Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting MI Regular Firearm Deer Season Is Done - Reports?

The annual 2-week Michigan regular firearm deer season is officially over. Michiganders, please tell us your true hunting stories.

This has been my slowest season in years concerning antlers. I killed one spike buck and saw one other small buck during the entire season. My wife didn't see any bucks. I did, however, take a few does for the freezer. There was a couple dogs running deer in our neighborhood before hunting season, and my FIL thinks that may have hurt the hunting. He also postulated that the crop rotation this year was such that the deer were not hanging-out where they usually do (where we hunt). Anyway, we have meat and 10 lbs of pepper sticks ready to pick-up at the processor. That is our consolation for taking no antlers, and it suits me just fine. "You can't eat the horns."

-

We saw a great buck opening day, wide & high. I was in a pop-up blind with my young son. I could have had him, but I tried to get my boy a shot. By the time he was on it, the buck was screened behind brush & got away. I gotta cut some shooting lanes.
Had to go to Florida the 17th through the 20th.

We saw two small bucks and several mature & young does over the rest of the season, but shot nothing.
I really like the December bow hunt, so I'll do my best to arrow a doe or two for the freezer. Maybe I'll get another look at the Big Buck. Like from a tree at about 20 yards...

We heard shots long after legal time every evening we hunted, and we even heard somebody empty a 30 round magazine (I counted) late one afternoon.
We were in Mecosta County. Where were you?

This is the 8pt. I took opening morning about 10am. It was the only deer I saw that day. My youngest son was hunting with me and saw 10, one of which he thought was a buck but could not be sure. We hunted Leelanau County where the entire county is QDM where the min. is 3 points on one side for one deer and 4pt.s on one side for a second buck. NO public land doe permits and only a few private land permits. I went out 2 more days and saw 5 more but the only other buck I saw was a little spike with 2" antlers. A few weeks earlier my trail cam took pic's of 4 shooters, didn't see any of them and my 8pt. was not one of them either. We heard very little shooting opening day even though our property is surrounded by State and Fed. lands.
I guess there are still some nice bucks out there for ML season, but it's going to be tough getting one. I also think the no baiting issue kept some people home.

Nice looking buck. What the heck is wrong with your gun? The bolt is on the wrong side...wierd.

Very slow season for me , and most of my buddies, a few bucks were missed, but over all not many were seen, still have my 2 doe tags, i cant belive that i do, just seeing alot of button bucks, be good for next season, hopeing to get some meat in the smokepole season! John

the kids took up meathunting opening day...

[img][IMG]http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p37/tomk-album/JaneNickspikedon2008opener.jpg[/img][/img]

We killed 2 bucks and some does in gun season.....Same for bow season. Gun season was sloooooow as far as total amount of deer that we were seeing.

This was on our farm in mid-Michigan. That's my brothers Fiance and her first buck.





I shot this one on public land in the northern lower.

obviously he is marrying the right woman...

That's a shame. I probably would not have been as generous in that situation. It will probably be years before the young hunter realizes just how valuable a gift you gave to him that day. You are a good man.

Edited to add: By the way, I was in my home neighborhood in the central lower. That is as specific as I will be on a public forum. I hunted my own 40 a couple times, and my FIL's farm the rest of the time. All was within a mile of my house. I set-up a friend and his brother on my place a couple times and they got a 7-pointer. We all have meat, and that is what is most important to us.

-

finally a face to go with the name.

Nice bucks, i have already planed to change hunting camps for next year! the area I have been hunting has not been to good for the last 4 years now! John

It was an easy decision to make. Never considered anything else.
As for location, I was only giving my county, and that's as specific as I'd ever ask anyone else for.
Good Hunting to you!

I was one of six hunters at camp in Delta Co. that on opening day took a nice 8 and two 6s. I got the eight. We saw fewer deer, but more bucks this year than in the past. Last year was also like this year. After opening day the only bucks we saw were spikes except one old fork.

Our season was down a bit as far as kills go, but the shear number of dear were about the same.
Actually saw a few really nice bucks, one especially close as it was killed by our neighbor's after hanging out in the middle of a field 600 yds in front of me all opening am, causing me to pass on some other shooter's out of greed, lol.
All in all, another great season, combined with a good bow season.
Now the really hard hunting starts, ML.
We hunt in the south central lower.
Good luck to you all, Terry.

I own a 40 in northern Isabella county and the deer numbers were about the same, lots of little bucks, I saw 6 small bucks on the opener and passed them all. Killed a scrub on the 2nd day. We still had a good bit of baiting in our area, the guys I talked to were pretty brazen about talking about it to just about anyone even though its banned.

I also hunted in northern Delta CO in Da U.P.

Deer totally sucked. Only one legal shooter buck was seen by anyone and that was just before dark on opening day. I was with my 14 year old daughter and let her take her first ever shot at the buck with her 30-30. She shot. THe deer jumped vertically up and ran out with tail down. Only found about 50 hairs at the impact sight and extensive search the next morning.

Ever since wolves have been found in the area the deer sign and population has went DIRECTLY into the toilet. Last year the very first deer I saw was on the very last day in the last 20 minutes of daylight after 8 hours a day hunting for 9 days.

This year I saw that buck the first day my daughter missed. The next day hunting we saw a nice doe. Then saw NOTHING else for the next 7 days of huting 8 hours a day. This year my nephew never saw a SINGLE thing with fur. Only birds. He did not even see a freaking squirrel. My other nephew finally saw a small spike for the last couple days hunting.

The deer sign like I said went Directly into the crapper when wolves came into the area. See also the discussion on another thread regarding the Wisconsin hunt. Hunters there (WI) report the EXACT same thing with relation to the sign of wolves and the major decrease in the deer population and deer sign.

Winter also I think took a toll on the deer population last winter. But now the whole freaing U.P. has to wait to see a buck with 3 points on one antler to even shoot. What a bunch of B.S.! All we are doing is passing up the 4 points so that the wolves get a better supper some winter night instead of me and my family.

My brother & I are trying to continue the family tradition of hunting on to my two nephews and my oldest daughter.

Exactly how much longer do you expect these young kids to sit in the woods with cold hands and feet to see and get exactly NOTHING? I suspect not much longer than the next year or two. Heck, they have T.V. and video games and ipods and texting on their phones to keep them much more entertained.

Rest of the hunting party saw some deer. But again it was the same scrawny deer every night for the most part.

Extremely Disappointing is how I would qualify this years hunt. It was the first year in I don't know when, that the entire hunting party did not get a single deer out of 5 hunters.

I'm hearing the same story from a lot of people. Where did all the deer go?

-

I hunt in the NW corner of Ogemaw county and my wife's uncle took a 8pt on opening morning. I didnt see anything, I was on Private Hardwoods for a couple of days. Then went into the swamp and nothing. Alot of tracks.

On the 15 there where alot of shots close by so maybe the deer where taken before getting to me...I heard a lot of idiots unload with a Auto.

Last Year we took 4 this year only 1 so for us it was down. But by memory there where a lot more shooting.

Today I leaving for 8 days of muzzleload hunting.

flyingfool: Sorry about your daughters loss. Two years ago we had wolves in our area of northern Delta County, but since then only coyotes. One work-around for shooting a spike is to get the single buck tag instead of the combo. Then you can shoot a spike if you want. Antlerless tags are usually available for that area though. You can even get them on-line. Some days I saw zip, and other days 4 or 5. Two of our best blinds were regularly turning up dry though. One of them we had thought of as our pot blind, because one could always get something for the pot there. Were you hunting State or private land?

I hunt between Gladstone and Gwinn. More specifically 4 miles north of Rock on our family's 130 acres.

We did see a coyote. he was a mangy scrawny looking thing.

We are looking at getting our swamp land timbered off for pulp or whatever. That should help things as the last time our adjacent property was cleared we had good hunting for several years. However that was before the wolves.

We have always had coyotes in the area but have always had a lot better hunting than the last 4 years or so. I have heard that the wolves are moving through the UP from east to west. So maybe they are pushing the deer out or maybe the wolves just eat themselves out of house and home and then move on. In any case it may be that this will be a cyclical thing with the wolves and deer coming and going.