# My hunting stories for 6 decades.



## alleyyooper (Oct 14, 2016)

*The upland hunt.*

It was still early in the morning even though the cows had been milked and turned out to a day time pasture. Breakfast had been fixed on the old pastel green wood burning cook stove, fresh made pancakes smothered with syrup I had helped boil down last spring so many months ago. There was also a couple of eggs with runny yokes just how I liked them to use a pancake to sop up and of course the sausage I had help make almost a year ago now.
Finally the man says boy we need to get a going if you can stop eating for a while. I liked the man, he wasn’t my dad but dad’s brother a sworn old bachelor in his mid 50’s now and never married. He came to live with us every fall after he would get laid off from his job working in a gravel pit. Every year he came and took me under his wing to do work and do fun stuff like we were going to do today. 
We walk our side to his Studebaker Champion he tells me to let the dog in the back as he put his cased shot gun in the trunk. The dog is a beautiful 6 year old Brittaney spaniel. I got to spend many hours wither since Uncle left her in my charge all summer. The gun was so old SXS all shiny blue and polished walnut light frame 16ga uncle would tell people he met that wanted to talk hunting. WE drive down the road 3 miles to the trail going back into the state land, a lot of the private property had been clear cut in the last 5 years and some still having it done for the pulp wood prices were up. So high in face I could earn a nickel a 8 foot log peeling them with a draw knife.
We drive the trail back thru the woods till we come to a clearing just off the trail a bit. We get out of the car and uncle hands me the collar with the brass tinkling bell to put on the queen. I have come to love the sound of that bell as the queen works her way thru the hard woods looking for partridge, and still use them on my dogs today. We had not gone far when we come across a patch of wild black berry briers; I can tell the queen is getting a good snoot full of bird scent as her tail normally moving is now just a whipping, as she comes to a halt looking into the briers. Uncle slowly walks in there with the thorns scratching his canvas pants. Suddenly a group of what appears to be feathers explode almost in uncle’s face. He picks out a bird and swings the shot gun to follow thru as he shoots and the bird crumples. He quickly swings on another bird and it to crumples and breaks the shot gun to reload to be ready for the next flight. The queen brings back a bird to me and then goes after the second one just as the sun finally clears the tree tops. When the sun finally clears the tree tops all those brilliant fall colors come to life dancing in the breeze. Uncle looks at the birds and says this one is a male and that there one is a female. I still have trouble today telling male from female partridge. Finally we move on along the hill side I keep watching the queens tail for that telltale sign she is birdy again. Finally she is into birds again, same type of cover black berry briers, uncle again wades in and flushed a covey I count nine as they fly and follow their path of flight. Uncle only gets one from these as they had almost allowed him to walk by them before flushing and making the swing difficult. We go in the same direction the birds had flown and soon come to a bunch of bushes my uncle called grouse bushes as I still do today. Again a covey flushes and uncle gets two more. He has gotten his limit and it is also time to sit down and have a snack mom had fixed for us and uncle carried in his pouch.
Homemade bread spread liberally with homemade butter and a sausage patty snuggled between the two slices. I peel off my crust and give it to the queen who politely takes it from my hand. Uncle pulls an dapple from his pouch and cuts in 1/3s one for him one for me and the last for the queen. Uncle produces a bottle with a cork in it and tells me to tightly cup my hands as he pours water in for the queen, then we each take a drink. As we set there enjoying the sun on us the breeze and the beautiful fall colors. Finally uncle get us and says boy I want to you to be careful now as he hands me the 16 SXS, saying it is loaded and safety on. I am almost10 years old and a feeling of pride swelled my chest as we follow the queen. I have shot the shot gun at tin cans on fence post and ones thrown by my uncle as well as clay balls we had made.
Finally the queen is into birds again, my turn to wade into the briers and flush the covey, only to totally miss with both barrels much to my shame. Uncle says boy you cannot shoot at the flock you need to pick one bird out and swing in it. We again get in a bunch of those grouse bushes and the queen gets birdy again. I step in a a single bird flushes and I swing on it to see it crumple I didn’t even realize I had squeezed the trigger. As it is falling another takes off and I somehow managed to collect that one two. I break the shot gun and reload and Just and I snicked the action tight as I had been taught the queen flushed another bird as she was bringing one back to us, again I missed. Uncle said I had not swung thru that one, ya have to lead them. Soon wa were back at the car, and on our way back home. I didn’t have to many more years with my uncle as a short 5 years later he passed from colon cancer, a year later the queen passed too after we had some more great outings in the up lands.

