a nearby road.

I saw a glimpse of some animal, and never could see it well, but it appeared to be a coyote heading for a place to lay up.

I didn't spend much over an hour sitting, and it become apparent the critters were done moving. I walked the edge of an alfalfa field where drying mud remained from an earlier rain, and checked it for tracks.

One big splay-hoofed deer track was visible, and it looked two-thirds larger than any other deer track seen. Buck or doe? Hooves splay out in mud, and that could account for some of the size, but it could have been a deer of either sex. I knew of a very large doe in that area last year, and had heard reports of a good buck as well.

I used to hunt with a man who claimed he could tell the difference between a buck and doe track, and under certain circumstances, I believe I can too. But, tracks in mud never seem to offer quite enough clues to its sex, and I need something more to go on than a widened track in soft mud.

Scouting is fun, instructional and can lead to a successful hunt.

Was today a scouting day? Absolutely. I could determine where the bucks entered the woodlot in the morning, and with a westerly breeze, even picked out a perfect tree. I'll have to watch in the morning more often, and then get serious about a stand once I know the bucks are using the same trail every morning.

I learned years ago, when hunting bucks in southern counties, that farmland deer will travel one of two or three trails in a given area. We sometimes had to flip a coin to determine which of two trails to choose from, and often the coin would lie to us.

Preseason scouting doesn't need to be a major investment in time nor does it have to be done every day, but hunters should spend time scouting three or four times a week whenever possible. Keep track of directional travel changes when the wind moves to a different quarter. Being downwind of deer is one of the first steps to a successful hunt.


Scouting is not only an important part of deer hunting, but it can be fun. My wife used to sit in a stand, watch the deer and videotape them during the summer. By early September, she would have the buck of her choice on tape, and she would later lay claim to it with a well-placed arrow.

She always shot the buck she videotaped, and that proves that preseason scouting, from the spring on, does work. The more effort one puts into it, the more successful one may be.

Old outdoor magazines bring fishing and hunting to life

Magazines with great art covers are wonderful mementos from the past.

Reliving some old outdoor passions is easy. Simply dip back in time with an old outdoor magazine and have your brain gently nudged again by something great from the past.

Kick back, dig into my old blogs, and choose those articles that are most appealing. Heaven knows, there are plenty of choices of fishing-hunting things to read about.

Do you really think reading is a dying art? If so, I'd suggest you think again. If that were so, there wouldn't be the number of people reading my daily weblog as there are. Many people who have read me for 23+ years at The Detroit News followed me after I retired from the paper, and are now reading my daily weblog in seven different venues including FaceBook and Twitter.

There are too many magazines to list and photograph. Email me and query.

Reading a blog is like reading my column every day; it's primarily for the Michigan fishermen and hunter, although people from all over the world read it.

Anyone want to read old outdoor magazines? The answer is quite simple: Many people do. It's cheap and super entertainment, especially when some of my magazines date back to the early 1920s. Some are worth good money.

Many years ago I inherited Ben East's records, memoirs, files, letters and outdoor magazines after his death 20 years ago. I've kept his magazine collection intact even thought he told me I could use any of the files, including his magazines, in any way I chose.

I've wrestled with the prospect of selling this huge stash of old outdoor magazines. After having stored them for 20 years, walked around the many plastic tubs filled to the gunwales, I've decided to share at a reasonable price, these treasured magazines. Most have articles by master outdoor writer Ben East, and most of them contain stories that are about fishing or hunting in Michigan.

There's an old saying I'm fond of. It state's that it's impossible to know where you are going if you don't know where you've been. I've been at this writing business for 45 years, and Ben East was at it for more than 60 years. There are many things of his that I won't sell, but 1,000 magazines take up a great deal of room.

These magazines, ranging from 1922 to the early 1950s, covered the hey-day of outdoor writing and outdoor magazine art. All of these magazines, with the exception of perhaps only a few, are illustrated with an artist's painting or sketch. Those drawings and paintings that appeared on the front covers were great pieces of period art.

They do what today's magazine covers can't do – they capture the moment, a short but defining period in time when something great, sad, death defying or just the marvel of a bird dog pointing a grouse, pheasant, snipe or woodcock, occurred. The artist captures the emotions of the hunter and of the dog as it stands quivering, tail as stiff as a fireplace poker, and waits for his master to walk in to flush the bird.

Art covers capture moods far better than photos.

Magazine covers were drawn by hand, and the artist captures the magic of that precise moment when blue-wing teal zip low and fast over the decoys or when pintails whiffle down out of the sky. Or as a bunch of Canada geese approach the decoys, their feet grabbing for land or water, their heads arched down as they scan ahead for danger while their wings cup the air as they descend to a landing or fall as the nearby hunters shoot.

There are covers, lots of them, that deal with trout fishing. These magazines are sorted by categories such as...

• Atlantic Salmon
• Bass
• Bear
• Brook Trout
• Comic or Mood Scenes
• Deer Hunting
• Ducks & Geese
• Elk Hunting
• Esquire
• Exotic Wild Game
• Game Birds
• Hunting Dogs
• Lake Fishing
• Misc. Outdoor Action
• Moose Hunting
• Muskellunge
• People
• Rabbit Hunting
• River Fishing
• Saltwater Fishing
• Various Wildlife
• World War II-related fishing and hunting topics

The covers of these magazine which are, for the most part, in fine to mint condition bring out the raw emotions of a day on the water or afield with or without a dog. They elicit feelings that a mere photograph cannot capture. People soon grow tired of seeing a photo of a big buck on the cover. Scoop's Books, offers not only fishing and hunting books but old outdoor magazines as well.

Please remember: some of these magazines are 60 to 80 years old, and many look as if they were printed yesterday. They are not $5 each as some people seem to think they should be. An average price of $25-30 is about right, and magazines with superb cover art by the masters artists of that era, can range up to $125 or more. Most of these magazines, although not all, have a Ben East story inside.

One thing is very important, and I stress it here. Most of these items are one-of-a-kind. Email me to determine if a specific item still exists. Do not send money without checking with me first. People do it all the time, and I have to email them back, and ask specifically what they are buying. Check ahead avoids disappointment when an item sold just before your order arrived.

I take bank money orders, cashiers checks, company or personal checks, and PayPal. I do not take credit or debit cards. Business and personal check must clear my bank before any magazines are sent.

