A whitetail deer hunting story

Like a large number of my fellow Michiganians, I love to deer hunt in November. In my opinion, there is nothing like putting meat on the table that you yourself harvested. It speaks to something primal that we all have in our minds, something from when hunting was not recreation, but a necessary skill one need to have to survive. Its not at all about just killing. If a person just hunts to kill, then they have no business even going in the woods. Wasting the animal is, I think, insulting to God, and disrespecting the noble animal that gave up its life.

I would like to share with you a story that an old gentleman, Chet Hunt, wrote down about deer hunting in 1926. He was a member of the Smoky Hollow Hunting Club northeast Michigan. I never had the opportunity to meet him before he passed away.

For a good many years, I had the desire to go and spend as much time as I wanted to, all at once, in the game infested forests of Michigan. Just stay until I wanted to come home. I never expected to have to time or the opportunity to do it.

In the fall of 1926, my brother,Elton Hunt, and I closed our business in Onondaga and made plans for just such a trip.

I had had some experience in back woods camp life. Elton, nine years younger then I, (I was 28), had never hunted with the exception of a few rabbit hunts on neighboring farm land.

We secured camping equipment consisting of: a 7 x 9 tent, a sheet iron camp stove, a Coleman lantern, an axe, two shot guns, a revolver, a 38-40 Winchester rifle, ample bedding, and what not for cold weather. We loaded it into our Overland touring car of ancient vintage,(hereafter known as the "puddle hopper). After bidding farewell to the fair sex, we started for somewhere in the northern wilderness on October 20. We put up the first night in Saginaw, Michigan and early the next morning headed north along the short of lake Huron.

A few hours later found us in what appeared to be wild country, but the further we went, the further we were from making up our minds where to stop.In Spruce, (a small town about 30 miles from Alpena), we found a druggist who was well versed in where game was to be found, and who was willing to give us some advice. He directed us to Hubbard Lake, which lay about 30 miles southwest of Alpena, where we were to ask the way to what is known as the Fruche Ranch, which is some 12 to 14 miles west, as the crow flies from Hubbard Lake and in the most God forsaken and uninhabited country I have ever seen.

At Hubbard lake, you just drop off the map and shift for yourself. The trails branch off in all directions, remnants of the old logging days, and if your guardian angel is with you, you stay on the right one.

It was nine o'clock at night when we reached Hubbard Lake and pushed off into the wilderness. To add to our comfort,(?), it began to rain. For what seemed like endless hours, we followed trails that we expected would fade out at every turn. We caught from time to time deer as they bounded across the trail.

From the top of a hill, after a long steady climb, we saw a light which we hoped would be the Fruche ranch. It was, and,after about an hour, we arrived at the ranch.

Our call was answered by and old couple, ( old Tommy and his wife), who were the only people at the ranch. Later, we found them to be of the old school and true to north woods hospitality. They directed us to a camp site about a mile and a half further along on an old trail. It led us to a rise of ground on the edge of a ceder swamp.The old couple told us that, about 10 rods out in the swamp, we would find a stream of good water, which is of course the first essential of a good camp site.

In due time, we arrived. Imagine our position: on the edge of a ceder swamp, 11 o'clock at night, pitch dark, in a cold drizzling rain, with camp to be made and both of us hungry as bears, for we had not stopped in town for supper. Well, we were out for the experience and, strange as it may seem, we enjoyed the situation.

We pitched the tent and cooked supper. The most serious thing was to find the spring in the dark. We made a beacon light out of the puddle hopper so we could find our way back and eventually came out with a pail of water. After cooking supper, (a big one of potatoes and meat), we spread our tarpaulin on the ground in the tent, rolled and slept like a couple of babes in the woods.

Morning was the opening day of the partridge season, and it was still raining. We stepped out of the tent to survey our surroundings, and the picture that greeted us was enough to instill fear and foreboding in the heart of a more timid nimrod, but to me, it was a most beautiful picture. To this day it still gives me a thrill to remember it.

Directly in front of us, to the north, was the dense green ceder swamp where we had wandered the night before in search of the spring. It extended as far as we could see to the right and left of our camp site. We could imagine the secrets it would hold if one was to lose his way in it and not be heard from again. Consequently, we blazed a train down to the spring to eliminate such a possibility.

To the west, rolling plains stretched for miles over rough country, made brown by frost and dotted here and there with scrub pine. From the top of the hill, in back of us to the south and east lay the fertile valley of the Little Wolf and Magin rivers with their grassy pastures and densely wooded timber lands of hard wood hills just showing on the horizon. The great magnitude of the expanse of country, the suggestion of untrodden paths and awe inspiring silence! Oh! It was great to be there, to be free, to throw out your chest and say;

"We will do our won way here, far from the haunts of men."

Black clouds were rolling overhead and the rain laden north wind made us shiver as we hurriedly prepared breakfast. Our equipment had suffer severely from the storm, and the tent was too small to be comfortable, so we decided to add more room in the form of a dugout.

There was a shelf on the side of our hill with a steep incline to the swamp. We reset the tent on the shelf and dug a hole, 9 X 12, and about 4 or 5 feet deep at the opening of our tent and tapering down with the contour of the land to about 18 inches at the lower end. Over this, we built a frame out of ceder boughs, with a shanty roof and thatched it on the top and sides with ceder boughs, leaving a doorway at the lower end. With a crudely constructed ladder, we could go upstairs into the tent. To stand back and look at it, gave one the impression of a oddly constructed brush heap. We finished at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and decided to go out and shoot a couple of partridge for our supper.

We picked up our guns, got into the puddle hopper and started back up the trail looking for game. It was not long before I sighted a couple of birds on the road ahead of us. I stopped the car as they ran into the brush. As Elton had never hunted birds before, I told him to walk up there, and they would flush. Maybe he could get one, I thought. He did! He centered one on the first shot, retrieved it and came back to the car with his chest stuck out and told me in good faith "That was duck soup. He could do it every time he saw one!' He did not think that partridge hunting was much of a challenge. (He had another accident like that on the last day of the partridge season.) I went out into the brush and shot another bird and by that time, it was getting late, and we were getting hungry, so we made for camp, dressed the birds, and started to get a real supper.

Shortly after we got back to camp, the storm broke in earnest. The wind blew down our chimney, sending bursts of flame out the front of the stove and we thought it would catch the place on fire.

We finally got through with supper. It was two cold, wet and tired hunters that climbed the ladder into the tent and went to bed with a firm resolve that on the morrow, we would have something besides ceder boughs to keep out the weather.

The next day we drove into Hubbard lake and got two rolls of tarred paper. That night found us in a nice warm dugout with a paper shanty over it, seated in chairs, a good supper on a rough board table, a hot fire in the stove and laughing at the elements which kept vigorously in an uproar.

There is a lot of work connected with making a convenient and comfortable camp. We had spent the better part of two days working in the rain and had things in pretty good shape, except for a bed. It was rather hard to sleep on the ground, so we found a place for the ceder boughs we had formerly used to thatch the rood and that was for a bed. We built a frame and piled them in it for a mattress. It made a very good bed and added a lot to the pleasure of our trip.

With the completion of our camp, the weather improved, and we had some fine days for the rest of the partridge season. The birds were not overly thick, but we were able to get all we wanted every day. One afternoon, we flushed a fine bird into a poplar thicket. I went around and Elton was to come through to put the bird out to me. Just as I was expecting it to come out, a deer broke cover right in front of me. Much to my chagrin, I filled him with bird shot before came to. It only added to his velocity. A deer with a few bird shot pellets for a stimulant can sure make some speed.

Another time, down on the Little Wolf River flats, we were doing considerable shooting. Elton flushed a bird and it came by me headed for across the river. I shot and winged it but it made the far bank and started flopping away into the brush. Because I didn't want to waste it, I plunged into the water, thinking it was shallow enough to wade with 18 inch high boots. I stepped into a hole and fell down, but managed to get across and get the bird. Elton stood on the opposite bank and laughed at me while I took off my clothes and wrung them out. He seemed to think it was a joke. I didn't, as it was a cold day, and we were 4 miles away from our camp site, but such tings add to the spice to the occasion if one is of the right temperament to enjoy it. If he is not, He had better stay home!

The last day of the partridge season came on Halloween and we decided to spend the weekend in Alpena, and have a little fun. We did, and nearly broke our necks in the roller skating rink. Neither of us had been on skates since we were kids.

Monday found us back in camp with two weeks wait ahead of us for deer season to open. Part of this time, we spent familiarizing ourselves with the surrounding country and picking out the bast runways for deer, occasional rabbit and running back and forth to town.

The weather grew constantly colder and by the fifth of November, there was a foot of snow on the ground. The swamps and lowlands were full and we spent most of our evenings in camp with a good fire,smoking our pipes, listening to the wind outside, or throwing our hunting knives at a board placed in one end of the dugout.

Elton had a great desire to throw his knife, and kill some game. One day, he came up from the spring with a pail of water in one hand and a rabbit in the other. He had thrown the knife and had struck the rabbit right in the head!

About the thirteenth of November, the deer hunters began to invade our solitude. We found ourselves getting neighbors on all sides. It was quite interesting to see the many methods of making camp- some with scarcely any equipment and no idea whatsoever of how to mak themselves comfortable.

our camp began to be very popular, especially at meal times and for evening entertainment. Both Elton and I were experienced cooks. We always had three good meals a day and were only too glad to have some of the other boys in for supper and a good game afterword to pass away the long evenings. The boys appreciated our cooking, especially those who only had a limited knowledge of cooking. Our meals were the same as we had at home. There is no pleasure in tramping in the woods or standing on a deer run in the cold without the proper food to start out on.

We had seen many deer before the season opened and on November fifteenth we stepped out at first light fully intending to get a buck in short order, but times had changed. Every likely looking runway was lined with hunters. I counted fifteen red caps, all insight at once from the top of the hill!

Someone started a buck down the valley, and with the exception of the world war, there was never so much firing at one time. It rattled on over the hills for nearly a mile, and I don't think anyone hit the buck! I heard the whine of bullets over my hill and I ducked into a hole left by a windfall, until the shooting stopped. They never got my range and I didn't get a scratch but it sure changed my mind about that neck of the woods!!!

So we took the lowlands and poplar thickets. That day I saw two deer. One buck passed me at full speed and I missed him clean, but it gave me a thrill and courage that we would have better luck the next day. It began to snow hard about 3 o'clock and as we were a long way from camp, we started in, got a couple of rabbits on the way and had a good meal.

We were running low on supplies, so we decided to drive into town. We had only went a short distance from our camp before the differential on the puddle hopper stripped its gears. We had to walk about twelve miles through the snow to get to town, then catch a ride to Alpena to get repairs and a truck to tow us in. I always thought I was a fast walker and could go as far as the next guy, but I had to call to Elton several times to wait up and rest a while. I do not think that I have ever been so tired in my life as I was on that trail breaking trip.

It took us tow days to get the car and fix it. When we got back to our camp, several of the neighboring hunters had gotten their buck and were about ready to pull out.

It had warmed up and rained off most oft the snow leaving the trail full of deep mud and we had a difficult time getting the car back to camp. On this night, the clouds rolled away and it was bright moonlight. One of the neighbors suggested that we go up in the hills and try shooting a deer by moonlight. I was not too interested, but Elton took to it favorably and they started out in the puddle hopper. At about 4 o'clock in the morning I heard Elton come in, but I didn't hear the car. He went to bed and didn't say a word.

The next morning he told me that he had left the car in a mud hole about a mile from camp, and that we would need some help. We took a shovel and an axe and started after it. There it was, up to the axle, all four wheels in a solid cake of mud and frozen mud at that! We went ot work with the shovel, axe and pry pole. We finally got it loose and pried it up on solid ground and drove it to camp at about noon with a good appetite for dinner.

We hunted for four more days. One day after dinner, I had only gotten about four rods from camp when a doe broke from the swamp and ran up the ravine tight at me. Just behind her was the biggest buck I ever saw, or at least he looked that way at the time to me. The little voice inside me said "Here is where you get your buck!" On they ran to within 10 yards of me and turned broadside to me in a clearing. I drew a carefull bead on what I knew would be a kill shot on the buck.

I never will forgive the fellow who stood on the left of me. He shot first. The buck jumped and so did I. My bullet plowed a furrow of hair off him which only caused him to shift into high gear and leave me shooting at where he was. That was as close as either one of us came to making a kill that season.

The next day was Wenesday, the day before Thanksgiving.We got up, cooked breakfast, looked up the snow covered trail and, of one accord, said "We have stayed long enough." About an hour later we had packed our gear and headed the puddle hopper for home.

We were in camp just twenty eight days and they were days that we will long remember. Every fall we get the fever, but we probably never get the opportunity to go and stay as long as we like again.