Yep, as long as you buy the combo license. If you just buy the regular license, you only get one buck tag.
Northern MI (again)
- Thread starter TinyTucky
- Start date
Evening update. Saw a single mature doe in the bottom 100-ish yards away, about where I expected. Wind just wasn’t right to push in where I would’ve liked to have gotten to. My dad met me at camp, and we have our tarp system set up for the rain that’s about to start. Think we may fire up the black stone and make some grub before we hit the hay. With a lot of rain overnight and forecasted to last until 10 tomorrow morning, I’m gonna sleep off the beers drank, then set up tomorrow evening for my last bow hunt of the trip and hopefully leave my shit in the tree for rifle opener the following morning. Pretty high hopes based on the number of deer I’ve seen, number of encounters that would’ve ended poorly for the deer if I had a rifle in hand and lack of people dickin’ around. Plus my dad brought a fuck ton of food and a space heater so I won’t see my breath when I wake up in the morning 
I’ll add some pics when I have light in the morning of our “Up North Deer Camp”. It’s a pretty sweet setup for a pair of drunk idiots. May try to get my buck skinned and deboned tomorrow morning depending on what time I roll out of bed. My dad said he’d like to watch since he’s always had someone process his deer, and ya can’t pass up an opportunity to teach your ole man something.
Double bacon burgers and a salad on the side for dinner 
Keep going strong man, good stuff and congrats. Have fun showing dad the ropes on processing, hopefully he'll be a convert.
I promise, if I packed the food, salad wouldn’t have been on my list. I ate 1 granola bar all day, so I was about ready to start eating bark off the treesWho eats salad at deer camp?
Big_Holla
Senior Member
Good old fashioned northern Michigan deer camp right there!! Been a long long time for that, last time would have been in the western UP. Have you seen many camps set up around your area there?? I often wonder if opening day still is as big of a 'holiday' as it used to be up there.
I haven’t seen anyone camping yet. There’s has definitely been an increase in road traffic, and both bars in town had 40+ trucks between the 2 of them. I’d imagine it’s gonna be a pretty busy opening day since it’s on a Friday this year. It’s relatively easy to get away from the pressure considering the piece I shot my buck on is 24,000 acres, and you can walk 7 miles east to west and not cross private and only a handful of dirt 2 tracks. Hunting here is hard considering in just one county alone here there is 500,000+ acres of public.
The U.P. takes deer hunting to a different level. Kind of how it it use to be around here back in the day. Looks like a killer time! Very jealous lol.
Enjoy Your time in deer camp with your father !!!
I swantucky kills a deer!!
I swantucky kills a deer!!
A friend of ours has an acre or two that he drug a camper up to and lets us stay at. 2 years ago we slept outside and it wasn’t too bad, but it’s nice to have a warm dry spot to sleep, especially after sitting in the cold or rain all day.
Long story short, today sucked balls. I rolled out around 10 and went to the same piece of public I shot my buck on to scout a bit more. Rain was supposed to be done by 10, but decided to start back up again at 11 when I was a mile back in there. The northern end of this area is significantly more aggressive with the terrain and access wasn’t nearly as easy. I hoofed it to a hilltop, and bumped a lone deer bedded on the other side with the wind in its favor. I had 30 yards to make the crest, so I figured fuck it I’ll hit my grunt tube every 3rd or 4th step. I got just shy of the top when I heard the deer coming back up at me. I nocked an arrow and knelt down. The deer stopped, so I did another couple grunts and tried to sound like a buck making a scrape. The deer moved a little closer, but it got silent. I sat there crouched for probably 10 minutes, and figured it probably took off and I didn’t hear it. The wind was stiff enough i assumed my scent was blowing over it. So I stood up and approached the far side of the crest and naturally a 3x3 was standing there at 40 yards looking right at me. He took off into the unknown of the bottom. I continued along the hill top and found 3 fresh scrapes going across the saddle. I stumble fugged around for a couple more hours without any more deer sign or action before I went back to my truck then camp. Stopped to bullshit with my dad after he got back from scouting then planned to go deeper on where I hunted last night. I made it 1/4 mile back and saw a brand new pop up blind that wasn’t there yesterday. I rerouted and went another 1/4-1/2 mile and low and behold there’s another brand new pop up blind that was also not there yesterday. So I bailed, drove around, scouted some shitty DNR planted winter wheat fields and found decent sign, but it’s so close to the road that I thought I’d be an idiot to waste my opening day there. I ended up sitting on the ground in a wide open stand of pines like a complete moron, with literally 0 expectations of even seeing a deer, but I’m up here to hunt so that’s what I’m gonna do. Never even nocked an arrow Met my dad at our buddies place for a couple beers, we’re now back at camp packing our lunches and snackies for tomorrow and about to start brats for dinner. Not sure what to expect as far as deer movement and hunting pressure goes tomorrow, but trading in the bow for a rifle feels damn good, especially with the number of close calls I’ve had.
We meant to put up a buck pole, obviously that still hasn’t happened yet
Met my dad at our buddies place for a couple beers, we’re now back at camp packing our lunches and snackies for tomorrow and about to start brats for dinner. Not sure what to expect as far as deer movement and hunting pressure goes tomorrow, but trading in the bow for a rifle feels damn good, especially with the number of close calls I’ve had. We meant to put up a buck pole, obviously that still hasn’t happened yet
My buddy Eli asked me the same thing. There’s a guy that’s not too far from us that lives here full time, so that should help keep unwanted critters away. I will say I saw a set of canine tracks that were huge yesterday, meant to take a pic but forgot.