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IIRC, deer and pats utilize clear cuts for chow for about 7 years.

Geographically the east UP is very different from the western UP which has two notably large ranges, the Huron & the Porcupine among others.

The old farts are dying off, but the kids coming up from below to take their place is where the deficit lies--jmho... Most every young man we run into in the big woods (Hurons) in the last 10 yeas are local kids.

Roughly 40 years ago the old boys that showed me how they baited brought in a very small amount of bait--sometimes daily--like maybe a half a bucket or a 10# bag--not a pick-up or dump truck load. The deer were widely spaced out. Hunting a squeeze with a rut line or scrapes was a good idear. You may not see a deer for days.

Doe groups are competitive and greedy. At home here (Muskegon Ribber) I ran of number of comparisons for a number of years on the property and had time to view with easy access. First thing is yes, they associate your scent with bait; "oh yeah, that guy!" The second is that they are as nocturnal as they have to be--that depends on you. The does bed to chew their cud with proximity to the pile with the most successful wranglers being the nearest. They contend with each other and hunters are just another PITA.

Do large bait piles change behavior and concentrate deer? Absolutely, and in larger numbers than you might think. I have counted 40 beds in less than five acres. And if CWD is actually a of a big deal as the DNR says, then they are at risk. The old Yooper dinky style baits simply did not do that. There just wasn't enough chow down to bring in more than a single group. A doe and a fawn would clean it up quickly...but you had indeed changed their route to your bushwhack set-up and a buck has to scent check or go without his nookie quota.

Big to mega-baiting is a perversion of a very old strategy.

I love the north country, am deeply invested in it, and love the north culture prevalent in it in MI WI and MN. Liberal progressives are altering it and it is a shame. Hunting-wise, fwiw, I would not recommend leaving your home state for Michigan currently (this was my 19th year hunting in KS, 20 in MN, so do have some inkling about WT hunting....I hope...)). Have heard good things about TN and KY, but have no experience there.

I was reading an article this morning about not being in the Christmas Spirit. I came across this quote that pretty well sums things up:

“The more noble a thing is in its perfection,” observed the sage Yohanan ben Zakkai, “the more ghastly it is in its decay."

This Next year will be intresting here in Michigan, for sure! the Ban on Baiting will be bad for Bow hunters, but will a good thing for rifle season, im thinking! I see a Big decline in Hunter Numbers, just out of the guys I know 4 have aready saw they were not comeing up for Bow season, they are Not real deer hunters any way, but still Buy Tags and Doe permits. Hunter # are way down in my area, so are the Deer Numbers! No Oak trees around where I hunt and only one farm, and he leases it! For Hunting, and all, private land around it! out for good $$ he told me hes retireing after this next year so, not sure what will happand to the farm. Iv been pondering what to do, Hell I may even Move, been thinking about it! Michigan sure is not the place it used to be anymore!

Some areas are quite hilly. The flat ones tend to have water and swamps that direct deer traffic. In short, there are plenty of funnels.

Yeah, us older hunters are thinning out and the replacements are toooo.
Guess the good old days might as well pass along with the good old guys.

I am happy that the "bait by the truckload" poachers on my neighboring public land
did dwindle down this year and hopefully never to come back. I don't wish them to stop
just for them to start really hunting and hopefully somewhere else. Yes, I guess I do
sound a little selfish. Must be the grumpy old senior citizen surfacing.

Hey Tim:

They sure sold a bunch of bait here. Just like an other year. I hope to see the DNR stick with it and not cave to the farm & squawkers lobby. Maybe after a number of years guys will "learn" to hunt again rather than manage a drive-thru buffet and hunting interest will increase. Maybe more kids will hunt if more actual mobility is involved...:)

I do give the public land big-baiters their space and don't walk up their "set-ups" though--am not an evangelist nor enforcer...not quenching a smoldering wick type of thing. It is still work invested and hunters hoping for a buck, and am thinking/hoping eventually most guys will come around.

We have lived through democrat appointments to bureaucratic positions before, although pragmatism has long left the room. They are enough hunters in MI and interest in hunting to carry considerable weight in Lansing.

***

BTW, to the OP, shot a seven, nothing to write home about (UP). We saw some smaller racked bucks but some of them looked like older deer, not pencil-necked 1 1/2 yr olds. Maybe the antler development was retarded by the "spring" weather in our area. The DNR was worried about a die-off and we didn't see any more than the usual carcass numbers on our look-see scout in the spring. Did see a very large buck with his antlers missing save for a couple inches--maybe he got too close to a a truck early on or something.

Herd in SW MI, pulp is going for around $10/ chord. Waiting for the mill to come in and cut. Hardwoods were selective cut a couple of months ago.

Sitting yesterday morning our local killers had a good morning. Heard 5 shots from there area before 8:15am. As far as can tell, they are staying in the rules but it still pisses me off. Alot of locals are not happy but they don't give 2 [bleep]. I still took a decent doe.

While in graduate school I hunted the LP, both north and south of the rifle line. Up north, the preferred tactic was to heap dump truck loads of carrots and sugar beets. The area was characterized by lots of abandoned farmland in various stages of succession. Lanes were mowed off connected shooting shacks to bait piles. The most sought after locations were typically adjacent poorly drained acreage and strips of timber. The better bait piles were flanked by multiple shooting shacks. Occupants preferred Weatherby Magnums in .284, .308, and .338 varieties. It was like another planet.

I’ve been hunting in MI for 26 years and have never once seen a semi load of bait. I keep hearing about it and I’m sure it happens/happened but in my area farmland is actually farmed and baiting was done but in lesser amounts if at all. Still am glad it was banned and have seen regular deer movement all during daylight hours the last couple months. The baiting ban is the single thing I can agree with our dnr about in regards to deer hunting. I feel too much of their agenda is driven by insurance companies and not based on what’s best for the herd.

This guy is doing okay in Zone 3.

Michigan Bowhunter Kills 227-inch Monster Whitetail Buck

https://www.outdoorlife.com/michiga...um=email&cid=43961&mid=376157121

My guess is bating will NOT be banned in the U.P. Too many dollars at risk. The biologist in charge of the CWD core and zone area in the U.P. said 1400 heads have been tested this season and a big fat ZERO tested positive. I suppose that's good news, but it's also setting up the rescinding of the No Baiting order issued by the commission. Baiting is just too ingrained up there to stop cold turkey. The loss of license sales would really impact the DNR budget.

As a Michigan Hunter Safety instructor, we get a lot of the metrics regarding license sales. The average rifle hunter is between 45-70. The fastest growing area is not the 18-35 men, but the women. Youngsters are not taking up the pastime that our fathers passed to us. Too many distractions with school and other activities. Add to that the internet /computer age where there's instant gratification, these kids think sitting in sub-freezing weather for 5 days waiting for a glimpse of a deer is ridiculous. About all we can hope for is that there's a resurgence of some sort - maybe folks wanting more time outdoors, or maybe wanting healthier free range meat, or maybe it will be something else. But I thing the days of having schools closed and 750,000 hunters in the woods on the opener are long gone.

I remember the '94 or '95 season I saw the biggest deer in person, dead or alive, in my life. Our camp was south of Seney that year and we went to the Tally-Ho in Curtis for a burger and a beer. There was a crowd outside surrounding a 5 x 10 trailer with a magnificent buck in it. The antlers hung out the front of the trailer and it's hind legs hung out the other end. Had to be 250#. The bases were damn near as big as my wrist. I don't remember the points, just the solid mass of the huge, prefect rack. A few weeks later we saw it on Fred Trost's big buck night TV show.

That's the buck I dream about on stand and wonder if there's another roaming the Michigan north woods.

In fairness to the Yoopers, the big bait thing probably started in the LP when the produce truck farms started selling directly to hunters. You could back up under some carrot dispensing apparatus and get a pick-up load of carrots for 10 bucks. I don't know of any facilities like that in the UP. Beets were loaded with a bucket on the front of a tractor.

Am just saying, I don't know for sure--only what I saw.

When I was first married in the mid-seventies and occasionally working, happily shacked up with my bride on the big Croton Pond, pards and I bowhunted the Dungeon Swamp area and that is where I saw my first big bait dump. Some guy with money from Indiana bought an adjoining 80 and had, what we thought at the time, a railcar's worth of carrots on the ground under a stand. He really had nothing to fear from our recurves, but he was pretty dang hostile to company...

As time went on, the dedicated bait-arama places were selling bags of bait. I wonder if they need a license like you do for lemonade? Some guy was running an old dump truck up and down M-37 to supply.

And so there it is--a guy from Indiana started the whole mega thing and it got out of hand from there.

Grinning Charlie.

Am still haunted by a huge, very stiff, buck laying in the back of a pick-up in Sidnaw at a greasy spoon and the buck that got away cleanly from the four of us the day we set the world record for stupid deer hunting in our Iron River camp. Both had to be in the 180 class.