Postage, as we all know, has gone up. My postage rates may seem high at $5 each, but I usually ship in boxes, and each book is well padded. I ship with insurance in most cases, and purchase delivery confirmation. You don't have to be home to get the package but the delivery confirmation notes that the package has been delivered. There can be no squabble over whether or not books or magazines were delivered. I will know precisely what time delivery took place.

If possible, send all available information for what you'd like to buy.

Some folks may think that some of these magazines are unfairly priced. Prices hinge on many things:

• overall condition of the magazine
• quality of the cover artwork
• author's reputation
• whether the cover artist did any drawings or sketches inside the magazine
• names of the various writers
• whether magazines are collectible because of those names

Some artists are very collectible because of their quality work. People such as...

• William Harnden Foster
• W. H. Hinton
• Lynn Bogue Hunt
• Edwin Megargee

and a wide assortment of others can push the cost of an old magazine ever higher. Some magazines sold becomes more expensive because of their content, and as is true with most antiques, provenance is important. Each magazine will come with a letter from me attesting to the fact these magazines once belonged to the Ben East estate. That provenance, if provided with the magazine if it is ever sold, will keep the proof of these magazines belonging to Ben East clear. Note that East obtained some magazines from other people, as proven by an address label.
These magazines, and many other things such as signed Ben East letters, and letters sent to Ben East, are further proof. I still own one of Ben's old four-drawer file cabinets and it still houses some of his extensive files.

People collect old outdoor magazines for many reasons. They like to read about what went before, and they come to love the old artwork that can and will capture the soul of true sportsmen. Many people horde these magazines as a link to their outdoor past.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this basic truth. Some people, whether I like it or not, have no love for the magazines but collect the old ones for their covers or as a hedge against inflation. Many who own fishing or hunting camps clip the cover off a magazine and put up a moose or trout cover and use the rest of the magazine to start a wood fire.

We need to communicate to make this work.

My job isn't to be the fire marshal or the magazine police to watch over people to see how they treat these treasured magazines. If a person wants to clip a cover or cut out an article, slit out fishing or hunting ads, that's up to them. I'd hate to think it would happen but I'm not so naïve to believe it won't.

I welcome e-mails asking for specific issues or requests for particular authors or artists or artwork. I will try to accommodate. Feel free to write and ask the price ahead of time. Don't be scared off by the high price because there aren't many of those magazines left.

Here's a chance to travel down memory lane with an imaginary rod and reel or firearm over your shoulder. It can be a thrilling adventure to read some of the magazines from your youth or your father's youth. Or, it can be a major thrill to take a tour of yesteryear, and learn what it was really like back in the Good Old Days.

River guiding 35-40 years ago

Dave Richey (left) and George Richey with big Chinook salmon.

Those people who just got started steelhead fishing in the last few years really missed out on the best fishing ever in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Superb numbers of steelhead were being planted all around the state, natural reproduction was fairly good and the Betsie, Little Manistee and Platte rivers offered sport that was as good as it gets.

There was some natural steelhead reproduction 35-40 years ago, and the DNR was planting fish as well. The number of anglers who knew how to catch steelhead were few, and the numbers of fish available in spring and fall were very high.

My guiding career began in 1967, and brother George joined me in guiding fly fishermen to salmon, steelhead and broad-shouldered brown trout. John McKenzie, my late twin brother George Richey and I became the Tres Amigos, and we cut a wide swath through the spring and fall spawning brown trout, salmon and steelhead runs.

Reliving a time that salmon and trout fishermen will never see again.

We were three angler-guides who helped teach anglers that snagging fish was both stupid and wrong. Snagging of salmon began because the DNR told people that spawning salmon don’t feed once the hit river water. They may not feed but will attack anything that approaches their spawning redd.

Snagging became rampant back then, but we fished with No. 4, 6 and 8 single-hook nymphs and wet flies, and it may sound like bragging but it's not: we were good guides, and there was no need to snag fish. We fair-hooked fish on a regular basis. The sheer numbers of fish available meant if we spooked them in one spot, a short distance away would be another batch of willing fish.

The spring steelhead runs were huge in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I can remember days on the Little Manistee River when we could hook 30 steelies in a single day. Not all fish were landed, but George and John experimented with and tied various flies while I handled the bookings for three of  us.

We were a busy bunch, and were on the river every day. We knew where the salmon, steelhead or browns would be from one day to the next, and we seldom had any competition. We came and went, and sometimes Tres Amigos were all on the same stream, and at times we would be spread out across three different rivers. We'd compare notes at night over dinner, and decide who would fish where the next day.

We were matched to small groups of anglers by age and type.

John, 13 years younger than George and I, was a good-looking guy. I often paired him with husband-and-wife teams or father-and-daughters, and his great talent -- besides catching fish -- was being able to teach people how to fish. He was patient, and clients easily learned from him.
George and I were older, and by nature, seemed to attract the older anglers or the chief person who brought a crew up fishing. We treated everyone the same; we'd fish from sun-up to sundown every day if clients wanted, and then clean fish at night and be up early the next day.

Guiding fishermen was a way of life for Tres Amigos, and we were very good at what we did. We could spot fish, coax anglers into putting the fly in exactly the right spot so it would be scratching gravel when it passed the fish. Often the fish would take, and we'd have a big fight on our hands.

One thing captivated us: putting people into big fish for the first time. The smiles that crossed their faces when they fought a 15-pound steelhead for the first time; got hooked into a 30-pound Chinook salmon; or was trying to land a big hook-jawed male brown trout weighing 12 to 18 pounds. It's been many years since those faces broke out into a smile, but I vividly remember most of them.

John McKenzie (above) was a popular young guide and part of Tres Amigos.

There wasn't anything we wouldn't do for each other. John was known to tie flies by hand on the river bank when we ran out. George was always there to coax anxious anglers into following a big fish downstream, and I was the guy that made it all work with the precision of a Swiss watch. All of us had a job to do, and we greeted each peach-colored dawn with a smile on our face and a jump in our step.

We reigned supreme for 10 consecutive years as a fly-fishing trio.

For 10 years we were Tres Amigos -- three friends -- who made a living in the best possible way -- being outdoors, on the river, and with a client holding tight to a big fish jumping in the river.

We often went without eating, found ourselves upside down in the river current trying to net a client's fish for them, and we looked out for each other. We also paid attention to our clients, catered to their every wish that was ethical and legal, and we coaxed more out of our client's skill levels than they knew they had.

