CO Nick “Streak”  Torsky [originally from Mackinaw City] and I patrolled slowly but steadily  from early morning on, mostly in the indescribably beautiful Pigeon River east of Vanderbilt.  With each hunter we talked to, or camp we visited, here’s how the conversations tended to go:

Had any luck? Nope.

Seen any deer? Nope.

Heard any shots? Nope.

Anybody see any deer? Nope.

You hunt this area before? Nope.

Coming back next year? Nope.

Staying all week? Nope.

Ergo I called November 15^th, “The Nopener.” And in each county I worked my partners and I would hear complaints of not enough deer, even in Leelanau where there is county-wide Quality Deer Management and enough big racks to make all but the most obsessed horn hunters salivate.

The weather was warm. There was no snow. The winds were out of the east. Barometric pressure was changing and flopping around like a dying fish. The warm weather sort of interrupted the rut, which is usually in full swing approximately Nov 10-20. Conditions at best were weird.

I drove up on November 13 and spent 13-14-15 with Nick and Kristy Torsky and their kids Nicholas and Anna (one of my budding writers: Right Anna?)

Kristy said Nicholas was reading a book to introduce children to where babies come from and he walked into the living room or dining room and said, “There MUST be a better way, Mom!” He was totally disgusted. I’m still giggling.

The Torsky’s mutt is Murphy, a dancing black lab. He also makes me giggle.

Nick has been named by a local ne’er do well as TPT, “That Prick Torsky.” I laughed out loud at this one.

I left early on the 13^th and greeted sunrise in McBain only to discover a heap of windmills had been built there since my last pass-through.

On the 14^th we worked under a plane, looking for bait. As acting sergeant, Nick played more of a coordinator role than boots -in-the-dirt CO.

Riding around gives me the chance to pick officer’s brains, which are jammed full of interesting stories and adventures, like a northern Michigan man who has 14 DNR arrests, and another man the local police call Brown Trout, who carries a wooden stake around in his quest to kill vampires, and when the police stop him, claims he is the good side of a double personality and that his evil twin causes all the trouble and that all of his woes are being orchestrated by the CIA. Hey, who can say he’s not right?

One man trying to be Nick’s “good buddy”  informed us that he is a “vivid hunter.” Say what?

And right after dark the night before the season CO Mark DePew had to pull over a drunk weaving all over the back roads. Beer cans all over the floor, a bow and rifle in the vehicle. Nick and I stopped to secure the weapons and direct the wrecker while Mark hauled “Road Beer” off to the clink to sleep it off. This wouldn’t be the last drunk of the trip, driving or hunting.

Opening day, previously described, we bumped into a camp on a river late in the day, where they were using a rope to ferry themselves across the river into a swamp, chairs glued into their flat-bottom boats. The hunters, I think, were from Wolverine.

During the day one of Nick’s colleagues  called to say one of his bad boys in a nearby county was alleged to have whacked a buck the night before the season and he was intending to enter it in Pat and Gary’s Indian River Big Buck Contest, which apparently has some of the bigger prizes for such events up north. Nick and I waited until the entries closed at 8 p.m., and walked in to see if the miscreant had entered a buck. There were food tents, a chicken soup contest, live radio coverage, TV cameras, Cub scouts selling stuff, lights all over, the ground soaked in fresh blood, dead deer hanging and all over the ground. The man in question had pre-registered (how’s that for confidence?), but never showed to enter a deer. The big buck festivities at night reminded me of how deep deer hunting dwells in the collective culture and psyche of Michigan citizens. You may not hunt, but it still affects your life and the lives of those around you. I dare say nothing else in this state has such weight, generation in and generation out.

I’ll write about the 16th and 17th tomorrow. Photos of Nov 13-15 follow. I think they make the flavor without need for a lot of words. Enjoy. More tomorrow. Over.

The sun goes down Up North at the end of the 2009 Opening Day

Keeping track of big buck results.

Checking in his buck.

Crossing a beaver dam to look for reported bait piles

Well hidden blind. We walked past it at first . Hunter was inside, a serviceman (USAF); he said nothing until Nick spotted and approached him. Creepy to walk past a scope on you....

A small, nameless feeder stream in Otsego County where brown trout spawn in late fall.

Late in the afternoon, day before the opener. Crossbow rules became more liberal this year and we stopped to talk to a fellow coming out of the woods. The crossbow is a lethal weapon that packs a wallop.

Opening day, rolling slowly, we spied two elk running through jackpines. They crossed the road behind us. We backed up, hoping for pix. No luck. The track shown is next to my hat . BIG critters. On opening day evening a twenty-something first time hunter popped a bull, mistaking it for deer. COs made contact with him next morning when he came to look for the blood trail. Whoops.

The ferryboat fleet.

In hunting camps, like life elsewhere, necessity if the mother of invention. Nuff said.

We stopped at a house to talk about nearby problems and a saw the decoy in the chair in the morning light and just had to get it on camera. Would make a great painting as well.

A sign you might be Up North.

Opening day lunch in the woods: pan-fried rosemary chicken strips, jalapino mustard, red onion, Thai red peppers. YUM!

Drunk-truck: Beers on floor, weapons in cab. Bad combos.

Tribal tree. This is in Cheboygan County where Native Americans strip paper birch bark for various uses. You see clusters of these trees in some locations. The trees do not appear to be dead as a result.

A bird hunter's pals wanted to know what was going on when we stopped to talk to him.

Old man in the woods after a morning jaunt.