Hunting with Mike

The Lord works in mysterious ways!   As of today I have a tree stand up and a ground blind in place.  I was able to do it while watching my grand son Kyle this morning.  I have permission to hunt a small piece of woods just a 25 minute drive from my house, and the deer sign is encouraging.

The above scrape is near my ground blind.  The tracks that are in the scrape aren’t huge, but at least I know there’s a buck in the area.  I’m thinking in a few more days there is going to be alot of buck activity.  I saw two dead deer by the road on my way out scouting yesterday.  That tells me that the bucks are chasing does, and drivers better beware.

The tree stand is along a fence row boarding a bedding area.  I put it among a stand of oaks, and my little buddy Kyle helped me.  He carried two sections of the ladder stand all by himself, and handed me tools, as needed.  I found one scrape and several buck rubs along this obvious corridor.  I made my own “mock scrape” and can’t wait to check it out tomorrow.  Hopefully I’ll make it out Friday evening, but Saturday has been set aside for sure.

I’m excited, but also very thankful that I now have a hunting spot close to home, and it isn’t going to interfere with my commitment to my family.

My “big” little helper Kyle.

As of yet I have not taken my bow in the woods.  I have not spent one minute in a tree stand.  This has been a very unusual year to say the least.  I officially started deer hunting when I was 14 years old.  This  marks my 49th. year for trying to put some venison in the freezer, or put a nice rack on the wall.  I really want to match wits with a whitetail before January 1st. rolls around, but honestly my hiatus is not making me “crazy!”

My grand kids have had some health issues, the economy has plagued several of my children, my mom hasn’t felt well, and my good friend (like a dad) Joe Giarmo recently had a heart attack.  I just got over a bout with gout and an infected saliva gland (by Gods grace and prayer.)  Through all this my focus has been, and will continue to be, my family.  As important as hunting season is to me personally, it shrinks in comparison to the value I place on my family.

To be honest it wasn’t always that way.  At one time my priorities were out of whack.  Looking back I now see how selfish I was for many years, as my wife and kids played second fiddle to “MY” time in the woods.   When it came to hunting money hardly mattered.  Sometimes I would loose all sense of balance when it came to my wants, and my families needs.  My wife is a bone-a-fide  Saint.

Maybe its a matter of maturing, or maybe its just old age.  I’m sure much of it has to do with becoming a born again Christian, and receiving some great bible based teachings on the things in life that matter most.  I will not take one of my Pope and Young bucks with me when I depart this earth.  My 500 pound black bear (which I sold years ago) will be “wherever!”  Caribou, wild boar, turkeys, big fish will all rot and decay and end up in a landfill one day.  Pictures and scrapbooks may get dusted off and looked at once every ten years, or hidden in a trunk and sold in a garage sale sometime down the road.

I’ve come to understand that there is only one thing I can take with me and thats the love I give my family, and the love they give me in return.  I Corinthians 13:4-6 says “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trust, always hopes, and always perseveres.  Love never fails.”  I can possess all manner of wisdom, wealth, and power, but without love I am nothing!

I guess I’m trying to say I’m content where I’m at right now.  I still have a long way to go concerning getting a grip on Agape love, but I continue to strive toward that calling that Christ has placed on my life.  Rev. Martin Luther King said he had been to the Mountain Top, and what a difference it made in his life.  I also have been to the mountain top, in more ways than one, and it gives life a whole new perspective.  The journey will end for all of us one day.  It’s important that we consider “Whats Next?”  As for me and my house we will be on the most exciting adventure imaginable.  I hope you join me on my travels.

Surely the mountains reflect His glory!

From left to right.  Kyle, Jacob, Nina, Ava, and Addisyn getting ready to ring some doorbells.  It was a little chilly, but no rain or wind, so all in all it was a good evening.  The kids got more candy and treats than they need, and were not even tired when they got back to my daughter Courtneys house.  We had ordered pizza, plus a salad, and guacamole before everyone went out, and watched the World Series when they got back.  Those Yankee’s did it again.

It was a good evening with family, but I missed the five grandkids that weren’t there.  Hope you all had a safe evening and the little ones didn’t have too bad of a “sugar high!”  A few of my grandkids seemed to be “fired up” before going home with their parents.  I keep telling them that “moderation” is the name of the game.  I’m glad I don’t have to put them to bed.

Mike

What do you do, at this time of year, when you can’t make it out in the woods to hunt?  Why, you carve pumpkins for your grand kids.  This is the first of several I’ll end up doing, but it will probably be the biggest one.  We got this pumpkin from son-in-law Tony’s garden.  He’s been supplying us with our October “gourds” for many years now.

Little Addy (Snow White) liked the pumpkin, until I put a candle in and lit it!  Once I turned the lights off she had a whole new perspective on how she felt about “old Jack!”  Of course Ava thought it was “way cool!”  My wife and I aren’t really into the whole celebrating Halloween thing, but we have a good safe neighborhood for the kids to go house to house, and figure it’s better under our watchful eye than elsewhere.  Besides we get to see our kids and grand kids for a whole evening.  I think I may do a bonfire also.