We put people into fall-spawning rainbows that had tiny tails, fat waists, and 23-inch fish that weighed 13 pounds. The browns, especially the big males, were a golden-bronze with big spots; the steelhead were mint-silver and high jumping; the Chinook salmon were tackle busters of the highest degree, and some mighty battles would cover a half-mile of river. The coho salmon were seldom finicky about a fly: put it to them at their level, and they would hit.

It was a magical 10 years, and now brother George has been gone for eight years, and is dearly missed. John McKenzie phoned some time ago, and we took a trip down memory lane. We were there for the finest salmon and trout fishing this state has ever seen, and we pride ourselves on being the first fly-fishing guides on the rivers back when big salmon and trout ruled the state.

And that, my friends, is something we'll never forget.

Life’s baggage and some memories

I land a New Zealand brown trout here.

 

We begin life naked and squalling, and should we live long enough, a busy lifetime of fishing and hunting will leave us with some priceless items. Few are valuable from a monetary standpoint, but all are worth more than gold because of the wonderful memories they help me remember.

Our personal outdoor baggage, if such it is, consists of the odds and ends and memories from a lifetime spent on the water and in the fields; in the marshlands and woods; on the ground and in a tree. My 72nd birthday passed late last month, and I have spent a great deal of time sifting through my priceless baggage of timeless memories.

My mental and physical load consists of certain things that can be held, looked at, and reminisced over. Memories are found everywhere for a packrat like me, and I keep them around for a good reason: every mounted animal, bird or fish; each of my several hundred fishing-hunting hats; all of my bows, firearms, fishing reels and rods; even my tackle boxes -- all have one or more great stories behind them. Those stories bring me life.

As we move toward old age, old memories of outdoor events keep us going

 

Here is a good example: on the wall between my mounted fish is an old Shakespeare glass fly rod. I used it daily for 10 years of guiding brown trout, salmon and steelhead river fishermen on Michigan streams, and the stories that rod could tell would be wonderful. Over 10,000 salmonids have been landed with that rod, and it was retired in 1979 after I beached a 30-pound Chinook salmon. I heard a muffled creak as the brute of a fish was landed, and after removing the fly and releasing the fish, I retired that rod and it now hangs in a worthy place of honor where it daily reminds me of my 10-year guiding career.

My junk room, in my basement, has many different hats hanging from the rafters. There is a unique story behind every one, including one from Detroit's Homicide Squad that states: "Our day starts when yours ends." There are hats from Alaskan hunts, fishing trips in New Zealand, product hats worn on one hunt or another, and hats from friends who know I collect them. However, the only hats I hang are those with a fishing or hunting tale that goes with them. I could spend hours studying this worthless hat collection that has provided over 55 years of fishing and hunting memories while shading my eyes from the sun.

Whoa. Here is a signed and framed copy of Robert Traver's (John Voelker) "Testament Of A Fisherman." It was signed by him on Feb. 1, 1982 and states: “To my fellow writer and fisherman, Dave Richey, with all good wishes." It's worth very little except to me because I valued my long and great friendship with Voelker and often think of him although he passed away 20 years ago. I look at his Testament, read it at least once each week, and it's a priceless memento.Great writing organizations help me maintain my grip on the outdoor life.

It's been my privilege to belong to the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA), which I joined in 1968, and on my office walls are my writing awards. Four of the nearly 40 stand out:

These outdoor memories of mine give me great pleasure.

 

OWAA's prestigious Ham Brown Award and their Excellence In Craft Award; Michigan United Conservation Club's Ben East Award For Excellence In Conservation Journalism; and the Michigan Outdoor Writer's exalted Papa Bear Award for Excellence in Craft. There are many others, but these four remind me of my 45 years spent writing outdoor copy for my valued readers.

The other day I spent hours sorting through my life's baggage, and it was fun. There was a box containing all of my fishing and hunting licenses from my teenage and later years. I have most but not all of my earliest fishing and hunting licenses from this state, and some date back to the 1950s. It takes a few minutes but eventually a thought will reveal a heralded moment of fishing from a 1957 fishing license, and those old licenses still have the required Trout Stamp attached.

One license held a stamp of Michigan's old Fish Car that was used by the Department of Natural Resources to carry trout to northern streams for stocking, and it is scarce now.
One man's baggage is another man's treasure trove of outdoor memories. Such is the case with some of my successful bear, deer and turkey patches. My lot in life is to record as much of our fishing and hunting heritage as possible, and to present it in a way that others can enjoy. Take a moment now, and think about some of your things and the joys they have produced.

I look about me, and everything helps me recall old fishing and hunting trips

 

It doesn't always require an item to bring a memory to mind. I remember my dear friend Max Donovan of Clio and think of him often. He lost a leg early in life, was a hemophiliac, and fished and hunted harder than most people I know. I remember days on Saginaw Bay under leaden skies with a strong nor'easter huffing, and the mallard stooling to our decoys. I remember most of his many hits, and several of his memorable misses, and they always bring a smile to my face.

We can travel through a life of fishing and hunting, and retain most of our memories. Because, if nothing else, those thoughts spark a fire in sportsmen. That fire will blaze up into a full-blown recollection of a memorable day or event in our lives that must be remembered long after our ability to hike the hills and wade the streams has ended.

Those memories are what keep us alive.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Lessons learned from the deer

Whitetails can keep a hunter honest. They also can make you a better hunter.

This doesn’t mean that my valued readers are dishonest nor does it mean they are bad hunters. It simply means that deer have the ability to make hunters think.

They also can make hunters pretty humble when sportsmen think they know everything about deer hunting. Hunters who feel superior often get humble pie to eat.

Learn from deer. Study their actions, and become a good hunter.

One thing I’ve learned over many years is to watch hunters. It doesn’t take long to determine who are the great sportsmen, and who are braggarts. I’ve hunted in many camps over the last 50+ years, and the loudest and most aggressive hunters are usually the ones who make the dumbest mistakes.

An old saying goes like this: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. The best rule is to keep the mouth closed. listen and pay attention.

Picking people’s brains, and learning what they know, is fun and can provide valuable information. Savvy hunters never venture an opinion unless they know what they are talking about. That is especially true when talking about hunting whitetail deer.

Southern folk have some great sayings. They’ve been distilled from years of hard work and minding their manners. One saying that has a whole bunch of learning in it is “My momma didn’t raise no fools.”

Listen to older hunters, and cogitate on what they say.

