The old ways are not always the best

(left) Scouting can lead to a big buck.  (right) This nice buck bedded in high grass.

Some things about whitetail hunting never change. Many deer hunters choose the same tree for a stand, walk the same trail into and out of a hunting area, and nothing changes.

Many will sit on the same stump, along the same deer trail, as they did 10 or more years ago. It's difficult for many sportsmen to break their old habits, and some hunters never try. It becomes a tradition to again hunt where a buck was killed sometime in the far distant past.

Hunters often wonder: If it was good 20 years ago, it will be a good spot now. Right?

Such a hunting attitude cause deer to go elsewhere. If possible move with them.

Maybe not. That tradition of returning, year after year, to the same old spot has probably saved the life of more bucks than poor shooting or a lack of preseason scouting.

Sadly, clinging to a traditional spot, even when it no longer is hot, is a lesson in frustration. It also leads to fiery claims by skunked hunters that the Department of Natural Resources' reports of deer numbers for whitetails are grossly inflated and way out of whack.

Perhaps this season is about time to cast aside the traditional old haunts, and think about trying a new location. Too many people never realize that food and habitat conditions can and will change, and if the landowner doesn't do something to make the land produce more food and offer more cover, the deer will move on. It's as simple as that.

Change is good but it also can be bad. Hunters must study the land, learn what natural forage is present, and nearby farmers plant that deer will eat. To change for the sake of change makes little sense. Hunters must grasp the philosophy that more food is a good thing.

Deer are animals of farmland and woodland. Granted, some deer live in deep forest and many live on farms, and that's a fact of life in this and many other states across the nation.

If recent hunting years have been unsuccessful, change your hunting ways.

If you agree that a new hunting location should be tried, where should hunters start in their search for a new spot to test their luck or skill?

Hunters can start with the DNR. They keep track of deer trends, and know which counties have the highest deer numbers and which ones produce the largest deer. The county extension agent often deals with farmers and other landowners, and they also can help gauge a new area.

Determine if you want to hunt the Upper or Lower Peninsula, but if you've read hunting reports elsewhere about deer hunting prospects, the U.P. is not the place to go. The Upper Peninsula has lots of wolves and fewer deer. The area with the most deer is south of an east-west line from Bay City to Grand Rapids.

Start asking questions. Talk with regional game biologists. Talk to conservation officers.

Learn which counties produce big bucks and lots of deer, and learn why deer numbers are so high in such areas. Determine the availability of state or federal lands nearby, but both state and federal land is often quite sparse and over-hunted. especially in the southern Lower Peninsula.

Spend time scouting two or three different areas. Determine which ones offer the best combination of land, cover, deer foods, bedding cover and access. Walk around the land, and check for well-used deer trails leading from bedding to feeding areas and back. Always be on the lookout for tiny thick covers like and over-grown and abandoned apple orchard. Tiny clumps of heavy brush on the top or side of a hill is often overlooked. Places where human foot traffic is tough are good spots to find deer.

Forget the U.P. Draw a line from Tawas City to Manistee, and hunt south of there.

Look for buck rubs and deer scrapes now. Check barbed wire fences for bits of clinging hair that indicate deer passing through the area.

Talk with landowners to determine their idea of hunting pressure in this spot. Often, in farmland, the major hunting pressure is from the landowner and his or her family and close friends.

Learn where nice whitetail lead bedding cover and how they move.

Consider the possibility of leasing hunting rights. Fees vary depending on length of the lease, property size, whether it is ideal or marginal deer habitat, and what it offers the hunter.

Good land should support good truck crops, mast and other natural forage. Sometimes, an area with some does and some bucks can lead to big bucks if they are given time to grow. If you find a good spot, practice crop rotation and try to build better ground cover.

Remember: deer need five things to grow big racks: three or more years to grow, good cover, good secure bedding areas, plenty of food and water. A sixth key is a lack of steady hunting pressure.

No one owes today's sportsman anything in terms of hunting private property. I manage my land to produce big bucks, and crop lands are rotated and some timber is cut. Doing so helps maintain good hunting, but it's a never-ending learning process to keep up with where whitetails travel after crop rotation and timbering takes place.

Finding a good spot means scouting, being in the right area and being smart.

I spend many hours scouting for good spots. Deer habits change, food supplies change, and hunting pressure can make deer seek quieter areas. A hunter doesn't know these things unless they spend time in the field on a regular basis.

Public lands feature too many hunters in narrowly confined locations, and the hunting pressure is far too high. Food supplies are far better on private land than state or federal lands. Private property holds deer, and, in many areas, it supports more whitetails than public land. For this reason it's easy to understand why more people lease hunting land even though the price of leasing acreage is rising.

Whether a hunter leases private land, hunts on public land, or manages to wangle an invitation from a landowner, scouting is a never-ending problem all year. Hunters who don't scout old land or new land run a major risk of not being successful.

Those who scout properly will never spook deer. Those that make numerous mistakes often chase the deer over onto the neighbors, but don’t expect them to thank you.

How to approach your hunting stand without spooking deer

A truck is the best way to approach a blind. Truck drops off and picks up hunters.

OK, folks, which is the best way to walk to your deer-hunting stand? Skulk along like you are trying to sneak up on the deer or just walk straight-forward without trying to sneak from one tree to the next?

