Michigan Outdoor News, A slow start for ’04 firearms deer hunt
By Bill Parker
Editor
Lake Orion, Mich. — Reports from around the state point to a disappointing 2004 firearms deer season.
Officially, the DNR admits that early reports indicates a slow start to the season. The DNR’s preliminary harvest numbers were not available as of press time on Dec. 3.
“We won’t have the preliminary results until Monday, (Dec. 6) but based on the first three days of the season (the harvest) appeared to be down,” said Rod Clute, the DNR’s deer specialist. “The number of participants appeared to be down.”
Biologists agree that the lower hunter numbers are expected when there is a Monday opener, but what wasn’t expected was that those numbers didn’t appear to improve in most areas as the season continued.
“It seemed like hunter pressure was way down this year, probably because the opener was on a Monday,” says Rick Spencer, owner of All Season Sporting Goods in Tawas City. “After that it was real quiet. Overall, it was slow. There were a lot of guys who didn’t see anything.”
Pressure was apparently worse a little farther north in and around the “TB Zone.”
“It was a disaster here in northeastern Michigan, thanks to the DNR,” said Len Barraco, owner of Side Door Bait and Tackle in Hubbard Lake. “There was no one hunting. People say it was because of the high gas prices, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s because of the no baiting law and the warm weather. There are virtually no hunters on state land anymore. This was the worst deer season I’ve seen in 31 years.”
Hunting success appears to be down across the state.
“We’re checking fewer deer at most of our check stations, but we had fewer hunters in many places,” said Tom Weise, DNR management unit supervisor at Newberry. “Overall we’re down about 3 or 4 percent, but the deer we checked looked healthy.”
At the Marquette DNR office, Communications Specialist Ann Wilson said her crew had checked about 350 deer as of Dec. 1, compared to a total of 400 last year.”
“The number of deer we’re seeing at check stations is about on average with what we usually see,” Wilson said. “A lot of people are still bringing in their deer heads to be checked so we will be pretty close to what we checked last year.”
Many U.P. hunters, however, didn’t encounter that kind of success.
“This was the worst season I’ve seen in the eastern U.P.,” said Brian Harrison, owner of Great Outdoor Sport Shop in Cedarville. “I can’t remember deer hunting being so bad since the late ’60s. We’ve had dozens of camps report that hunting was so bad they didn’t even hunt the whole season.”
John Thompson, owner of the Corner Store in Big Bay, agreed that the season was disappointing. “It was atrocious,” he said. “It was the most disappointing season ever and everyone I’ve talked to said the same thing. I attribute it to predation. There are wolves and coyotes everywhere. No one I talked to said they had a good season. It was just terrible. You don’t even see them crossing the road anymore when you’re driving.”
As of Dec. 1, the count of dead deer crossing the Mackinaw Bridge was down 21 percent at 6,564, compared to 8,359 last year. Wilson said that drop could be attributed to balmy weather during the first week of the season, causing hunters to butcher their deer before bringing them home. Those deer would not be included in the bridge count.
The apparent dismal trend continued in the northwestern Lower.
“The harvest is down about 10 percent based on what we’ve seen in the northwest management unit,” said DNR Management Unit Supervisor Larry Visser. “We think that was because of a combination of a Monday opener, a smaller herd and wet, rainy, foggy weather for part of the season.”
Tom Durecki, of Tom’s Bait and Tackle in East Jordan, was disappointed with the season.
“It was a bad season around here,” he said. “Hunters weren’t seeing a lot of deer, and the bucks that were killed weren’t that big. Everyone is pretty disappointed around here.”
Even in southern Michigan, where the majority of the harvest has come from in recent years, deer hunter success appears lower.
““I would say, from what I’m hearing, southern Michigan was down by about a third,” said Tom Knutson, of Knutson’s Sporting Goods in Brooklyn.
Clute conceded that the DNR’s effort to reduce the herd is working.
“Our goal is to achieve a smaller deer herd,” he said. “Maybe we’ve achieved that a little sooner than we thought.”