Folks who gather around savvy hunters should keep that thought in mind. That means do less talking and much more listening.

Last year a man brought his son around for a hunt. The boy would come up to the house, make a dumb remark about deer hunting while several of us planned our evening hunts. We were tossing around ideas, and discussing where everyone would sit, and discussing the present wind condition.
The boy kept nattering on and on. He was taking up precious planning time by constantly interrupting.

A friend eventually spoke up rather bluntly and loudly, and said: “Boy, you better learn more about deer hunting before speaking your mind. You want to learn about hunting, sit down, shut up and listen. You’ll learn more than you will talking nonsense about a topic you know nothing about.”
The boy sat and listened for a minute, spoke up, and my friend looked hard at him, and the kid went running out the door. His daddy had money, and it’s almost certain that no one had every talked that way to the kid before.

I’ve been around whitetails all my life, and spent over 55 years hunting and studying the critters, but there are many others who know many things that I don’t know. I listen intently to them and learn.

One can read and learn, but actual hunting is the best teacher.

There are countless ways to learn things but in-the-field experience is the best when it comes to learning about whitetails. Hunting the animals, and studying them as you hunt and during the off-season, is the best way to accumulate knowledge. Reading about it, and absorbing that knowledge and putting it to good use, is another. What is most important is the hunter must learn to convert that knowledge into an action plan that works in the woods.

Experience will put a fine point on your acquired knowledge. Some of my early deer-hunting knowledge came from talking to old-time hunters and guides, and using some of that information on my hunts.

The more days spent afield will continue to add to a solid footing, and one day after learning a great deal about deer hunting, you’ll know you’ve come a long ways in your gathering of deer-hunting knowledge.

That will be the day when you can honestly look yourself in the morning mirror, and confess: “I don’t know as much about deer hunting as I thought I did.” And then you go out and learn some more.

Bow Quivers ... On Or Off

Bow quiver on when shot is taken. Replace quiver after the shot.

Life is about making personal choices and decisions. None of us must do everything as others do. We can dare to be different if we choose.

This blog post applies to bow hunters. Every stick and string hunter worthy of the name has his or her way of doing things, and often they turn out right. We all learn from our best teacher, experience.

Bow quivers are a case in point. Should hunters leave the quiver on the bow while sitting in a stand and shooting or should they take the quiver off to minimize weight and to remove one unnecessary item that could easily tangle in tree limbs and mess up a shot?

Hunters swing both ways on bow quivers but not me.

I'll go first, and throw my hat in the ring and voice my opinion. I climb into a tree stand after attaching my full-body safety harness to the tree and my body, I sit down, and use the haul rope to raise my bow from ground level. The bow quiver is then removed and placed elsewhere on the tree after an arrow is removed and then nocked. I often hang the quiver on a nearby limb where it will help break up my silhouette but be out of my way.

Once the quiver in hung, I unscrew the broadhead and attach my Game Tracer string behind the 100-grain FirstCut broadhead, and screw it into my Maxima carbon arrow shaft.

I attach the release to the bow string, stuff the lower limb of my C.P. Oneida Black Eagle bow into my left boot, and relax. I hunt and shoot sitting down, and my stands are positioned so bucks usually come from behind me and on my left side.

I shoot sitting down, and stow my bottom limb in my rubber boot.

If the buck follows his normal pattern, he will approach from behind and on my left side. I'm right-handed, so when the buck comes within bow range, and looks the other way, I start my draw and as I reach full draw, the lower limb clears my boot and is clear of my leg, the stand or any tree branches.

This allows for a minimum of movement, is very quiet, and oh so effective once a hunter becomes used to it. This method of drawing a bow wouldn't be possible if my bow quiver was still attached.

The arrow shafts, vanes or even the quiver could get caught up in clothing, limbs or branches. But there is another reason why my quiver comes off my bow when I begin hunting.

It reduces the overall bow weight. Not much, mind you, but when hunting in a variety of locations, sooner or later a bow quiver is going to hang up on something. I remove all possibilities of that happening by taking it off and hanging it some place where it is out of my way.

I want my bow in my hands at all times with my release on the string.

Whenever I watch a television show, or hunt with someone who always leaves his or her quiver on their bow, it makes me wonder how many lost opportunities have occurred because of that quiver.

A bow is a one-shot piece of archery equipment. It's not like hunting with a bolt, pump or semi-automatic firearm. Unless the wind is very strong and noisy, second shots at a buck are so rare as to almost be nonexistent.

A bow quiver on a bow, doesn't speed up getting off a second shot at a deer. It is somewhat awkward to reach to the quiver, pull out another arrow, reach across the bow to nock the arrow and prepare to shoot. Chances are, any self-respecting buck with heavy headgear will be long gone if you miss the first shot.

I often use my bow to help camouflage my upper body and head. I wear a face mask while hunting, and can still turn the bow inside my left boot so the handle and upper limb breaks up my silhouette. If a deer offers a shot, a simple and slow half-turn of the wrist will point the bow toward the animal as the hunter comes to full draw.

A full draw should make your bow and arrow unencumbered by anything.

Such a movement may or may not be necessary, and that is a debatable point, but it would be impossible to do with a bow quiver attached. For me, that is a strong reason for removing the quiver.

Whenever I watch outdoor TV shows, each person is checked to determine if their quiver is on or off. It seems quite evenly divided as to their preference. Those who stand all the time usually have the quiver on while those who sit to shoot take the quiver off.

Many hunters, including some of the television hunters, hang their bow. A deer approaches, and they risk being caught by a sharp-eyed deer. Me, my preference is to hold my bow where there wasted movements that could spook the animal. Holding a bow with quiver attached becomes just too awkward to hold during the hunt.

The slight added weight of a bow quiver (even a three-arrow quiver like I use) can allow a hunter to unknowingly cant the bow to that side. Is it enough, under the pressure of a nearby buck, to throw the arrow off its intended course?

I don't know and don't care to test the theory. My preference is to shoot a bow unencumbered by a quiver. It's my thought that it simplifies things, reduces weight, eliminates canting, drops a few ounces of weight and besides ... it works for me.

Anyone willing to plead their case for keeping a bow quiver on a bow while hunting is encouraged to contact me. You won't change your mind, I won't change mine, but I'd love to hear your philosophy.

Watch for bears in the woods and swamps during bear season

A bear this size, at close range, is a formidable animal. Be aware of nearby bears.