In this country, opinions are like elbows: everyone has at least one. You may disagree with my thoughts, and I may take issue with yours, but we should each respect the other for the right to speak up for their choice.

My vote goes to grabbing the bow and walking directly to the blind. Climb into it, settle down, get ready for deer activity, and it seems to work for me. A deer that may observe me walking along, and ducking into a blind, isn't frightened by my actions. I do nothing to frighten the animal.

Walk with head up, don't look at deep, and don't appear to be sneaking along.

The deer may circle the area, pick up a tiny bit of scent, but not enough to spook them. It goes on about its business without being unduly alarmed. People on foot are common in the deer woods.

A sneaking or skulking hunter, one who tiptoes toward the hunting blind while darting from bush to bush, attracts far more attention from deer. An upright man may cause deer to run off 50 yards and stop in heavy cover to see what happens, and when nothing does, their fear disappears.

A hunter that acts suspicious, and causes deer to become alarmed, do themselves more harm than anything else. They literally drive deer away by their actions.

The sportsman who wishes to reach his blind as quickly as possible, should walk steadily (don't run or sneak), and when he reaches the ground blind, elevated coop or tree stand, should get into position with a minimum amount of noise, sit down and sit still.

Once the hunter reaches his hunting area without incident, disappears from sight into the blind or stand, he is soon forgotten. They don't seem to pose any danger to the deer, and the animals soon revert back to normal feeding patterns.

Climb into position in a tree or open the door to a ground blind. Don't make noise.

A moving pickup truck is always studied by nearby deer, and as long as it moves along steadily and the people inside stay inside when the truck stops, it doesn't unduly frighten the animals.

There are times when a truck can pull up to a blind, a hunter can ease out and get into the stand, and then the truck pulls away. Deer can't count. The truck pulls in, stops for a half-minute, and then moves on. Just don't slam the truck door or make noise getting your gear out of the truck bed.

People may think getting into a stand scares deer. It doesn't as long as everything acts natural and there are no loud and unexpected noises. It's noise that deer might hear a hunter make from inside the blind or from a tree stand that will drive deer crazy. An unexpected sneeze or a cough will trigger the alarm button.

Moving directly to the stand in a normal walking pace is the best way to get there. It's the straight-line rule between two points that is important; providing the sportsman doesn't have to walk through a bedding area.


If deer are seen on the way to the stand, don't stop to look at them, but keep moving forward without breaking stride. Hunters who stop to look at the deer will cause them to snort and alert all other deer in the area.

Ignore any deer and walk at a normal pace to the blind.

A person who ignores the deer and walks at a steady pace to his blind often cause the deer to bound away but they usually do not snort and spook.

This year, just to prove it to yourself, try walking right along without lifting your head or stopping to look at deer, and climb into the stand and sit still. If that doesn't convince you, try sneaking from bush to bush and tree to tree, stopping frequently, and skulking about, and see how often you get snorted at.

You'll soon learn what works best and what does not. It takes many things coming together to make a deer hunt end with a shot at a good buck.

It makes little sense to do anything that may draw attention to your presence on stand. Just walking steadily to a blind makes a great deal of sense to me.

Hunters who brag about never missing

My wife with a nice Wyoming pronghorn. The author with a nice mulie buck

 

It was more than 20 years ago, and a friend and I were hunting mule deer on a ranch in northeastern Wyoming. There were some good bucks on that land, and I shot a dandy mule deer as did my friend.

A few hunters on the ranch were there only for antelope. One was the sort that let his mouth overload his back-side, and he told everyone that he never missed a shot. Not once, not ever. He was Dead-eye Dick.

Such people irritate me almost as much as those who say they always shoot bigger critters than anyone else. Most are obnoxious louts that many people dislike having in a hunting camp. I occasionally hassle them, if for no other reason than they deserve it.

I dislike being around people who brag about shooting game.

 

"Is that a fact?" I asked. "I'm frankly in awe of anyone who can shoot game and never miss. Do you mind if I shoot some photos? It would make a good magazine feature, and later tonight I'll do an interview. For now, I just need some photographs of you in action. OK with you?"

“You bet, kid," he said. "I'll show you how it's done. I pull the trigger, and the 'lope hits the dirt. You'll have to be quick to catch me in action."

"I'll try to keep up with you," I said, knowing that he didn't realize someone was jerking his chain. "I'll do the best I can."

We drove around until we spotted several antelope, and the gent said we could get closer on foot. He said the biggest buck would go 15 inches or a bit more, and that is what he wanted. That and good cutters.

The buck was a dandy but bragging put the hunter in a bad spot.

He and I stepped out of the truck, got a roll of ground between us and the antelope, and I dogged his tracks. We covered a quarter-mile, and he cautiously peeked over the ridge. The antelope were 125 yards away, staring off toward the pickup truck.

He sat down, got his shooting sticks situated, and I was right behind him. He eased the rifle fore-end into the sticks, snuggled up tight to the rifle stock, peered through the scope, and whispered "watch this, kid."

I was watching the buck antelope and shooting with a telephoto lens. The buck pronghorn never moved.

"You missed," I whispered to him.

"Nope," he said. "He'll topple over soon."

"Better shoot again. I can see him through the lens, and he doesn't know where the shot came from. You missed him. Shoot again."

He did, and with the same result. Braggarts are a pain, and I needled him a bit. "Hey, partner, you flat-out missed that antelope. Try it again."