Still not much news to report on the Ansel game pole.  Seems everyone is scuffling to make ends meet this year, and there isn’t alot of time (or money) for recreational pursuits.  I would say the present economy has something to do with fewer hunters in the field this year.  I hope thing pick up pretty soon.  I can’t keep writing about pumpkins can I?

Mike

The fall colors have reached their peak around here.  In some places the reds, oranges, yellows, crimsons, and various shades of green are nothing short of breathtaking.  A visual canvas that is unmatched by mans attempts to capture it!  Pictures can’t do it justice.

I made it out for only a few hours and saw nothing but a few squirrels.  The weather wasn’t the greatest and it looks like it won’t be till next week end when I can try again.  Not having a consistent place to chase whitetails sure puts the “damper” on your chances of filling your tag.  I’m getting tired of watching all the big bucks put on the ground on Versus.  I want my own experience.  In the mean time I’ll enjoy the colors.

Mike

Thank God for my brother Darryl!  Because of his ability to put meat in the freezer and a rack on the wall, I have something to write about.  This evening I got a phone call from him saying he had a nice 8-pointer down.  He was going to contact a friend of his (Dan) and go “fetch” his buck from the woods.  I caught up with him at his house and snapped a few pictures of  him and his crew, and a very fine looking whitetail.

Darryl said that just after parking his truck he headed down a thick tree filled fenceline.  He was walking west of the tree line when he saw something move at the corner of the woods.  He put his binoculars on it, and was happy to see a deer staring his way.  Darryl simply turned around, and headed away from the deer ending up on the east side of the tree line.  He then snuck down toward the buck, as the wind was in his favor.  At about 40 yards from the deer Darryl started some doe bleats and buck grunts.  He looked for a lane to shoot through, but as yet did not know if the buck was still there or not.  He changed the setting on his grunt call to a more mature buck, and blew again.  This time he saw movement coming toward him, on the other side of the tree line.  At 20 yards Darryl drew, but the deer needed to take a couple more steps to enter a good shooting lane.  Just like he had written the script, the buck took two steps, and Darryls arrow flew true.  How sweet is that?  Shoot a nice buck on your way out to your stand at 5:30 p.m!

Sounds to me like maybe the bucks are getting a little more serious about the “gene pool” lately.  Maybe I’m going to start getting other reports of hunters success.

Dan, Tanner, Kurt, and brother Darryl.

What does this look like to you?  Could it be the path back to the barn after grazing all day.  It could be, but it’s not!  This is a genuine southern Michigan deer run.  I found it going through a 20 yard wide funnel between a pond and a thicket.  The deer are feeding across the street and then seeking shelter back where the “Wild Ferns Grow!”  I bet most of you are drooling thinking about where “old” Mike is going to hang his tree stand, right?  Well as it often seems to go for me, this runway was on a piece of “lease” property that I happened to be a day late in obtaining.  That’s right somebody beat me to it.  So near but oh so far.  If you don’t have a good friend or relative with a southern Michigan farm, it’s hard to find a good spot to hunt.  I’ve tried the state properties and usually see more hunters than deer.  I may end up hunting very close to home this year, like in my backyard!

Congratulations are in order for my nephew Brandon Ansel who tagged a huge doe yesterday.  He sent me a couple pictures but I was having a hard time posting them.  The head on this old doe looked like a brown cement block.  She had been eating awful good as the fat layer, under her hide, was about 1″ thick.  Corn feed venison, you can’t beat it.

This is my little grand-daughter Addisyn giving me a birthday peck on the cheek.  It was a true test of her love, as I just recently grew my scruffy hunting beard back.  She passed the test.  I feel the deer wouldn’t recognise me without the facial hair.  I can hear them now “Hey don’t worry it’s just old fuzzy face, and we all know he can’t hit anything anyway!”  That’s part of my plan – let em get cocky and confident, and then “zap” he’s in the freezer!

Honestly I just started doing a little scouting around my house.  Found a few scrapes and rubs, but they looked like they were made by smaller bucks.  There has been a few reports of a big one hanging around the golf course just about 1 mile from the house.  I was hoping for a couple days this weekend but its calling for thunderstorms, and “homey” don’t hunt in downpours and lightning anymore.  Several years ago I was in my tree stand while bear hunting, and got caught in a thunderstorm.  I was in a tall stand of hemlocks and lightning struck about 75 yards away.  That was close enough for me!  The noise, flash, and huge limb that was severed was enough to send me packing.  Sooo it may be yet another several days before my initial rendezvous with destiny.

In other matters I apologize for the long period of time between blogs.  Little Addisyn has been in the hospital for dehydration, and two of my friends have had heart attacks.  If you believe in the power of prayer please lift up Joe Giarmo (93) and Pastor/Missionary Mike Heil (55.)

In a not related subject I sold my little red chevy S10 4-wheel drive.  I picked up a 1993 (old) ford explorer with 48,000 miles on it.  It’s a beauty so something had to go, and unfortunately the “lot” fell on the “man-truck.”

It’s been good to read about the hunting success of the Sorenson family, and Art and Jeff are off to a good start this year.  None of my family has reported any tags being filled, which is quite unusual for this time of the season.   Tom Sorenson had a picture posted of his little 3-1/2 month old  boy reading a hunting magazine, and it’s priceless.  Click on “Base Camp Legends” to take a peek.

Mike

Well if you aren’t going to haul deer with it, you might as well haul something “dear!”  Here it is the 13th of October, and I’m ashamed to say I have not been in the woods yet.  Hey I’m retired!  Something is not right with this picture, or is it.  Anyone who reads my blogs knows that I really enjoy hunting and partaking in all sorts of outdoors activities during this time of the year.  What you may not know is that I have really cut back on the amount of time I actually spend hunting over the last coupe decades.

As much as I love pulling back on a buck (or doe) my number one priority is my family.  There may have been a time 30 or more years ago when that may not of been true.  I came from a family of 6-boys, who had a dad that loved to hunt, and loved to hunt with his boys.  So when we had family time it included pheasants cackling, squirrels scampering, and rabbits dashing through a new fallen snow.  As much fun as that was, it was deer camp that we all had circled on our calendars.  The game pole at the Ansel camp was never empty.  The odds of 7 of us getting “skunked” were always in our favor.  My dad Norm taught us well.  Brother Randy (oldest) was an expert marksmen in the U.S. Marine Corps, and shot on his base’s skeet team.  Myself and younger brother Darryl qualified as expert marksmen while doing our tour of duty for the Army.  My dad was a crack “off-hand” shooter and had downed more than a few bucks with his uncanny ability to hit the vitals.  Though the younger brothers are good (2 expert pistol shot policemen) it was us older guys that the gang counted on for backstraps.  So you see I grew up in a family where hunting played an important role in our relationships.

Well when my wife and I started our family it was rather unique having the first daughter in the “all male” Ansel household.  My dad loved little girls, and carried Tara around on a satin pillow.  It didn’t stop at Tara, as Alena, Meghan, Mindy, and Courtney filled our closets with all sorts of frilly things.  Oh there were times when I coaxed them into shooting an outdoor bow-hunter league with me, but it never became a passion for any of them, including my son Micah, who showed up unexpected one February.

I have had to curtail my longing, to be hunkered down in a thicket somewhere, with my desire to be with my wife and kids.  The older I get the harder it is to make it 5-days, in the field, without throwing in the towel and making a beeline for home.  You see now I have 10 grand-kids in the mix and they really need me!  Yeh right!

So don’t feel too sorry for me, and my lack of “treestand” time so far.  We really did have a great time on our Minne hay-ride with the grand-kids.  It was a wonderful weekend, as my grandson Logan was in town from Chicago.  We did the apple orchard, cider and doughnuts, smores, bon-fire, horse rides, pumpkin patch, straw maze, popcorn, farmers market, and a couple kids video’s.  Whew I’m tired just writing about it!

Hunting is great, but the most prized possession I have is my family.  My dad taught me that also, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind one bit that I spend more time chasing grand-kids than I do whitetail deer.  I think he would of done the same thing if he hadn’t of left us so soon. (58 yrs old)  Just a little side note here.  My dad smoked all his life, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he “cut” many years off his life in so doing.  Fifty eight is way to young guys.  Think about it.  You owe it to your family and yourself to quit!

!Tara, Lorna, Logan and Kyle at the pumpkin farm.                                                            Mike

Every now and then you have to shift gears and put the old hunting stories on the back burner.  Ain’t much to talk about anyway as the deer seem to be winning most of the skirmishes.

The golfer with the almost perfect form is my 4-year old grand-son Kyle Pafford.  He’s a dynamo of a sports nut if ever there was one.  He plays everything that has a bat, ball, club, or racket with it!  He was really bummed out that his Tigers lost their playoff game the other day, as his dad had tickets to the Yankee playoff series.  Oh well!

Kyle hit a bucket of balls, with some of them  going about 60 yards, and they were straight as an arrow.  Kyle keeps his “head” on the ball, has a fantastic follow through, and is starting to get his feet doing what their supposed to do.  His club grip is good, and his back-swing is slow and smooth.  Can anyone say “Tiger Woods Junior?”

.I just hope “ole gramps” is able to stick around long enough to watch this kid play high school sports.  It don’t hurt that he’s cute as a button with 2″ eyelashes and is smart as a whip besides.  Oh that’s enough bragging on my little buddy for now.  It was good to spend the day with him even if he wouldn’t take a nap for me.

Kyle “launching” another Nike into the neighbors yard.