Bear hunting is a special brand of outdoor adventure where the hunted can become the hunter. It's when the tables can be rapidly turned on a sportsman, and where things can get very interesting very quickly. It doesn't happen very often with black bears, but when one attacks, it's not good news. A grizzly will maul and bite a human, often inflicting horrific injuries, but the person often lives.

Black bear, even though they are the most common bruin of all, are perhaps the most dangerous. Their attack may continue until the victim is dead. It has happened many times across North America, and in many cases, the human doesn't survive such a brutal mauling.

Someone in North America gets mauled by a black bear every year.

I lay no claim to being a black bear expert, but have hunted bruins, photographed them, and have had them approach within three feet of me. Each experience is one to learn from, and to hope it never happens again. A human best hope he does everything right if a bear gets within three feet of him. One wrong move, and it can mean terrible trouble.

I've never been truly frightened of a black bear even when they've come within spitting distance on a dead run. Knowing some things about bears can help you cope with the animal when things turn sour, and an angry bear is only feet away. What you do may truly affect the outcome of the encounter.

This is not meant to frighten you, but the Michigan bear hunting seasons open next month. Realize, first of all, black bears are very unpredictable. Don’t trust them.

Whenever bears are baited or being run with hounds, humans may find themselves within close proximity of a bruin, and neither one knows it. Throw in the fact that the bear may be a sow with young cubs, and there is the potential for disaster.

Once while photographing a black bear in Canada's Northwest Territories I was downwind of a foraging bruin. It turned, looked in my direction just as I took a photo with a flash. It startled the animal, and it came walking slowly toward me. It was straight upwind of me.

I talked to the animal in a fairly soft voice. I kept my voice level, and it approach close enough that I could have touched it, which I knew would be a mistake. The animal continued to circle me, and as it moved around me, I turned with it and continued to face it and talk. The bear got downwind of me, caught my scent, and circled back the same path as before and slowly walked away.

Talk to a bear in a soft, level ton. Don't scream or shout.

One important thing in bear encounters is to keep a clear head. Don't scream at the animal, and realize that a wild bear can sense anxiety and fear. The same is also true of a junkyard dog. Running from a bear is a bad thing to do because they are impossible out-run. Watch the animal, and read the messages it gives you.

Know this: bears, especially sows with cubs, will often make a false charge toward a person. They can walk, trot or run, but you'll hear teeth clacking, deep growling, and then the bear will stop at 10 to 20 feet.

It is defending its turf and its cubs, and a slow dignified retreat with soft talk while facing the animal can put an end to the whole business. However, it doesn't always end that way.

Know what to do, and do it, in a bear-man confrontation.

The trick is to stand your ground until she stops. Step backwards slowly for a step or two, and talk to the bear. If it does nothing, take two or three more slow steps backwards. This allows the animal some space, and gives it a chance to save face. Its enemy is retreating to avoid what could be a deadly confrontation. Just don't make any quick moves, and pay some attention to your footing. If you fall down, it could trigger an attack that would be difficult to defend against.

Watch the bear. Keep a level head, and don't crowd the animal. If it comes, turn with it, but watch its head because the body will follow the head. Study its actions intensely. A bear that becomes increasingly agitated is now a deadly animal and the risk of an attack escalates.

A bear that approaches within 15 to 20 feet and stops, its ears laid back against its skull, and is clacking its teeth and growling, is a dangerous animal. A bear that does that, and then begins slamming its front feet against the ground, has become truly dangerous. Back up and try to defuse the situation with a slow retreat and a soft voice. Don't step toward a bear that is stomping its front feet.

Do not run. Never run from a bear because it's like running from a mean dog: the chances are it will trigger a charge. A full-blown charge with foot stomping, growls, ears laid back, and clacking of teeth is something that will stir your guts into soup and give your mouth a coppery taste. This is no time to lose your head and do stupid things.

Continue to face the animal but try a slow-moving retreat. Chances are the bear doesn't want to force the issue, but this posturing can be a prelude to a mauling and death or a close call. In many cases, the humans’ movements or lack of them may act as a catalyst that triggers an attack.

Allow a bear to save face. Give it a way out of a bad situation.

Saving face is no different with a bear than with a barroom bully. Sometimes the issue can be resolved without incident; other times, it can only be resolved with force. A man alone, unarmed, is not capable of fighting a faster and stronger bear. A few instances have been noted of a bear-man fight, including one here in Michigan, and they are the stuff of wild tales ... except some of them are absolutely  true.

Few people will ever face a false charge, and even fewer will come to grips with a full-blown charge. Those who face the latter (and it's difficult to determine one from the other until the attack occurs) and live to tell the story are a rare breed in today's society.

I've faced three, and all were defused after several troubling minutes, but the best advice is to stand tall, make yourself look as big as possible, talk (don't scream) to the animal, and give the bear a chance to save face without injury to it or you.

Backing away or stepping aside when a bruin is very close can leave you with a wildly beating heart, a dry mouth and your life, providing you do everything right. The chance of a bear attack anywhere is rather remote, but it pays to have some knowledge of what to do well before such a need is standing only 10 feet away.

Especially if the bear has a surly attitude and you are wondering how you ever got into such a situation. Just remember: keep your head, don't lose control, and you may have a hair-raising tale to tell.

Make a mistake at this critical point, and even the best Hollywood make-up artist won't be able to make you recognizable to your family.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Outsmarting deer can be easy when hunters think

This buck was photographed smelling a hankie.

 

My problem was the deer always trickled past my tree stand about 20 yards out of my effective bow range. I did as I always do, and kept thinking they would eventually swerve a bit closer but they never did.

Human scent is known to drive deer away, and after waiting for a miracle to happen, my idea seemed a bit far-fetched. It was to lay a human-soiled handkerchief in some bracken ferns about 18 inches off the ground 25 yards upwind of the trail the deer used.

There were no real solid feelings about whether my plan would work. It was about having the human scent drift downwind to the trail, and if the deer smelled it, they may drift downwind and approach my stand within range.

This solution came about because of my need to get deer closer to my stand.

 

The first evening a doe and two fawns came along, caught the human scent, and moved downwind away from it and closer to me. They eased past me at 18 yards, and I was thinking this really might work.

The next deer to encounter my scent-tainted handkerchief was a fork-horn. He stopped, looked upwind, and drifted downwind, and picked up the scent of the doe and fawns. and followed them out of sight. Again, he was close enough for an easy shot.