Ragging on the guy was easy, but then, he'd set himself up for it.

 

By now, he's ticked at me, mad at himself for bragging up his ability to shoot, and aimed and fired a third shot. The antelope wheeled, looked our way, and put it in overdrive.

"Missed again, bub," I advised. "They're gone."

"They will pop up on that rise and I'll try again," he said. The rise was 400 yards away, and I knew the antelope would be moving fast by the time it got there.

Up they came, and he shot, and the buck antelope dropped. It was hit in the back end. We jogged over to the animal, and he shot it at close range to mercifully end its misery.

"Must be tough missing those three shots when you've never missed before," I teased. "You had me going there for a bit. You were just putting the shuck on me, weren't you? That last shot ruined most of the steaks, but then, antelope are pretty small critters. Right?"

He wouldn't talk to me, and left camp as soon as we returned. It's what bragging does to people who can't back up their words.

A friend of mine missed two whitetail bucks today. No excuses, he flat missed. But then, I've seen him miss once or twice in the past 25 years, and I've also seen him make some almost unbelievable shots.

A buck came out in front of him at over 200 yards during a drive, and he missed that buck with both shots. It crossed a nearby road, and everyone in his hunting party searched for blood or hair. Both were misses, and he'd made those kinds of shots many times in the past.

On the next drive he spotted another buck, shot once, and missed again. They checked for blood or hair, and it was another clean miss.

"Hey, I just plain missed," he said. "I've got no excuses. For whatever reason, I missed, plain and simple."

I had gone many years without missing a whitetail with a bow, and casually mentioned the fact to a friend. Sure enough, that was the night I missed an easy shot. Bragging is never a good idea.

However, there is a big difference between these two men. One was a loud mouth and braggart, and the other admitted to his misses, just like I did just now. The first one got needled hard because he had bragged himself up, and the other man and I deserved the sympathy we got.

We've all missed deer in the past, and may very well miss again in the future. It's a part of deer hunting, and those who say they never miss have either shot very little game or is a liar ... or, most likely, a combination of the two.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

The Richey Twins on the outdoor trail

George with a 30-pound-plus king salmon.

It was a nice day and it felt good to be cleaning steelhead rods and reels. This job seemed better than working on the computer.

I was puttering with a reel with 4-pound line when a memory jolted me like an electric shock. It was about my late brother George, and he was coming down the Little Manistee River years ago fighting a rampaging steelhead.

"Try and get a net under this guy," he hollered. "I hooked him a quarter-mile up-river, but he's riding the current broadside. Stick your net in the water, and I'll put him head-first into it."

This was the moment of truth with this big steelhead.

My net was pulled from under my belt behind my back. The fish was 10 feet upstream as my net went into the river, and George leaned back to get the fish up on the surface, and at just the right time, he dropped the tip and the fish dove into the net. My sole job was to lift it out of the water.

"Good dip," he said, as we waded ashore. The steelhead, a red-slashed male with bright cheeks and gill covers, was 16 pounds of broad-beamed raw power. George worked the No. 4 wiggler fly out, eased the big guy into the river, and with a splash he was gone. Our trips came and went like that fish.

Several years before George died in 2003, I took him caribou hunting in northern Quebec. From home to Montreal, I told him there were two things you don't do: never shoot the first caribou bull seen, and never shoot a cow caribou. They do have very small antlers.

We hunted together, and I ran him down the sprawling lake in a square-stern canoe with a small outboard motor, pointed to the top of a tall and open "baldie," a treeless hill-top where long-range visibility was superb.

He would use binoculars, and study any caribou seen. My plan was to scout the lake's south end. I found an area where caribou had traveled, and the trail looked like a cattle path. I was looking for a good downwind spot to sit when a shot rang out.

It could only be George. The others in our party were far to the north. I returned to the canoe, motored over to where I'd dropped him off, and saw him trudging down the hill, carrying something. The closer he got, the more it looked like a cow caribou head.

"Didn't I say not to shoot a cow?" I asked. He bowed his head in mock shame, and said: "But I'll have the biggest cow caribou rack in camp."

George admitted shooting a cow caribou and took the razzing.

The other hunters teased him about it, and he made up for it by shooting a very nice bull two days later. The razzing didn't bother him, and he had fun.

Another time we hunted Le Chateau Montebello, a famous Quebec resort. We were there to hunt whitetails, and our guide said we'd be lucky to see a deer. If we did, he said, it would be a shooter.

The guy put on one-man drives, and I've worked deer drives for many years. I can tell good drives from bad, and this guy was an expert. He walked softly, yipped like a beagle puppy occasionally, and never hurried the deer. They just moved slowly ahead of him.

Far off, on the third day, I heard him yip softly to let us know he was coming. It was a large area to watch, but 10 minutes later a white-antlered 8-pointer eased from the woods and stood, side-lit by the sun against a pine tree. It was a beautiful sight.

The buck came out, turned away from me, and I took the close shot.

He turned to look the opposite way, and I slowly raised the rifle and shot. He went down, and George almost beat me to the buck. It was the only deer we saw, but he wasn't disappointed. He loved listening to the wolves howl at night, and was happy that one of us took a good buck.

"Good shot, good buck, and where's the guide?" He asked. "This buck weighs well over 200 pounds, and we will need help moving it."

