This from the Michigan DNR…Sure hope they’re right.

You really don’t have to have a lot of gray in your hair to remember when deer hunting was largely a northern Michigan endeavor. There was a long tradition of going to deer camp somewhere north of Clare, and reports of traffic jams on northbound I-75 a couple of days prior to Nov. 15 were commonplace.

That trend changed through the 1990s, and somewhere around the turn of the century, the pattern reversed itself. More hunters spent more time – and killed more deer – in the southern third of the state than in the northern Lower and Upper peninsulas.

In 2002, for instance, Michigan hunters killed an estimated 35,000 bucks in the Upper Peninsula and 79,000 in the northern Lower Peninsula, while southern Michigan hunters killed 127,000 bucks – more than half the bucks taken in the state. That trend has continued.

But due to a combination of factors – including new license regulations and three mild winters in a row – northern Michigan deer hunting appears to be poised for a comeback. Read more