Took me 15 years before I was able to have my own brit, my shot gun had become a Ithaca pump, and my car was a 4x4 pickup.


*Squirrel season*

I would meet my brother and a couple of very close friends, we then would drive to the state land just a few miles from Rob's (My brother) place. 
Once there where they had clear cut it about two years before we would get dressed to attack the black berry canes and brush, one of my dad’s friends described you had to shoot twice thru to get a rabbit. One shot would clear a path and second would get the rabbit 25 feet away. 

Any way early in the season this was idea partridge (aka pat's) cover as they would be in there cleaning up old berries and late ripening ones. There would be a tangle of buggy whip popple, maples and oak shoots coming from the stumps and roots of the cut over trees. Yes we used flushing dogs with those tinkling bells so you could keep track of them and at least one had to be a good retriever. Rob had just such a dog a springer named Skunk because her sides were mostly white and a solid black back. Can't say as we ever lost a bird we knew we made a good hit on. We also had dads dog a mutt named beaver because she liked to chew on chunks of wood till we started hunting. It would take a couple hours to fill our daily limit of Pats then we would go back to Rob’s house and clean the birds for that nights supper. After we had the dogs put away and watered we'd eat dinner and then head for the squirrel woods.

Lots of oaks back of my sisters house where we would start. Go in there and flop down on our butts cradling our 22's and wait for the squirrels to start moving again. The limit was 5 each but we set our own limit for the area, that little bit of hard woods behind my sister was good for 5 total but we mostly kept it to 4 or there would be no more later in the season. We would leave there and go to a farm where my brother got permission for us to hunt squirrels as he went to school with the owner. 

Now that place most years we could fill a 10 squirrel two man limit in about a half hour unless they had hay near the woods instead of corn. We would do that Thursday and Friday on Saturday friends would come and hunt with us pretty much doing the same except skip the squirrels at my sisters.
Since Archery deer started Oct. 1st we would get our bows out and start shooting targets On Sunday afternoon before every one headed home.

This year my brother is recovering from a cancer of the liver operation and doesn't have the energy to walk much, he just planed on walking to the hard woods behind my sisters for a while. Me with my knee healing and not being able to walk on uneven ground will just stay home and remember past hunts and friends who have found permeant hunting spots never to be bothered again in Valhalla.

 Al


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## El Moobs (Oct 14, 2016)

Thanks for sharing sir. How are your hives?


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## alleyyooper (Oct 17, 2016)

doing ok so far.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 18, 2016)

Opening day deer hunting memories.