The guide showed up, we boiled a kettle for tea with our sandwiches, and walked four miles to his truck. It is the only whitetail I've taken in Quebec, but it's important because we shared the hunt in a unique Canadian location.

Neither of us have ever been competitive, but years ago before I wrote the first story about pink salmon runs in Upper Peninsula streams, George was with me to share what might be an adventure. We didn't know if we'd find the humpback salmon or not.

We fished pink salmon in the morning and hunted bears in the afternoon, and soon found fish in the Big Huron River. They usually spawn on odd-numbered years and we found hordes of them on the first gravel bar above the river-mouth.

We'd guided river fishermen for 10 years, and began catching pinkies on flies. An orange fly tied on a No 6 hook produced best, and they were some of George's tried-and-true original steelhead and salmon patterns. The fish weren't big but were aggressive.

Dueling it out for a Michigan state pink-salmon record.

Here's another one," he said. "I'm taking it to the store to weigh it. I figure he'll be just over two pounds. There's no state record for pink salmon so let's set one."

Back he came, and it weighed 2 lbs., 3 oz., and so I tried to beat him. Mine weighed 2 lbs., 4 oz. The next day we caught fish of 2 lbs., 5 oz, and then 2 lbs., six oz. On the last day George caught one that weighed 2 lbs., 7 oz. and it became a state record that stood for several years.

I was tickled for him, and he got a Master Angler award, and the mounted fish hung in the DNR offices in Lansing for years before his record was broken. He didn't care. He'd had his "15 minutes of fame."

And that was the neat thing about brother George. He could go with the flow, be happy doing anything outdoors, and greeted each day with a smile on his face. He had the capacity to make others feel good and feel as if they were the most important person in his life on that day.

He was game for almost anything. I set up a bear hunt in the Upper Peninsula one year, and although he had hunted bruins near St. Helens, he wanted an Upper Peninsula bruin.

We hunted near Marquette and near the Laughing Whitefish River, and it was there on a nice September day that he took a good animal.

It walked in, stopped near the edge of the swamp, stood up to survey the bait site, and slowly dropped to all fours. The bear was cagey and moved slowly to circle the bait. There was no wind, and scenting conditions were bad, but the bruin was cautious.

After catching pink salmon, George shot a nice black bear.

George could see the animal at times, watched the bracken ferns move as it walked through them, but could never see enough for an accurate shot. Finally, apparently satisfied that all was well, the bear strolled slowly into the bait site and stood facing him.

He waited until it turned and offered a broadside shot, and one shot from his 30-06 took out the heart and lungs, and broke the off-side shoulder. His bear weighed a bit over 200 pounds, and it was a wonderful animal for him.

George and I shared 64 years of great fishing and hunting adventures, and I made sure he could accompany me on some of these fishing and hunting trips. Summer is a great time to remember, and these fond memories of the Richey twins on the outdoor trail will always stick with me.

Perhaps one day soon, I'll tell of many other fishing and hunting trips where he and I had wonderful times outdoors, together and sharing our common love for the outdoors. He was a great companion, and I certainly miss him.

Camera or Bow: Which is best?

Photographing wild whitetail bucks requires as much skill as hunting them.

It was one of those great nights a few tears ago when the deer started moving early on a west wind, and continued filtering through my area until after dark. It presented me with a dilemma.

Should I shoot a buck with my compound bow or with a camera? The new Canon camera with a 300mm lens seemed to beckon hard and long for my use, and because it is newer than the bow, I left the bow in its case at home.

The first deer came along the edge of a funnel between two tag alder thickets. It was an adult doe, and lacking anything better to do, I watched her come for 200 yards. She stopped once, looked back, and hauled butt toward me and she was weaving in and out of the tags.

Knowing where to set up for taking good photos works just as well when hunting.

Her body language told me all I needed to know. She was trying to stay ahead of a trailing buck, and she squirted out in front of me. She stopped just out into the field, stood momentarily, and kept moving.

Two minutes later, as silent as a shadow, came the 8-point. He had five-inch brow tines, and had all the makings of a good buck with one more year on him. I clicked off several photos as he stepped out of the snowy alders where she had run out, and he trotted head-down to the place where she had stopped 15 yards from me, and came to a broadside halt.

I got another photo as he came to a stop, and he apparently didn't hear the camera shutter clunk, but off he went in hot pursuit. Then minutes later two does and four button bucks and doe fawns passed, and they too were looking over their shoulder. I clicked a few photos of them passing by, and then all was silent and still for several minutes.

The wind was switching from southwest to west to northwest, and back again. My stand was perfect for the wind, and it gave me a good view of the funnel these deer were using. They often would step out into the field rather than cross the two-track trail in heavy cover.

There's not a lot of traffic down this trail, and my stand was 150 yards from it. The deer seem to favor a more open view of the area rather than to be caught in heavy cover with a car coming. I found it a bit odd, but it seemed to be a local quirk of these animals.

A knowledge of deer habits is very important when shooting photographs.

A half-hour passed, and I could see a few deer across a wide-open field, and those animals were heading elsewhere. They weren't heading in my direction.

Fifteen minutes before shooting time ended, a small doe was seen being chased by a spike, and she came busting down through the funnel, jumped out of the tag alders and never slowed down near me. The spike had twin six-inch daggers growing out of his head, and it's possible the doe was more concerned about rough stuff with those spikes than being bred by him.