Just before dark a very nice 8-point came by on the same trail as the doe, two fawns and the fork-horns, and stopped where they had stopped. He too looked upwind, his tail switching back and forth, and sure enough, here he came along the same used by the other deer..

He moved slowly, turning every few feet to sniff the upwind scent, and stepped out in front of me and stopped. The buck stood quartering away, his ears and nose working overtime as he stared upwind for potential danger.

The bow came smoothly back, and as the buck stood motionless to study the upwind scent, my carbon arrow and a two-blade broadhead sliced in behind his front shoulder. The buck whirled, kicked his rear legs back, and ran off with the Game Tracker line trailing behind.

I watched the buck go down 60 yards away. I had a small job to do. I retrieved the small hankie, stuffed it in a plastic bag, and proceeded to pick up the Game Tracker line, field-dress my buck and then dragged him 50 yards to a two-track trail for easy pick-up.

It's not my intention to have people leave smelly hankies in the public woods because some, including myself would consider it littering. This hunt took place on private land several years ago when baiting was legal, and when finished, I cleaned up after myself.

These fell for the one trick I didn’t tell anyone about for a long time.

 

Another time I was hunting a buck only 50 yards from a major bedding area. The deer sldom came out to feed until dark, and the buck always came even later.

A small handful of corn was scattered over a wide area to the left of my pine tree stand. All too often the deer would still be milling around 30 minutes after shooting time ended. I needed a way for the deer to be gently spooked so I could climb down and leave without being seen.

It took two screw-eyes, an empty pop can painted with brown and black paint and allowed the paint to dry outside, got 30 yards of six-pound line off one of my reels, and added some pebbles. A ladder that extended up to 15 feet also was needed.

The area was eye-balled, and a tree 15 yards on the far side of the corn was chosen. I used the ladder to get 15 feet off the ground, screwed the screw-eye into a branch. One end of the monofilament line was tied to the tab opener. I poured several pebbles into the can, and lowered it to the ground and removed the ladder.

The next step meant picking up the slack line, walking over to my tree stand, climbing up and screwing in the other screw-eye. I threaded the line through that hole, and slowly raised the pop can into the air until it hung three feet below the branch.

The line was tied off securely to a tree branch near my left knee. That night, the does and fawns, and a scruffy looking little six-point buck came in five minutes before the end of shooting time, and milled around. They paid no attention to the line over their head and the well-camouflaged pop can.

Shooting time came and went, and the arrow was removed from my bow, the bow and bow quiver was silently lowered near the ground. I waited 15 more minutes, and the deer were still there, and a soft tug on the line make the pebbles rattle in the can.

Nothing happened so another tug, and this time every deer was looking in a different direction trying to locate the strange sound. They were a bit anxious, and about the time they settled down again, another soft tug  on the line made the pop can tinkle softly. The deer all ran off, but didn't appear overly spooked. None of them snorted, and one more tug sent the pop can clinking again and I could hear the deer moving off.

Some soft tugs on the line created just enough "soft" noise to chase the deer off.

 

I gave them five more minutes, climbed down, untied my bow and didn't see or hear a deer on the way out The pop-can trick worked whenever I tried it, and once a black bear came in at the end of shooting time. One tug on the line sent him crashing through the brush for 200 yards.

I've got a great spot to repeat the pop can trick this year. The deer always want to linger in this spot, but just remember some times these tricks will work two or three times, and once the deer learn the tinkling can represents no danger, they will forget about danger and continue to hang around.

Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of ingenuity to solve a deer-hunting problem. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Food Plots Need A Good Soaking

A good food plot, with enough rain, can produce fine bucks.

I'm a bit too young to remember The Dust Bowl days of the early 1930s, but well remember talking to people who lived through that era when the ground was baked under a brutal sun, hardened, cracked and turned to chalk-like dust from an ongoing drought.

Crops were impossible to grow for a few years, and dust storms covered roads, seeped into houses, and some people with respiratory problems did not survive those years.

Things aren't that bad right now. It's not even close but people who have put in food plots or gardens or are trying to establish them are having a tough way to to go to make things sprout.

"Last year was a bad year for me with Purple-Top turnips," said a friend. "I planted after a nice rain, but then the rains ended and the turnips weren't any good. They came up small and rather woody looking on the inside. The deer didn't pay any attention to them."

I've had good and lousy food plots, and often the difference is the amount of rain.

Anyone who plants a food plot is subject to all of the very same problems as any farmer. Some years the weather turns against us. Many people are getting ready to put in their fall crops now, but the soil is hard, cracking, and lacks enough moisture although we did a light rain last night. A series of rains are still needed, and we usually get some rain in late August to jump-start our fall planting season."

One can only hope the weatherman cooperates. If not, some fields and crops will be useless.

Two fields of mine were ready to plant in early August, and we got a good rain right after planting. There was green growth within six days, and some good rain since. But this is what makes fall planting so tricky, and admittedly, this will be my fourth fall planting. Two produced a lush crop and one could barely grow weeds. Only time will tell how this year's fall planting will fare.

Many people like fall plantings or annual crops while others like some favorites when the soil conditions are conducive to growing a crop of brassica such as Dwarf Essex Rape and Purple-Top turnips. Poor soil conditions can be built into good organic soil by planting buckwheat, oats and rye, and discing it into the ground for two or three years in a row.

Good soil and rain are two key ingredients to a good food plot.

"This is called 'green manure,'" an elderly farmer told me. "Two or three seasons of a green manure crop will usually build enough organic residue into your soil to produce a good high-protein crop such as alfalfa, clover or rape.

He did caution me to keep records of what is being planted every year. Keeping records of planting dates, crops planted, and what kind of a yield it produces is very important. He says a lack of records means that sportsmen have no way of knowing what they did right or did wrong.

He said the ideal plan is to provide for a year 'round food source for animals and birds. Proper planning means soil tests before anything is planted. Some soil is so poor that nothing but weeds will grow until the soil mineral content is built up.

One should never consider a food plot as a replacement for baiting. One problem with food plots on large tracts of land is the land is heavily wooded in many cases, and it takes time to build a good soil content that is capable of growing high-protein crops. It just doesn't happen overnight.

Many food plots that are planted to legumes (beans and peas) are literally destroyed by deer eating the crop as it begins to grow. A small food plot will be quickly annihilated by hungry deer.

Try mixing crops that go together well. Talk with seed companies.