My first deer season opening day memory was waking up all excited like it was Christmas morning. The wait before we could go to the woods was horrible as there were cows to milk and other farm chores. I can still smell the wood smoke from moms cook stove and the old pot belly that kept the house warm. The gun I was given to deer hunt with was an old Ivers Johnson single shot 410 / 44 lug in one stamped on the single shot barrel along with 2 ½ inch shells, I was given 5 slugs for it. I remember breakfast was sausage patties most likely made from pigs we buchetered earlier that fall and fried eggs. The woods was a mile roughly down the road so dad drove the Ford station wagon we had at the time rather than the farm truck. Not being born to a hunting family I was not well versed in just how to hunt the deer only from old magazines and books did I have a clue. It was cold also and since the law said you had to wear red at the time I had a red hooded sweat shirt in Luo of a coat. I walked a lot doing what I thought was still hunting, none of the rags I had read said that still hunting was moving something like a mile a day instead of the 4 miles an hour I was covering. I was working my way up to the car to go home for lunch when a doe ran across the logging road I was on, following her was a buck with a nice rack about as nice as I have ever seen. I pull that old 410 up and fire at the buck which stopped I’m sure it was a total miss Break the gun and stuff a second slug in an fire again a miss again. My heart is racing hands shaking something awful I load in third shell fire and saw the head jerk and a blood spot appear in the neck as the buck charged off. Quickly load in number four and fire then number five and fire. All were misses I think and I am out of shells. I shaking badly half run half walk to the car and wait for dad. He arrives and I tell him about the buck, he gives me that adult your fibbing look and says we should get home for lunch. After lunch and a quick drive to buy more slugs for me we are back in the woods. I go back to where that buck was and find some blood and start to trail it. Wasn’t much blood but did track it to the beaver pond and never found a drop after that. 
That was my first year memory. 
Many years after were similar even after I got a city job as I hunted dads woods. 
After I bought the UP deer camp property things changed up. Normally would start the day before season very early in the morning anywhere from 3:00PM to 5:00PM depending how long I had to work the morning of the 14th. I would drive to Ricks house where we would load his gear up He would drive so I could sleep. Ya right I hadn’t seen him in a year so we talked about the past year and our past hunting trips. 
Once at the property it was usually day lite after the 6 ½ hour drive. We would start with one of us getting a fire going in our wood furnace while the other started unloading gear. Once the gear was unloaded and fire going for heat it was time to install the pump on the well and pump water to make coffee in the big 30 cup urn. By that time it was close to lunch so one of us would fix some thing or we made sandwiches. After lunch we would go check out the blinds and open the windows on the closed up ones to air out the musty smell. Once that was done we would walk to different area we might or might not hunt while we were there, depended on sign. In the evening we would usually drive to Gladstone & Escanaba go to a restaurant to have supper then to a grocery store to stock up on things we didn’t bring like catsup, mustard, coffee, butter, dry beans and burger to make chili with and fill the 50 gallon barrel with fuel for the generator. Once that was finished we would head back to the camp lay out our clothing for the morning make up the coffee urn to make coffee in the morning then we would go to bed. Needless to say after being awake for more than 24 hours I slept very well. In the morning I would get up go full the generator with fuel and start it, Then I would go in the shed to light the heater in there so it would be toasty warm when we were getting dressed to go out. Meanwhile Rick had gotten up and put fire wood in the furnace and opened it up a bit to warm the cabin as well as reheat the coffee left from the night before. I would then set down at the table to cut up a loaf of homemade bread we had brought that Ricks wife had made. Rick would be at the range with his griddle frying eggs & bacon or sausage and sometimes ham. Once I got the bread sliced I would fill the thermoses with coffee and pour us some fresh stuff. We made sandwiched to carry afield with us for lunch or if we came back to the cabin it was get a bowl of bean soup off the wood burner or chili we had made the night before. It was my job to make supper, much was as easy as thawing the stuff made and home and froze in baggies and warm it, Latter I had gotten a bigger generator so we had a micro wave for me to do that. Since Rick passed away I stay home to hunt. I wake up in the morning opening day and make my breakfast, coffee no longer done as I how drink tea so make it sort of like coffee in a percolator. I fill a thermos with it and lace it heavy with honey. Then it is out the back door to one of the four blinds I built on my place and am in the process of doing a fifth one now. 

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 22, 2016)