A minute later a pair of year-and-a-half-old bucks, one a 7-point and his buddy had 8 points, walked past my stand just inside the brush. I snapped some photos of them, and they were on their way.

A friend was coming to pick me up, and I stayed in my stand to await his arrival. His vehicle would spook away any deer, and it would help me avoid scaring off any deer within sight of my stand.

Having a friend walk or drive in to pick you up works great. They will be gone before you can get down.

Shooting light came and went, and I stowed my camera and sat quietly with binoculars in my hands. Two antlerless deer were seen 200 yards away, moving south and away from me, and as I sat waiting patiently, a buck slipped out of the brush and paused, 15 yards away.

I could see white atop his head, and what appeared to be a goodly amount of it. This buck came from out of nowhere, and he wasn't seen until he was spotted standing there. He was upwind of me, and where he paused was where the doe had stopped.

He sniffed around, sorted out the odors of the doe, the other bucks and fawns, and headed into the tag alder funnel and disappeared from sight. He may have went north or south, but it was too dark to tell.

My buddy soon arrived, picked me up, and we discussed what photo ops each of had had. He had seen more deer than me, and he didn't have a bow with him either.

Perhaps, another evening will be a bow night. I'm not terribly picky, but I'm always looking for something great. I may have to settle for an antlerless deer or two this year, but I don't care. I've taken too many smaller bucks, and I'd just as soon take a doe as a small rack.

I'm not a trophy hunter. I'm a realist, and would rather see those small bucks grow into big bucks. A doe eats as well or better than a buck, and in the meantime, I can always shoot photos.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

I mourn the game birds we’ve lost. What’s next?

Hunting game birds in the fall is great fun but we must protect what’s left.

Gone, at least from Michigan, are some birds we once hunted. Hunters did not drive these game birds away nor did they kill them off, but humans and their intrusion into the birds' backyards did the job, quickly and quite effectively.

I remember 40 years ago in a hill-top tent blind between Lake City and  Marion, along highway M-66, and watching the prairie chicken drumming grounds within easy sight of the highway.

The drumming grounds is where prairie chickens once gathered in the spring, and the males would puff up and  their air sacs would inflate, and they would make a most distinctive noise. The cocks would dance for the hens, and little did I know as I watched and photographed the primitive prairie chicken mating dance from the small tent, that one day in less than 10 years they would be gone forever from this state.

Pheasants are fairly common but sharptails & quail  have low numbers/

Prairie chickens are now extinct, as they have been for about 30 years. The areas where these open prairie birds would dance in the early spring dawn, would soon be gone as well.

A man I know used to have a lek (prairie chicke dancing ground) near his home on M-66. He said the fault wasn't the result of over-hunting but of dwindling habitat and aerial predation.

"Once hawks and owls became protected from harm by the Federal government," he said, "the days of listening to the thunder of drummiHunting game birds in the fall is great fun. We must protect what’s left.

ng prairie chickens were numbered. We still saw a few in 1975, but I believe they were declared extinct by 1977 or 1978."

He said the noisy spring birds were easy prey for late-cruising owls and early rising hawks. The birds would dance out in the open, and an ambitious aerial predator found easy pickings. The old-timer said that as soon as the chickens were gone, the hawks and owls foraged heavily on what pheasants remained in the area until they too were gone except for the occasional rooster or hen.

Where once ringneck pheasants were common in his area, and throughout much of the middle and southern counties, their days also were numbered. He occasionally hears a crowing rooster pheasant, but no longer hunts the few that remain on his farm.

Another bird is finding it hard to hang on to its small pockets of native cover. As more people move in, and carve up old fields for lots to sell, more and more of the natural cover of the sharptail is disappearing across the Upper Peninsula.

The last time I hunted sharptails was 17 years ago in Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula near Pickford. Two of us walked in behind a staunch pointer, holding steady on point, snuffling a nose filled with the heady scent of sharptails.

Sharpies are fun to hunt but will fly three-quarters of a mile after flushing.

The birds flushed, and I took a bird flying to the right, swung through it, and with a swinging gun barrel, touched off one shot. To my surprise, two birds fell with just one shot.

Sharptails are slowly losing their wide-open habitat, and when flushed now, they often cackle and soar for one-half to three-quarters of a mile, clucking as they glide to a soft landing. Try to catch up, and they will flush again, well out of shotgun range, and it's easy to walk miles trying to catch up with sharpies that, once flushed, get airborne when the dog and hunter are far out of shotgun range.

The bobwhite quail seems to be hanging on in some southern counties. Their habitat also is shrinking as more and more land is used for home foundations, buildings, paved parking lots, and other areas no longer capable of producing good wild bird cover.

I've shot but one quail in this state although I delight in hunting these quail-birds in Alabama and Georgia where the birds are still fairly common. Our birds continue to fight for the weakest of toe-holds. Cold winters with lots of snow, ice-covered spring fields and fence rows, and poor food supplies can lead to a season closure on these gallanat little game birds.

And, it's easy for those hunters who have never hunted quail --the gentleman's game bird -- to take too many from a covey. Those who know better will take just one or two birds from a covey. A covey rise is one of the greatest experiences in the life of an ardent upland bird hunter.

Woodcock and ruffed grouse are back but prairie chickens are gone forever.

Many Michigan hunters lament what they perceive to be an ever-decreasing number of ruffed grouse and woodcock. The birds are still there, and grouse seem to be in their upward cycle and woodcock numbers are slowly making a come-back from a downturn in numbers several years ago.

The fact is these birds are still here but are becoming increasing difficult to find. Many, like deer, have learned the better food supplies are found on private land rather than  state land.

I know where grouse hold and the tag alder runs where woodcock leave chalky-colored droppings behind. My idea of hunting them is to hunt them but I usually limit myself to one killing shot per year. It's fairly easy to do with only one good eye, and besides, if the bird isn't killed, chances are we can play at being the hunter and hunted another day with very similar results.

That pleases me very much. Seeing and hunting these game birds doesn't always mean killing them. It's just a good excuse to give a bird dog something to live for.

Title: I mourn the game birds we’ve lost. What’s next?

Tags: ((Dave. Richey, Michigan, outdoors, prairie, chickens, are, gone, grouse, pheasants, quail, woodcock. fairly, plentiful))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Remembering past ecological problems.

Keep Asian carp out of Lake Michigan to protect salmon & other game fish.

Mind you, being 72 isn't really old when you consider my father lived to be 94. He saw so many new and exciting things happen during his lifetime although he seldom appeared terribly excited by any of them.

I've been witness to so many changes in our fisheries. Many years ago, Lake Erie was an open sewer. A dumping ground for every thing from the alphabet soup of DDT, PCB and other chemicals to  fecal matter that flowed into our state waterways.

One of Ohio's rivers was so polluted that it occasionally caught fire. Hardly a laughing matter then but now the river produces good steelhead and walleye catches.

Forty years ago, our waters were terribly polluted but much of that has changed.

Lake Erie has cleaned itself up, thanks to Michigan, Ohio and Ontario cracking down on industrial pollution and sludge. Lake Erie may not be quite the walleye hole it was 20 years ago, but it beats whatever comes in second-place.

Fishing on the Detroit River was banned because of heavy metals, but some of the old river rats who fished it daily and ate walleyes several times a week seemed healthy enough after eating high-level meals of walleyes for many years.

It was about 30 years ago since the Tittabawassee River near the dam below Dow Chemical plant in Midland was shut down because of high levels of contaminants.

And then, as the lakes starting cleaning themselves up, the state began issuing warnings about eating some fish. The state produced inserts for our fishing license regulations telling us where the highest levels of contaminants were found and what amounts of fish could be eaten. It is now presented in booklet form.

They claimed many game fish species were too contaminated to eat. The paper I worked for, after lengthy discussions with the editorial staff, finally agreed to let me conduct specific tests on Lake Erie walleyes caught near the Detroit Edison plant near Lake Erie. The tests would cost over $2,000.

This would be a test of fish that were cleaned as anglers would clean them rather than as the state Health Department conducted their tests: by grinding up the head, skin, fins, entrails, tail and all edible flesh, and use that mush for their tests.

The Detroit News, and I as their staff outdoor writer, conducted tests on walleyes.

Anglers usually fillet their catch, cut off the belly fat and the fat along the spine, and the dark flesh along the lateral line. Our task was to catch 20 walleyes with five fish each in four size categories: 15-17 inches, 18-20 inches, 21 to 24 inches, and fish larger than 24 inches.

They had to be cleaned on a hard, nonporous  surface, and the knife and cleaning area had to be completely disinfected before each fish was cleaned. It was a rather laborious testing regimen.

The late Al Lesh of Warren volunteered for the job of helping me catch these fish, and it took two days to catch our 20 fish (we didn't want to rush this test so caught five fish each of both days). Our problem was finding enough fish in the 15-17-inch range for testing. It turns out we traded eight and nine-pound fish with other anglers to obtain the smaller ones. They thought we were pretty dumb.

Our testing of walleyes was done on cleaned fish, not whole fish.

The cleaning was conducted  under very strict guidelines, and the flesh of boned, filleted and skinned fish were taken to the testing facility in Lansing. The test took nearly two weeks, and the results blew the Health Department's testing report apart.

The four size groups of walleyes we caught all tested so far below the established and acceptance levels that, in some cases, there was no measurable amount on heavy metal or alphabet pollution to be found.

The difference could be attributable to just one thing. We cleaned our fish the way 99.9 percent of the anglers do. We filleted the fish, cut away rib bones, skinned the fish, and removed back and belly fat as well as the dark meat along the lateral line.

The state testings were conducted with whole fish. Admittedly, a few Oriental groups will eat the entire fish, but very few anglers do. I don't know anyone who eats the whole fish.

Numbers, such as those of the alphabet group of chemicals and the heavy metals like lead and mercury, can be interpreted however the test facilities choose to do it. They chose to grind up the entire fish, and we chose to use cleaned and boned fillets.

And now, we are forced to deal with all the invasive species that hitch-hike a ride with freighter from central Europe who  choose to dump their ballast water in our lakes. We cleaned up much of one mess just in time to make way for the zebra mussel invasion and other critters that would soon follow.

I can remember when many lakes and streams were clean. Most of them are clean now, but we've got the zebra mussels to thank for that. No one knows where that will lead in the years to come.

It makes me shudder to think what may need to be done to solve the future issue of gobies, rusty crayfish and zebra mussels, to name a few. We may be in for a bigger fight unless our govenment cracks down with an iron fist on those foreign boats that continue to pollute our state waters.

Asian carp and related species must be kept out of Lake Michigan.

And that means keeping the Asian carp out of Lake Michigan. It continues to astound me when it takes the Federal and State governments years to study a problem, such as the Asian carp in the Chicago sanitary canal, and then we must worry about carp that could prove to be an even greater problem.

Time will tell when it comes to proving the incompetence of some governmental agencies and their willingness to make accurate decisions. I'm not optimistic about the Asian carp in our waters.

Title: Remembering past ecological problems.

Tags: ((Dave, Richey, Michigan, outdoors, heavy, metals, ABC, chemicals, mussels, gobies, rusty, crayfish, Asian,  carp))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

I'm No Whiz With Tools.

This is the boat and motor that generated this story of my mechanical genius. This time it's my children with me.

I'm sure you've heard the stories of fools and tools or the ones about bear cubs and boxing gloves. They've got nothing on me.

There are many things I may or may not be, but handy with tools is not one of them. My tolerance level for all things mechanical is very low. In fact,  I detest machinery that doesn't work as it was designed to do.

Mind you, me and tools are a dangerous combination. The height of my anger and frustration levels are off the charts when things stop working for no apparent reason.

I’m a 10-thumbed klutz when it comes to mechanical things and tools.

I buy a car, and it's expected to run. We do our part by getting oil changes every 3,000 miles. We take our rides in for scheduled maintenance, and put new tires on long before the need-to-do-so phase arrives. That means I expect the silly thing to work properly.

So one day last winter I jumped into what passes for my fishing car or hunting car (as the seasons dictate) and expected my battered old ride to move out of the way of the snow blower, and it wouldn't start. So what if it hasn't been started in a month. I demand product reliability.

I seldom really get angry but a personal weakness is when an expensive item stops working for no apparent reason. You've seen those film clips where a person takes a sledge hammer to his vehicle.

That could be me but I'm smart enough to realize my problem, and try to act my age and control my anger. But, the frustration level is always there, simmering just below the surface. I've never done anything really drastic or stupid, but the temptation is always present when mechanical items prove obstinate and unreliable.

I have an outdoor-writing buddy in Colorado, and he'd had enough of a recalcitrant portable computer. He propped it up on its back side, drew a red bulls-eye on the cover, and shot three rounds from his elk rifle throught it. It didn't help it run any better but now he know why it doesn't, and it releived his frustration level. He hopes the photos he took will help keep the other equipment in good running order.

I’d finally met someone who had the guts to do some of the things I wanted to do.

I told him I doubted his method of reasoning with electronics would prove beneficial in the future, but he's now content and a joy to be around ... as long as his equipment works as it should.

Never had the urge to be a shade-tree mechanic or a person who makes a living wrenching. I know what hammers and screwdrivers are, have a minor working knowledge of a hack saw and wood saw, but beyond that, my knowledge level for using tools falls apart. I suspect my knowledge level is on the same plane as my want-to-know level.

Once, far from port on Lake Michigan, the outboard motor conked out. My buddy didn't even know what a screwdriver was so he was of no help. We'd boxed a number of chinook salmon, and all of a sudden the motor died.

I was smart enough to have two batteries aboard. One to start the outboard, and another to operate my marine electronics and electric downriggers.

I knew it had to one of two things (hopefully): it was either electrical problem or we'd run out of gas. The gas was no problem, and the gas line from tank to motor was fine. I was getting a spark, but still it wouldn't start.

Stupid me, I ran down one battery trying to start the engine. Failing that because the battery soon ran out of juice, I switched batteries. That other battery soon ran down without turning over the motor. About now I was getting a little cranky and buddy moved away from me,

Now, I had a 50 horsepower Evinrude on the stern, and decided to try hand-cranking the motor.

Ever try to start a big outboard engine with a starter rope by hand? No?

Well, don't. I was in my 30s, in good shape, and began pulling. Then the rope would be wrapped around fly wheel (at least that's what someone told me it was), and it would be pulled again. Nothing happened. I thought I’d have a heart attack and die on the spot.

We drifted aimlessly along on a soft breeze as other boaters steered clear of us, apparently thinking we were fighting a fish. The engine sat idle, and we drifted some more. I thought about putting a line out, but we weren't moving fast enough to make even a FlatFish work.

No power meant the marine radio wouldn't work. Several hours into our drift, a buddy's boat was spotted and I waved him over. He came along side, and I explained our predicament. He asked about a fuse.

Fuse? What fuse? Boat motors have fuses? He explained that engines indeed have fuses, for what reason I've forgotten, so he jumped aboard, pulled off the engine cover, and showed me my fuse. You got it. It was blown. Why? I have no clue.

He jumped back into his boat, located his spare fuses, and came back aboard. He took out the bad fuse, put in a new one, and then he took something out of his boat I'd never seen in any motorized vessel.

A pair of jumper cables were attached from his boat battery to mine. I turned the key and the engine roared to life. It was an amazing thing.

This business of engines was all rather baffling to me. The lessons learned from that episode forced me to have the right fuses aboard, and when all else fails, check the fuse. And to carry jumper cables, and not be stupid.

The next day I bought a pair of jumper cables for my boat.