One suggestion for sportsman is to mix other things that will grow in the fall and come back early in the spring. A mix of winter wheat offers good green food and cover in the fall, and it comes back up as soon as the snow melts. Rape and Purple-Top turnips, with some alfalfa and clover in other nearby fields, will produce good fall and early spring food for hungry deer.

If you see a man with a white beard standing outside about this time of year, and gazing skyward, it probably means I'm either praying or scanning the skies for sign of rain clouds.

A bit of each may be needed late this summer and in the early fall. I know that my food plots are in better shape than most, but they can use a good drink, and the sooner the better.

Plant It Right And The Deer Will Come

Dave Richey (left) checks his clover plot.

More and more people are putting in food plots every year. Some people use them to attract deer so they can watch the animals from their house, and some people hunt over them. Either way, putting in a food plot is good for all wildlife in the area.

So what is a perfect food plot? Perfect means it grows well and provides extra nutrition.
This question was put to Bruce Grant of Rogers City. He’s become the expert at putting in large and small food plots in the northeastern part of the Lower Peninsula, in the so-called Club Country.

Food plots can grow well in northern counties if properly planted.

"What is a good plan for a year 'round food source?" Grant asks, before answering his own question. "Some type of plan that will carry our wildlife, such as deer and wild turkeys, through all four seasons and still provide an excellent food source during hunting season.

"We need a plan and must keep good records. We need to know what does and doesn't work. Remember, it takes a whole growing season to learn what may have went wrong."
Grant breaks down his food plots in various ways. Alfalfa/clover is high in food value and important for fawn development and antler growth. It is good in the spring, and most valuable in January and February. He does not cut his crop after Aug. 1 because he wants all the growth possible before cold weather and snow sets in. His alfalfa/clover fields provide a food source while annual plantings are getting started.

He wants his ground pH to be at 6.5-7.0, and warns people not to buy seed in the spring. It often is last year's inventory and may be outdated. Chicory is a good crop but requires 18 months to produce. It doesn't grow real well the first year. He also warns sportsman that a primary diet of pure clover can cause deer to bloat. He suggests mixing clover with orchard grass.

In early May, Grant works the fields he wants to plant by June 1. This could be a small patch of rape and turnips. His major spring planting will be a soybean, forage peas and brassica mix. It grows fast and makes an excellent summer and early fall mix. It also keeps the deer off new alfalfa/clover or chicory plantings. Soybeans and forage peas have a protein rating of 38 percent, much higher than corn.

He said that in early May he works all the fields he plans to plant, and lets them sit for two or three weeks before reworking the fields to be planted. He spreads fertilizer and seeds the same day in hopes of getting ahead of the weeds. He uses herbicides, but only on new fields to be established.

Fall plantings should be planted sometime in August, and the earlier the better.

Fall plantings, he said, begin in early August when oats, wheat or rye mature. He will disc them, spread 200 pounds of fertilizer per acre and let them grow. This is a soil building crop.

This crop also will provide excellent fall grazing. Oats and wheat planted in the fall, and handled in this manner, offer a place for spring fawns and turkey poults to hide. It also is a great food source.

Aug. 1-30 is when he does his fall plantings. He works his fields two to three weeks prior to planting for weed control. His major fall crop will be a brassica mix.

Dwarf Essex rape and purple top turnip are the magic crops for many hunting camps. It they are planted by the first of August, by October 1, there will be a very good crop of rape and turnips. Deer normally will not eat this crop until the first heavy frost. After that first frost, the animals won't stay out of it.

Kay Richey poses with a nice 12-point.

Grant said deer first eat the turnip bulbs and tops. They also feed in a brassica field until the ground freezes so hard that they can no longer dig or they have completely destroyed the field, usually by early January.

"Fall is a great time to plant a mix of winter wheat and oats," he said. "The oats come up first and fast. The first hard frost freezes out the oats but the wheat will be the first green crop next April.

Plant a mix of annuals and perennials for attractive food plots.

"A good plan includes both annuals and perennials. When you consider the cost to maintain perennials, like mowing, fertilizing and weed control, I believe the cost between annuals and perennials is a toss-up."

He is a strong believer in diversification. He says it is best to rotate crops between areas, and change what is planted in each field from year to year.

"Go plant it," he said. "The deer and turkeys will come. Diversify, maintain and rotate. Just don't expect a perfect food plot the first year. It often takes two years to get growing well. Hope for some rain and warm weather."

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Can We Solve Natural Resources Problems

Wild turkeys and whitetail deer may have severe die-offs in bad winters.

Guess what? Fishing and hunting isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, and it won't be the same 10 years in the future as it is now.

Fishing and hunting have become fragmented. How so? There are many ways to look at our natural resource problems, such as:

Years ago, a bear hunter bought a license and went hunting. Now, we have sound, scientific wildlife management, and that means more bears are being killed each year under a quota system than were ever killed under the old rules when anyone could buy a tag and hunt bruins.

Bear numbers and habitat are getting out of line and bruins are moving.

And it's OK that we have more bears than ever before, and the animals are moving into new territories, and management means determining the social carrying capacity of bruins. How many bears will people tolerate near their homes before they start squawking?

We have elk hunts now with some rather new rules. The rules only affect those who draw an elk tag from now on. I've applied for an elk tag ever since they had their first hunt in 1965. I've never been drawn, but instead of drawing names from those who have applied and have missed being picked, the DNR is now enforcing the newer rules.

And frankly, I'm not the only one who has applied and been denied. It means that hunters who drew an elk tag years ago can still draw another one. Does this make sense? Is it sour grapes on my part? No, it just means that me and many others are dissatisfied with a system that makes no sense. No one should ever draw another elk tag if they've already drawn one but that's not how it works these days.

The DNR has had ample opportunities to allow Region II turkey hunters to obtain some private-land turkey tags that would guarantee them a first- or second-season hunt for those applicants who own property up here, but pressure from other groups is louder than the mumbles of regional landowners. So, private-land turkey tags can be obtained in the Upper Peninsula in those counties where birds are hunted, and throughout southern Lower Peninsula counties, but again Region II landowners get the short and dirty end of the turkey-permit stick.

It appears the DNR is caving in to special interest groups. In case you haven't noticed, the special interest groups are in the face of the DNR biologists to get what they want, not what is fair to the general public.

