Five Of My Favorite Deer Hunts

I have been hunting deer since I was a teenager and have enjoyed the sport my whole life but here are five of my favorite deer hunts.

One of my first decent buck kills happened when I just returned from touring with my band. Firearm season had already started in Michigan so I wasn't even going to go but my friend really wanted to go, so I bought a license and took him to some state land in Oakland County that I knew had some deer.

I went to help a friend and put him where I thought the best spot was. I sat by a swamp thinking I probably won't see a thing but not long after sitting down a real nice 11 point comes walking along behind a doe. What was crazy was when I shot, the deer dropped but I never did really figure out where I had hit the deer, it was as if I scared it to death.

It was a tough deer to get out of the woods since we walked way back in an area that was just too thick for most hunters to attempt but that usually just means there are deer in there and I was right. It was a heck of night getting that brute back to the truck but a hunt my friend Scott and I will never forget.

I have hunted my whole life with my best friend Curt and one year we went to my friends cabin in Gladwin, Michigan. I had a couple of pretty good spots there for he and I to hunt. One thing that I learned hunting there was to always wait for the other hunters to leave the woods, it seems the deer had picked up on vehicle doors closing and would come out about 45 minutes later right in the middle of the day.

The spot I had was in a thick area close to private land and a place that was over looked by other hunters. I had a nice 8 point come out opening morning and dropped him. I had to work the next day so I had my buddy Curt hunt that spot, he wound up getting a 6 point after all the cars left one morning. When I came back up to hunt again, I waited for all the cars to leave and once again got another 8 point who was tailing a doe after all the hunters had left the woods. We got all three deer off the same bucket and on state land.

Another hunt that Curt and I experienced together was in the Upper Peninsula on some state land near Iron River. This was before I started managing my deer kills better and was more of in the mode of, if its got legal horns, I'm shooting. I have since changed my ways but I was also very young at the time.

Curt had set up a great spot for me and sure enough, opening morning out came a really nice spike and I dropped him in his tracks. But what was also great with this hunt was that leading up to firearm season, I had spent a few days bow hunting and in between the hunts we small game hunted and did some fishing. On that trip I brought back the a buck, a snowshoe rabbit, a couple of grouse and some pike that we caught fishing. That was a heck of a week in the outdoors.

Two of my all time favorite hunts were while I was living in Indiana and both of these were bow kills.

I lived in the area that I hunted and lucky for me a farmer was so kind to let me hunt his land for 16 years. I really got in to managing the herd on this piece of property and it produced a lot of really nice deer.

The farmer also let some Amish hunt there and unfortunately they didn't follow the same rules but they also made a lot of mistakes on where they hunted, didn't pay attention to wind and hunted pretty low to the ground. The deer got pretty hip to where they were hunting and I noticed how the deer were making new trails to avoid the other hunters.

I set up a spot that was behind some houses where no one hunted and all the other hunters were all hunting deep. This stand had a thick line where I knew big boys would cruise looking for does in the rut. I had to be very disciplined not to hunt this stand except for in the heat of the rut. If you get detected in a spot like this, you may never see the deer again.

My patience paid off and the first time I hunted the spot, I wasn't there five minutes and I grunted in a 14 point buck. I knew I shot him good but after the initial blood, he stopped bleeding really fast. I called in one of my best buds Adam to help me track the deer. We knew about where the deer was heading and at last blood I waited and that is when my buddy says, he's right here. It was a buck of a lifetime and I actually yelled loud as all in the woods of excitement.

My buddy Adam is a big dude, but this was the hardest deer I had ever dragged out of the woods. Once we got him in the field, we drove the truck the rest of the way.

My other favorite Indiana deer kill was one that I actually go on 2.1 acres at my house. Now remember, I said I lived in the area where I hunted. The same deer I would see down the road on the farmers land would cruise through my place in a thicket that ran along side my house where I had a pond and across the road was either a corn, alfalfa or bean field depending on what the farmer planted.

This was a late season bow kill for me which made it even sweeter. It was during the Christmas break, I had returned from my parents after dropping off my son to his moms here in Grand Rapids. I was washing dishes and I could see the thicket from my house and I'm noticing all these deer coming across my yard to hit the pond before heading over to the cornfield across the street.

So I thought, you know, I better see what is going on with my trail camera that I had in the back corner of the yard. Sure enough I had several pictures of one of the two bucks I had been after that season. Actually the night before gun season I had an encounter with both of the two bucks.  I was watching a massive 11 point with the biggest brow tines I had ever seen sitting in the woods and he was working his way to me so I hit my grunt call when this beast of a 9 point grunts and he snuck up on my right and was 10 years tops away.

He was trotting toward the other buck and I didn't want to take a chase on a bad hit so I passed on the shot.

I put up a ground blind behind my wood pile down by my fire pit and saw a ton of deer there all week. Mind you, I am hunting on 2.1 acres something I had never done as long as I lived there until that year. Earlier that year I shot a really nice turkey as well.

It was the last day of season with about an hour and half left of season and here comes 5 different bucks and I couldn't believe what I was seeing so late in the season. Then the massive 9 point comes out to lead the pack and just as that happens a couple of does start to head my way and then turned and I thought the buck was going to follow them but he turned my way. My arrow went straight through the heart and he only made it 20 yards before he dropped on the neighbors property.

I could not believe I got such a brute with my bow in late season on 2.1 acres but it is still one of my most favorite hunts.