It’s August 11th, 2018. It’s about 10:30 am and that Michigan summer sun is starting to gain some steam as she gets higher and higher in the sky. My buddy and hunting partner Joe Kemper and I got to work really early that morning to beat the heat. Our mission was to tear down all of our tree stands and to get them all moved to our new property so we could get them up to be prepped for the looming archery season. Mission accomplished, but I had to take one last walk by myself to visit an old pal.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”, I asked myself as I felt my eyes start to swell up as I walked down the boardwalk we made to get through a half mile wide northern Michigan cedar swamp at our hunting property just outside the small town of Onaway, Michigan. I rarely cry, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself cry over this.
This wasn’t just any old regular walk through the swamp I had done hundreds of times over the years; this was going to be last walk through this swamp that leads to an open meadow full of cedar and apple trees that I had hunted the past 11 years of my life. I still remember it like it was yesterday when I first laid eyes on that meadow. Even though I was a young teenager without a lot of knowledge when it came to whitetails or whitetail hunting, I knew at first glance that the field looked like good deer territory, but at the time I had no clue the impact that the cedar-filled field would have on me.
Let me rewind a little bit. When I was 14 years old, my dad and I decided to go in on a promising 160-acre lease in Onaway, Michigan with our close family friend Jim Kemper and his young sons Joe and Jack. In case you don’t where Onaway is, which you probably don’t, hold your right hand up with your palm facing you to form the Michigan mitten; it is on the right side of the top crease on your middle finger. This is about a 4-hour haul from Grand Rapids up 131 and 75. Before I was old enough to hunt, my dad hunted up in Big Rapids, Michigan and he would shoot a buck with his rifle every year. Were they big bucks? No. Up there if you saw anything with any kind of bone on its head you shot it. It didn’t matter because growing up I didn’t care the size of the buck my old man harvested; he came home with several young bucks, and I would just be in awe of how amazing of a hunter he was because he never came home with an empty truck bed. I remember waiting at school full of excitement the day my dad was coming home from opening week of rifle season to see what he had in the back of his truck; like a kid on Christmas morning waiting to see what was under the tree. They eventually lost the property due to new land owners, and when I became old enough to hunt with a firearm, which is 14 years old in the state of Michigan, we were stuck hunting downstate in the Shotgun zone. For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to when I say the “Shotgun Zone,” I’m going to have you hold your right hand up toward you one more time and draw a not-so-straight line from about just less than halfway up the left side of your hand over to just above your thumb on the right side of your hand. Below the line is the shotgun zone, above that line is the rifle zone. All my dad would talk about was how much better it felt to have a rifle in your hand on opening day because, “If you can see it, you can shoot it.” That year we hunted in the Shotgun zone on opening day, and a massive Michigan 8 point ran through our food plot, but it was out of shotgun range for my dad. That’s all it took; he was hell bent on never having to hunt in the shotgun zone on opening day again.
Jim Kemper, who we lease the property with, has a summer cottage up on beautiful Black Lake, which is about 10 miles outside of Onaway. It was actually Jim who found the piece of property in the spring of 2006 through a man who owned the local hardware store, and when he discussed leasing it with my dad it didn’t take much convincing. The property itself screams deer country. It was an old cattle pasture littered with cedar, white pine, apple, and white poplar trees, and it had natural clover growing up within the tall grass that coated the fields. Right down the center of the property ran the extremely thick cedar swamp that I referred to earlier, which was a perfect area for the deer to bed. On each side of the property on the neighboring properties were crop fields that would be littered with deer each evening. The deer would simply file back into the cedar swamp to bed in the morning, and file back out to the fields in the evening. It really wasn’t THAT simple, but it was in the rifle zone and the deer numbers were healthy; we were happy with our new piece of property.
One thing I must say about my old man, when it came to hunting, he always put me first growing up. If he found a good spot, he put me there without hesitation. He has harvested so many deer in his life that he gets more excited to see me have success. With that said, the first summer we had that property I couldn’t make it up to help setup our blinds because I was in the midst of summer baseball. My dad was walking the property for the first time, and the moment he stepped out of the swamp and into that meadow, he knew at first sight that it was what us hunters and fisherman refer to as a “honey-hole.” Right away he got to work building a blind; not for him, but for his 14-year-old son.
The blind itself isn’t anything extravagant to look at, but in my eyes its worth more than money can buy. It sits right on the ground tucked up under a cedar tree that was about 12 feet tall when the blind was built-now that cedar tree towers about 40 feet above the ground. It has plywood on all four sides, with old carpet stapled on top of the plywood. That carpet is spray painted on all 4 sides with gray, brown, and green to make it seem like it blends right into the cedar tree. There’s no door to get in; instead there’s a small step on the left side to help hoist yourself over the side of it and into the blind. This is not an easy maneuver, and he won’t admit it, but I’m pretty sure my old man pulled a hamstring a couple different times trying to hoist himself inside. The roof is held in place with cedar branches that act as poles to keep the roof from blowing off. Inside there are a couple nails sticking out to hang-up your backpack, along with a small shelf on right side to set your thermos, binoculars, cell phone, etc. Lastly, an old moss-covered office chair that spins around 360 degrees in complete silence.
Once your inside and seated, the cedar swamp is about only 30 yards to your left and the edge of it runs on a soft angle away from you as far as the eye can see. I couldn’t tell you how many times a deer popped out of that swamp to my immediate left while I was occupied with something else and caught me off-guard. In front of you is the meadow I’ve mentioned previously; a tall grass field littered with young cedar trees and apple trees. The tall grass has a natural clover it in that the deer browse on as they make their way through the meadow. As if the field needed anymore character, in the middle lies the remands of an old wooden railroad grade that runs through the field that is more than likely over a century old. To the right there is a big hill that leads to the crop fields on the neighboring property; that hill is littered with both red and white pines, and white poplar trees.
Side note on poplar trees: In this lifetime I’ve been lucky to lay my eyes on some beautiful sights; central park in New York City on the first snowfall of the year, the top of a mountain in the middle of the smokies, Wrigley field on a perfect spring day, but absolutely nothing tops the view of a forest filled with leaves of white poplar trees in early October in northern Michigan. If you think I’m crazy, just spend one day driving through northern Michigan this fall and you’ll agree.
Fast forward to this past winter. Jim still has his cottage on black lake, and the past few years he has been looking to buy a piece of hunting property in that area. I couldn’t blame him one bit for wanting to buy a piece of property up there; it’s an absolutely beautiful area with good soil and healthy deer numbers. This past February, Jim came across a 160-acre piece on Zillow about 25 miles from the cottage, and it had all the potential in the world to be a great piece of hunting property. It was February 28th when I got the text from Jim, “Done Deal.” He had bought the property and my immediate reaction was pure excitement. He expressed to us that the only ones that would be hunting it were myself, my dad, Jim and his sons, and another friend of ours Andy Kopf-all the guys in on the lease. I thought to myself, “This is going to be a blast; starting from scratch to build ourselves a whitetail haven and chase big northern Michigan bucks.”
As soon as that thought ran through my head, it hit me and my heart sank. It sank like it sinks when your girlfriend texts you “can we talk?” This probably meant the end of the lease. Why would we pay to hunt somewhere if we can now hunt a piece just as large for free? It was an uneasy feeling at first, but I kind of brushed it aside in the months that followed and tried to focus on being excited about the new property.
Now we’re back to August 11th, and here I was walking out of that cedar swamp one last time. Hundreds of times over the last 11 years, my dad and I would step out of that cedar swamp, give each other a hug and say “Good luck. I’ll meet you here at dark,” before we went our separate ways to our blinds. This time was different though. My dad wasn’t with me, he was at the new property working with the other guys getting prepped to hang stands. This wasn’t about my dad though, I had to say goodbye to my blind. I naturally started to walk towards it, but initially I didn’t want to look up at it as if I was delaying the inevitability of saying goodbye. I walked over, put my foot on the small step, and hoisted myself into it one last time.