*The rabbit hunt*
March 1978 Rob my younger brother and I got laid off for two weeks. Since rabbit season is going to end in a few short weeks we load Robs dog gear in my truck and head for a bit of state land they had been clear cutting on for the last 8 years. 
All the clear cuts over a year old had grown up in a jungle of berry briers and small sucker tree growth. It also held a lot of brushy tops the loggers left that made great hiding spots for rabbits so the area was loaded with them. Mostly the snow shoe hare were in the area. We park the truck in a clearing made when the loggers were loading the logs on semi trucks. We get out and load up the shot guns and head out. Wasn’t long and Skunk (the dog’s name) had a rabbit going, soon it came around and Rob got it a nice snow shoe. About two hours later we had 10 nice bunnies to take to the cook pot. The limit then was 5 per day and 5 in the freezer, since we had none in the freezer we ate dinner and went back to a different place in the afternoon. This different place was real hilly with deep ravines, you could see across them to the top of the hill on the other side very easy. Also since it was mid March about half the snow had melted in areas that got sun lite most of the day. You could see those snow shoe rabbits sunning themselves on the opposite hillside. Wasn’t long and we had a limit again so we head back to the house and clean the rabbits and get a bunch cooking. That evening after supper we were sitting around talking and decided we would try sniping the rabbits the next day with our rifles. I had an older savage in 222 Remington, Rob had Winchester model 70 in 225 Winchester.
Next morning dawned bright and clear leaving the dog at home we set out for the state land and the same area we had hunted the afternoon before. Going to the hill with the sun to our backs we set down to take a look and see if we could spot any snow shoes. Wasn’t long and we see one, hadn’t learned all the trick in doing the spotting at this time. Rob and I had drawn cards at home for the first shot, so he drew first blood whit a snow shoe sliding down the hill a bit. Soon we see another and it was my turn. Took me two shots to get it, we were going for head shots. Marking the location of those two we go down the hill cross the valley and climb to the rabbits. Both head less with the body meat still intact, we decided that since we were half way up that hill we would finish the climb and see what we could see on the hill we had just left. With the rabbits in the shade they were still easy to spot if they were in a snow less spot. 
Took us about 3.5 hours to get our limit this time but we did get much better as the days went on. Like if you used bonic’s you could see them quicker and even spot that shiny black eye. On our next to the last day we were just getting back to the truck with our take and a CO pulled up. Asked us about the hunting so we told him it had been good all week. He then said he had been down the trail a bit and heard high power rifle sounds and asked if we had heard any. Rob started laughing and said we sure had and it was fun to make it. CO with a confused look said I thought you said you were rabbit hunting so we explained how we were doing it. CO got all red in the face and said we couldn’t do that and he was going to ticket us and take the rabbits.
I say wait just a minute and go pull out the hunting rules and regulations for 1978. I turn to the page rabbit hunting. Ask the CO to show me in the rules as written where it limited us to shot gun, rim fire or a bow only to hunt rabbits with.
He can’t find it to show us but decided he would not write a ticket unless he caught us again. I told him that sounded like a good plan and he best find that rule to show us and make sure it was in the 1979 rule book because we planned on doing it more in the future. Didn’t make a friend that day, in fact we and others had to file complaint after complaint on his actions and manners.

 Al


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## blades (Oct 23, 2016)

Hi Al, ran in to a couple of those type CO in WI (wardens) as well over the years.


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## alleyyooper (Oct 25, 2016)

*Long ago memories.*
When I was growing up I loved to go into the old gamble store in town. It smelled of harnesses leather and oil soaked floors that squeeked as you walked down the asiles. There were barrels of nails,screws small bolts and nuts. There was a little rack of new single shot guns mostly, with a rifle every so often mostly a Winchester 94 or for the afulant a Marlin 336. there was another rack that held used shot guns. Seen my first pump gun there a Winchester 97 I wanted one so very bad. I never could find one when I had saved enough to buy one of my own. My first one was a used Wards western feild 16 with a poly choke, 50 some years latter I still own it.There was a big shelf behind the counter full of different types of ammo. you could buy 3 boxes of 22 shorts for 50 cents Dad would tan our hide for buying them as target shooting was fround on. You could get 100 rounds of 22LR for 50 cents. Many a time I went in there with a quarter and walked out with four 2 1/2 inch #6 shot 410 shells, Yes you could buy just the number of shells for the shot gun or rifle you could afford. 
They had a corner of the store where they had the big old cane poles proped in it. and they had the fancy take down cane poles in a rack near by. 
They carried a few lures mostly south bend brand and top water ones at that. 

Todays hardwear stores don't have a smell most don't sell guns, ammo or fishing equipment. Last one I went into that sold ammo had it locked up behind the counter and you had to ask for what you couldn't see to even know they carried it. 
 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 25, 2016)

*Oct 1970 opening day of duck season*

Found me and my hunting partner, his brother and my partners two brother in laws dragging a 10 foot pram thru the woods to a beaver pond to hunt ducks. 