Do you remember when Michigan had their statewide trout season opener on the last Saturday in April? And then, in hopes of streamlining our fishing seasons, the DNR allowed Lower Peninsula muskie, pike and walleye fishing to open at the same time as the trout season. There are many sport shops in the Lower Peninsula, and this ruling 10-15 years ago, denied sportsmen two opening days -- trout and walleye, etc., and simply lumped them all together.

Making senses of our state fisheries regulation, and our open and closed areas.

There is nothing streamlined about our fishing or hunting regulations. Some conservation officers say they must read the annual fishing or hunting digests time and again before trying to enforce the law. The language is stilted and cumbersome, and an attorney would probably have trouble defining what some of the DNRE legalese language really means. Some rules can make violators out of perfectly honest people. Make anything too difficult, and many give up for fear of unwittingly breaking the law.

Guess which one season most people prefer, and in resounding fashion? It isn't trout, which are harder to catch. Those people who once opened the trout season, and then on May 15, opened the walleye season years ago, jumped for joy. They got more than two more weeks of walleye fishing, and the sporting goods stores lost a wonderful chance to make money on the second opener, which is now gone.

The DNR currently backed into a corner by angry deer hunters, have been taking it on the chin. The DNR's little dog-and-pony show went on the road to discuss issues with deer hunters several years ago, and they were confronted by many angry people who were tired of not seeing deer and even more tired of horrible deer management policies.

Trust me, in many parts of the state, the chances of seeing and killing a deer is as high as drawing one of the aforementioned elk tags. Southern Michigan counties still have lots of deer, but such is not the case in the Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula.

These hunters were and still are clamoring for change, and rightfully so. I've backed the DNR for more years than I can remember, but things are changing ... and frankly folks, it's not for the better. Deer are plumb hard to find in the U.P., and things aren't much better in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula. But guess where the deer are: on private land in the southern Lower Peninsula counties. The big numbers aren't Up North, no matter what anyone says.

This deal over deer and deer hunting is far from over. The DNR needs to begin mandatory deer registration, and do away with the two-license deal. If they want to make more money, make it mandatory that hunters register their first deer before they can buy a second license. Hunters no longer believe the estimated Oct. 1 deer numbers, and they certainly don't believe the  final totals that show deer kills higher than what anyone believes, especially those sportsmen who do not see a whitetail buck during the combined hunting seasons.

Deer  regulations can be another tangled maze to understand. Can’t it be simple?

Last year was the first time in history that I can remember when the DNR came out and admitted the deer kill was down dramatically. Is this a harbinger of bad things to come? I suspect it is.

Now, in an effort to raise more money and to potentially alienate more people, the DNRE will be selling some permits for some of the species that are difficult to draw -- like the bull elk tags. If you've got enough money, you too can bypass the lottery system, and bid lots of money. This further tips the scales away from the ordinary sportsman, and will become the most direct cause of higher license fees and perhaps even fewer hunters.

And, while we are at it, it means the rich get what they want while the average sportsman get little or nothing. Go over to Germany and try to hunt. It will cost an arm and a leg, and a lengthy training session before you'll take your firearm into the woods.

Baiting and feeding was eliminated in the entire Lower Peninsula. In the meantime, baiting continues in the Upper Peninsula. Many people began cheating in the Lower Peninsula where they continued to bait. Does it make sense to have legal baiting in one part of the state but not in the rest? Not to me it doesn't.

Ask the DNR about the compliance rate for not baiting. They maintain the compliance rate is high, but bait is still being sold at local gas stations, and someone is certainly buying and using it.

And all of this mess because of one CWD disease in a private enclosure. Everyone must pay the price for that solitary animal. Did people resent this, and is it sound scientific management? It makes one wonder. The DNR and Department of Agriculture should get their collective acts together.

Deep snow hamper deer and winter turkey movements. Die-off can be high.

Have deer and turkeys suffered in the northern Lower Peninsula. You bet. Folks, where I live had more than 180 inches of snow two winters ago and more than 125 inches so far this season. I've seen very few gobblers and more than 160 inches last year, and only a few hen turkeys were seen this past winter. If the DNR's weird sense of having turkey feeding sites weren't so laughable, I'd cry.

We had fewer turkeys this spring than in the past, and we can look to a lack of a winter feeding program. Turkeys are big birds and burn a lot of energy launching into flight from the ground, but to expect birds to burn up even more fat reserves during winter months by flying up to an elevated position for corn, is silly.

Am I in a bit of a nasty mood? Naw! It’s just that Michigan hunters once stood tall and proud of their DNR, our deer management policies, and the fact that we had more combined deer hunters and man-days of deer hunting than any other state in the nation. That was something we were proud of.

We don't have much to be proud of now except in areas where there is a Quality Deer Management program. Hunters in such areas are now seeing more bucks and larger animals in some of those counties than ever before.

Folks, it goes against the grain of Mother Nature to try to maintain a status quo, year after year. It's impossible to accomplish, and management of our deer herd is sorely lacking in its focus.

I never see a wildlife biologist in the field, and in the words of a fine wildlife biologist who retired some years ago, "the new wildlife biologists don't have any dirt on their boots."

One might wonder if they even own a pair of boots. They spend little, if any time, in the field. They manage by building computer models, and I for one, know that this philosophy really isn't working.

And sadly, the biologists seldom want to talk with landowners and hunters, especially in northern counties. They know they'll get an ear full, and most of the anger generated their way these days is justified.

Perhaps we need a shake-up in state government.

One doesn't have to look hard or into a crystal ball to see that state government and some legislators have wrecked the economy, our jobs and our livelihood, and politicians have left taxpayers holding the bag ... once again.

This is the adult version of the old snipe hunt trick we played on other kids when we were young. It was funny back then, but nobody is laughing now because many of us are left holding that empty bag. It's difficult to compare deer hunting 20 years ago with what we now have because there can't be a comparison. It just gets worse every year.

And excuse me for not being politically correct. The DNR is no longer correct and proper. The proper alphabet soup name is now DNRE. The "E" is for Environment, and where the DNR once rolled easily off our tongue, adding an "E" doesn't seem to have done much for this once-proud state agency.

The people who are most visible to the public -- our conservation officers -- are often seen in the field but the same cannot be said for many of the DNRE's wildlife biologists. What a sad situation, especially when it comes to some of the newer wildlife biologists.

Fortunately, we still have some good wildlife biologists. Not many but some really good people still remain, but when they retire, who will we have to carry on proper wildlife management of our natural resources?

It makes one wonder.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors