Got out in mid-Michigan for the first time this year. I hunted within a mile of this land in the 1960s and found this state land spot when I resumed bow hunting after college in 1974. It remained my favorite bow hunting spot for the next 25 years, and I only quit hunting it when I joined a hunt camp in NE MI but I still keep an eye on it. It doesn’t look like much: fairly low deer numbers, mostly maturing maple, oak and poplar mixing with wet areas. Food sources other than mast and farms that are 1/2 mile distant but I found a spot between two drainages that wouldn’t look good to the casual hunter but became a buck magnet once the rut kicked in.

It’s been wet here and I waited a week while I watched water levels elsewhere, hoping I could get back in without swamping rubber boots. Not yet.

Always liked lowland swampy areas. Good luck with it!

Good place for those swamp bucks!

Hard to see but the land rises back there and my favorite spot is only a few hundred yards beyond that. I’ve worn hip boots on many hunts there and maybe coulda got back in wearing my 14” knockabout rubber boots, but maybe not. So off to the East. They clear cut a couple years ago away from the drainage and while it’s great for game it ain’t so good for stumps. I see the old trail is getting more use from 4 wheelers and even they had some problems if the tow strap tied to a tree past the hole is any indication.

Three drainages meet here and there’s a good sized marsh. Many years ago we had a very dry year and I found that there was one good watering hole in that usually waterlogged marsh, and the deer were using it. It was in the middle of one of those thickets of tag alder etc down in there. It was tough clearing out a spot to sit and shoot but I sure did, staying there with my Grizzly waiting for the cautious deer to come and get a drink. The first night a buck saw me move as I tried to draw & bolted, right at dark. So I stayed even later the next time, probably pushing legal bounds, and a buck crept down there in the dark and started to drink. I got off a shot and learned that at least to me deer right at last light are closer than they appear. Shot clean over his back.

Opossum not playing dead.

This is kinda what it looks like by my spot: no real food sources other than browse in low areas, mixed hardwoods...but multiple trails bucks cruise when they get interested in does. Drainages on either side. I discovered it by chance while late season rifle hunting: saw a number of deer cross through there, checked it out and started bow hunting it the next season. Very rarely saw a bow hunter but come rifle season I was off to far thicker cover.

Did I say I was stump shooting? Not really, I was stump missing. A two month layoff followed by eight days of shooting from a chair at 11 yards in my basement had me going “Egad man!” as I was consistently low at longer range. Finally hit one, albeit off right a few inches at 20-odd yards.

A better shot at about the same distance, a bit low. Stumps were far and few between what with regrowth and limbs all over near the cut.

Ran outta stumps but not mud holes! I’ll be back when it dries out a bit more.

Very nice. Thanks. Jawge

Good looking area.

Great post. Love seeing pix of the woods. Thanks

My imagination sees deer, turkeys and occasionally a few ducks liking your area..

Nice day

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