This beaver pond is really two separated by about 150 yards of head of a river. the lower pond covered about 25 acres or a bit more. the 150 yards of river was a hi bank narrow area the upper pond was about 20 acres. 

We decided to put the pram in the lower bigger pond, the two brother in laws Dale & Jim would hunt out of it. I would set up on the narrow high banks and my Partner Rick and his brother norm would cover the upper pond. We all got into position When 10:00 AM rolled around Jim and Dale launched the pram into the big pond to have a huge flock of ducks lift off and head for the upper pond. As they came by my stand in the narrows I got two mergansers. As they got to the upper pond Rick and Norm got a couple mallards each and a merganser. The ducks circled around and came barreling down the narrow cut past me where I down a pair of green wing teal to the lower pond. They were met with salvos of 12ga from Jim and Dale as they circled that big pond. Finally a settled down in the upper area of the big pond so Jim and Dale oared up there getting in flight again. 
By noon we had limited out with Mallards and Teal, so we decided to pick up our empty hulls floating on the water then take our duck to clean them and have lunch. After lunch we decided to hit several of the other beaver ponds in the area with just waders since they were small area size. We were sure that the ducks that had left the two morning ponds had settled in to a couple of those tiny ponds. We were right and within a hour we had our daily limit of ducks. 

A bit later I drove south and met the same bunch at a Michigan DNR flooding area of the Maple river. Again we chose to just wade and jump shoot That worked real well since a lot of the flooding was in wood lots and corn fields the DNR had paid the farmers locally to plant. In the flooded woods behind a slater house I was going to step over a sunken log I could see and it took off nearly dumping me into the water a big gar pike my buddy who saw it said. 
We filled out limit again that day. 
I drove home that evening to wait another week for Pheasant season to open then I would drive down there again to hunt.

 Al


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## Sepia (Dec 26, 2016)

alleyyooper said:


> *The rabbit hunt*
> March 1978 Rob my younger brother and I got laid off for two weeks. Since rabbit season is going to end in a few short weeks we load Robs dog gear in my truck and head for a bit of state land they had been clear cutting on for the last 8 years.
> All the clear cuts over a year old had grown up in a jungle of berry briers and small sucker tree growth. It also held a lot of brushy tops the loggers left that made great hiding spots for rabbits so the area was loaded with them. Mostly the snow shoe hare were in the area. We park the truck in a clearing made when the loggers were loading the logs on semi trucks. We get out and load up the shot guns and head out. Wasn’t long and Skunk (the dog’s name) had a rabbit going, soon it came around and Rob got it a nice snow shoe. About two hours later we had 10 nice bunnies to take to the cook pot. The limit then was 5 per day and 5 in the freezer, since we had none in the freezer we ate dinner and went back to a different place in the afternoon. This different place was real hilly with deep ravines, you could see across them to the top of the hill on the other side very easy. Also since it was mid March about half the snow had melted in areas that got sun lite most of the day. You could see those snow shoe rabbits sunning themselves on the opposite hillside. Wasn’t long and we had a limit again so we head back to the house and clean the rabbits and get a bunch cooking. That evening after supper we were sitting around talking and decided we would try sniping the rabbits the next day with our rifles. I had an older savage in 222 Remington, Rob had Winchester model 70 in 225 Winchester.
> Next morning dawned bright and clear leaving the dog at home we set out for the state land and the same area we had hunted the afternoon before. Going to the hill with the sun to our backs we set down to take a look and see if we could spot any snow shoes. Wasn’t long and we see one, hadn’t learned all the trick in doing the spotting at this time. Rob and I had drawn cards at home for the first shot, so he drew first blood whit a snow shoe sliding down the hill a bit. Soon we see another and it was my turn. Took me two shots to get it, we were going for head shots. Marking the location of those two we go down the hill cross the valley and climb to the rabbits. Both head less with the body meat still intact, we decided that since we were half way up that hill we would finish the climb and see what we could see on the hill we had just left. With the rabbits in the shade they were still easy to spot if they were in a snow less spot.
> ...


I just had to reply to your rabbit hunting story. You mentioned hunting rabbits with a Savage rifle in rem .222. I have that same rifle and have owned it since I was 18 (I bought it from a guy out of the trunk of his car). I haven't shot that rifle in years, but have many fond memories of hunting groundhogs/woodchucks decades ago when they were seemingly everywhere. That little .222 was deadly accurate and it was hoot bowling those tunnel dwellers over at longer ranges than I could ever dream of with my .22 rimfire.


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## alleyyooper (Dec 27, 2016)

My 222 got replaced with a Remington 700 BDL in 243. Fantastic deer rifle.

 Al


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## Marshy (Dec 27, 2016)

Nice read, I enjoyed it. Look forward to reading more. Have a good day.


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## blades (Dec 27, 2016)

Used a 6mm Remington 788 for everything for years ( just a bit different than the .243)


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## alleyyooper (Dec 28, 2016)

*Finally after 40 years.*
Got two new springs 30 pound ones and installed them in the bolts of the Remington’s 700 muzzle loaders. I harvested a nice 7 point opening day with the shot gun, Missed another nice buck in some brush 5 days latter. Saw at least two really nice bucks but they were chasing does and moving right along so I never got a shot at them.

Muzzle loader season comes. I decided I am going to wait for a chance at those bigger bucks rather than shoot a spike I had been seeing right along all thru both firearm season and ML season. As I was going out in the afternoon on Dec. 6th Kare asked if I was going to shoot a spike. I told her not right away I was going to wait to see if I could get one of the big guys. 30 minutes latter a spike walks by my blind 35 yards away. Never seen a buck after that except when I was out walking the dog seeing the same spike twice in as many days. Season is coming to an end quick figure I have 3 days left as I went out the door Thursday morning.

When I came in for lunch Kare said she wanted to go to her mom’s on Friday as her birthday was Saturday the 20th. I decide at that time any legal buck I saw I was going to try to harvest. After lunch I walk to my blind in the front yard and get settled in. The first doe comes out of the pines at just after 4:00 PM to feed slowly across the lawn to the woods on the other side of the driveway and then go to the corn field across the road. They kept coming till I had counted up to 9, I was talking on the radio (talk abouts) to Kare who said there were deer in the back yard that had got my pup to barking. She also said there were a few out the living room window across the creek. It had been over cast all day so never was what you could call bright.

About 5:00 PM I decided to start packing things up for the walk back to the house when another deer walks out of the pines at my 70 yard marker. I look at it with the binocs and see it is a spike I had never seen before. I turned the scope up to 6 power on the 50cal Remington 700 loaded with 80gr. of triple 7, MMP green sabot and a 300gr. Speer gold dot bullet. He was quartering to me at about a 50 degree angle so I put the cross hairs just in front of his left shoulder and touched it off. Fire jumped out the end of the barrel and the blind filled with smoke. I got a very quick glimpse of the buck hunching up and running. I grab a quick load dump the powder in the bore then start the sabot and bullet down the bore, pull the ram rod and drive it home. Kare comes on the radio and asked if that was me who had shot.

I tell her yes it was, she asked where I was I told her reloading in the blind as I searched my coat and pants pocket for my capper. Kare said I didn’t need to reload as he wasn’t going any place he was laying just off the lawn by the barberry bush along the creek out the living room window, he had run about 45 yards. I go to the house strip off my hunting duds turned on the flood lights, went down to him with Kare and got pictures of my first muzzle loader deer with 5 inch spikes. Since it was now dark it was nice to have the flood lights to field dress him by.

To clarify the 40 years part, I had first used a old 69 cal smooth bore during ML season, then for the next year a T/C Hawkins I put together from a kit. I did not hunt every one of the 40 years only when I had a tag that I had not filled during normal modern fire arm season.
So of the 40 years, I may have really hunted 15 with the ML.

 Al


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