There have been numerous times when I could put a capital S on the word stupid because of some mechanical thing I did wrong. And some of those dumb stunts cost me plenty of fishing time and money.

There are other examples of mechanical things in my life that have gone wrong but I refuse to belabor my ignorance any further. I buy a car, and put gas in one end, oil in the other, and when the ignition key is turned, I expect to hear a running motor.

My boat problem was solved by someone else, and I suspect the car problem also will be fixed by someone else once we get it started and take it in for service. Chances are the problem is one of those head-slappers where I should have known what to do but didn't.

Duh!

Title: I'm No Whiz With Tools.

Tags: ((dave, richey, Michigan, outdoors, batteries, dead, electrical, fuses, outboard, motor, jumper, cables, salmon, stupidity))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Literary riches from other writers.

Ben East of Holly, Michigan (left) and Gordie Charles, two key outdoor writers.

Studying the history and high points of a person's lengthy literary career can be an informing and a somewhat behind-the-scenes look into that person's life.

It has been my great good fortune to obtain a great and wonderful gift from my longtime friend, Gordie Charles, of Traverse City after his death. This gentle and kind man was a rare breed; he gave more than he took from his outdoor life, and I've tried to emulate him.

A few years ago he told his  wife, Dorothy, that he wanted me to have his files and papers from over 55 years of outdoor writing in Michigan and South Dakota. Ten years before that, my late friend Ben East of Holly, Michigan, made the same gracious gift to me after his death.

Gordie Charles and Ben East donated their files to me to use after they died.

Each man left behind a treasure trove of Michigan history concerning fishing and hunting in this state. After having sifted through it, and gathered what seemed important from a written standpoint, it is my task to make a contribution of the remaining material to the Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor in their respective names.

Ben East kept voluminous files, notes and published book manuscripts and newspaper articles. Gordie Charles did much the same. All but three file drawers of East's material has been donated, and much of Gordie's files have been donated to the same research library.

Gordie's files covered the gamut of fishing and hunting, as well as resources management, in this state. Reading through his notes, and his newspaper columns, adds still another dimension to this multi-talented man.

Charles fought the good fight against destruction and oil exploration up north.

He was well known for his head-slapping puns and corny jokes, but he also was a man deeply in love with the outdoors. In fact, he was so captivated by the beauty of nature that he vowed as a teen-ager to write a future column for the Traverse City Record-Eagle newspaper.

That he not only did that, and did a wonderfully fine job of it for many years, he also syndicated a newspaper column to 50-some state weekly newspapers, wrote magazine articles and still had time to research and write six books.

How does one measure value? If going through these old files of men like Charles and East, there is nothing of a monetary value to be found. What is valuable, though it is not tangible, is a close-up look at the history both men helped record for the enjoyment and protection of Michigan's natural resources.

I found numerous things in Gordie's files that have been returned to the Charles family such as family photos that had been lost or misplaced. What isn't needed by the family, or by me at the moment, was donated to the Bentley Historical Library.

Some files, from a historical viewpoint, are rather important to me at this time. I have permission from both families to keep these files until my death at which time all of my files (and theirs) may be donated to the same research facility.

East’s work produced a National and State park and water rights statewide.

There they will join the files of Charles, East, Harold (Opie) Titus, of Traverse City, an editor for Field and Stream magazine; Jack VanCoevering, past outdoor writer for the Detroit Free Press; and Corey Ford, an U of M alumnus and well known outdoor writer and the author of many books.

These files now give me a look at what has gone before. It allows me to determine the thinking of the Department of Conservation, the forerunner of today's Department of Natural Resources & Environment, about topics that affect our resource management and the fish and game we  seek.

It allows me to learn about different fish plantings that were tried but failed, such as the grayling and kokanee salmon. They let me know what the collective thinking of sportsmen were in earlier generations, and let me compare them to what the current thoughts are. I even found the deed and abstract for Ben East's home and property, and promptly  returned it to Ben's late wife, Helen, so she could sell the family home. That was an unexpected find.

It also enables me to determine the effectiveness of biologists from an earlier period against those of today. The differences, in most cases but with some rare exceptions, indicate that earlier fisheries and wildlife biologists were in much closer contact with sportsmen than they are now.

I sifted slowly through Gordie Charles' files for nearly a month with the blessings of his late wife, Dorothy and  their children, and some files have gone on to Ann Arbor. Others will go after I've spent more time examining them.

Gordie Charles was, as all outdoor writers should be: a man with an inquisitive mind, a willingness to dig deep for a story, and to put our resources ahead of everything else, especially politics. The stacks of correspondence lauding his work far outweighed the few crank letters sent by people with some imaginary axe to grind.

I see Gordie as a man who was born at the right time to do what had to be done to help protect our resources. I, for one, appreciate his hard work and the unique genius of this man who spent his adult life writing so that others could enjoy and better understand the outdoors.

Going through old files, and studying such history, must make me an historian. Hopefully, it also will make me a better writer ... even after plying my trade for 44 years.

It's when we stop learning that we stop being effective outdoor communicators. I am still learning, thanks to these gifts from other outdoor writers who helped to pave the way of today's outdoor communicators.

Title: Literary riches from other writers.

Tags: Dave, Richey, Michigan, outdoors, Gordie, Charles, Ben, East, fishing, hunting, environment, fish, game, fur))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors