Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Michigan Hunters, how did you do?

My 180 UP acres in the big woods of northern Menominee County looks like deer heaven on an aerial photo, or when you walk through it, but deer numbers are about 10% of what they were back in 1995 when I bought the property.

Where I saw 25 deer a day in the late 90's, I am seeing 2 or 3. The other night I actually had 7 come through and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I have only seen one buck, a 3-point. There are a few small bucks on camera and one big bodied 7-point that showed up one night at 3AM and then disappeared.

It has been a discouraging season. The extremely severe winter of 2013/2014 killed a lot of deer, but they were way down before the winter started. The weather, diseases, coyotes, bobcats, eagles, cougars, bears, wolves, cars, poachers and crop damage shooters all get their share before the hunters hit the woods.

Our area has been logged in the past few years and there is quite a bit of new growth that should have improved conditions for the herd.

I have NEVER seen any detectable benefit from the "Let 'em go, let 'em grow" philosophy. We let small bucks go on their way every year, but never see them all grown up the next year. I believe that the breeding bucks are the first to die in a bad winter, because they have run all of their fat off chasing does, just before the cold weather hits.

Our hunting pressure has steadily fallen over the years and there are few young people in the deer camps around this area. It will be a minor miracle if I am able to take a legal buck on my property this season, despite spending the summer planting clover and rye and doing everything I can to improve the deer habitat on the place.

But I'll keep trying...