By Glen Wunderlich
Charter Member Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA)
The weather prognosticators were spot on with the opening-day weather forecasts: high winds with enough sideways rain to make some hunters question their sanity. Of course such conditions were not about to prevent a few hundred thousand Michigan hopefuls from chasing their perennial dream bucks and I was one of those.
I sat within 50 yards of a favorite waterway crossing of the wily whitetails with my Ruger American .450 Bushmaster rifle. The low-power variable Zeiss Diavari scope was made for the job with its heavy crosshair reticle. A buck fawn (button buck) made its way along the predictable path and seemed intent on a peaceful nap in the heavy cover of the low ground vegetation, as it disappeared.
The early morning session continued when movement appeared across the Looking Glass River tributary about 100 yards out. The Burris binocular helped me identify an adult doe with twin fawns following close behind. Like most Michigan deer hunters, I wasn’t interested in any bald deer at this juncture considering the generous seasons ahead, but it didn’t matter. The wise mother deer caught me looking and involuntarily began a staring contest; her two followers became statues wondering what was up and the close-knit family soon vanished together.
Mother Nature huffed and puffed and the big wind dominated the wooded areas to the point that falling limbs and entire trees posed a threat to anyone’s life and I called off any more hunting for the day. A couple more ventures afield during the first week were fruitless, as the educated deer became scarce, or so it seemed.
By the end of the first week I was hoping for the local herd to have settled down from the hunting activity and for them to return to more normal routines. My afternoon position overlooked a legume plot of some six acres and I was encouraged to watch an adult doe and her buck fawn forage in the lush green vegetation. As the sun sunk the activity grew and deer seemed to pop up from the ground in front of me about 150 yards away.
A yearling spike buck did his best to liven up the party but the objects of his affection were interested in one thing only: filling their bellies. As the deer mingled, I had to check for headgear on each one of them and noticed one deer alone with its nose in the clover. The young buck sported a basket-rack of 8 points but nothing trigger-worthy. By now there was about a dozen whitetails browsing and I spotted another buck with similar features including another basket-rack (not as wide as its ears) and was enjoying the show, when the two bucks got together in the literal sense.
The two antlered deer got into a brief, non-threatening pushing match but it was obvious their hearts were not into any real macho death match.
As darkness descended upon us all, I waited to no avail for something better. And, I’m still waiting.