As soon as I sat in the chair and looked into the meadow, the memory of the first deer I saw in that blind instantly hit me. First light of opening day of rifle season 2006, it wasn’t quite yet shooting light, but you could make out a deer easily, especially in the open field. I saw three gray objects sprinting toward me, and before I could blink a 3-point buck and 2 does almost ran over me as they sprinted past the cedar tree I was tucked at the base of. Scared the living shit out of me. The next memory was from the same opening day; I had a small buck 15 yards behind me that I was fixing to shoot. At that very moment my walkie-talkie went off because my dad was trying to get ahold of me and the buck ran off out of sight. Yes, this was pre-texting days when our only method of communication was a walkie-talkie that echoed throughout the swamp like a voice echoes in an empty gymnasium. It’s safe to say in my immature teenage years, I would tend to let my emotions get the best of me. I was so mad, that I shot the next deer that walked out of the swamp; a small spike-horned buck. Then all of the other hunting memories flooded in. I was lucky enough to harvest eight different bucks out of that blind in the following years. A couple of the bucks I was able to harvest on film and put on hunting DVDs that thousands of people across the state of Michigan got to see. I had received countless texts and phone calls from my dad, Jim, Joe, and other friends about successes, failures, and general updates that opening week of rifle season naturally comes with. More importantly, this blind was where I learned HOW to hunt deer. I saw so many deer from that blind, I was able to study them in a way most hunters never get to. Their reactions to certain weather, winds, and other factors. How they acted with other deer around, how they acted around bait, and how they acted with a predator such as a coyote lurking. Their reaction to different scents, and how their reactions changed as the hunting pressure increased. Their reaction to gun shots from far off and close by, and their reactions to quads tearing through the property next to us. How they travelled in early season compared to how they travelled in late season going from their bedding area to feeding ground. How a bucks behavior would change as the rut approached and intensified. That blind made me a more knowledgeable hunter, and gave me the confidence to share that knowledge with thousands of people over the years through blogs, videos, and social interaction.
Aside from deer, I got to see an abundance of different wildlife in its natural habitat from that blind. Bald eagles were a constant; one of them even landed in the cedar tree I was sitting under, and sat there for two hours overlooking the meadow for its next meal. Porcupines would slowly walk by my blind on a consistent basis heading toward the swamp to chew on some more tree bark. I was fortunate enough to see countless Coyotes stalk their way through the tall grass towards deer; they aren’t good for the deer population, but they are fun to watch due to the fact that they are just the ultimate predator. That blind kept me on my toes; if you heard something emerging from that swamp it could be anything from a deer, to a coyote, or even a black bear. I never needed to watch those wildlife tv shows, I had my northern Michigan hunting blind.
After all of the hunting and wildlife memories came flooding through, that’s when the floodgates opened around my eyes. I couldn’t hold the tears back; I didn’t just hunt this blind, I grew up and became the man I am today in this deer blind. That deer blind is where I spent weeks and months of my high school, college, and post-college years. I texted my first girlfriend from that deer blind. I read countless books from that deer blind. I studied for tests, wrote papers, and emailed professors excuses why I wasn’t going to be in class the next day from that deer blind. I made mistakes and ruined relationships texting from that deer blind. I had my heart broken in that deer blind. I drank beer both before and after I turned 21 in that deer blind. I stressed myself out making post-college career decisions in that deer blind. I made sales over the phone from that deer blind, which made me feel better for calling into work sick the next day from that deer blind. I brought my iPad and watched Notre Dame football games from that deer blind. I learned how to slow down and think before making big decisions from that deer blind. I endured and survived some of the harshest conditions I’ve ever hunted in from that deer blind. I learned to appreciate what being an outdoorsman really meant from that deer blind. I hit the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows in that deer blind. I found my passion in that deer blind. I prayed from that deer blind. I grew closer to God from that deer blind.
I opened my eyes and wiped the tears away as I took a deep breath and let it all sink in one last time. Then I remembered what happened earlier that morning, and I smiled. We were dragging a few stands back to the truck at the front of the property when we turned the corner to the sight of two gentlemen walking the property. They were thinking of leasing the property for the upcoming deer season, and we gladly gave them some pointers on how to hunt the property efficiently. One of the guys mentioned he had a young son just getting into hunting, and asked if there any spots on the property that would be good for the young boy to hunt. Without hesitation I mentioned my blind just on the other side of the swamp. I explained that it overlooks a meadow filled with cedars and apple trees, and the deer pile into that meadow both in the morning and the evening.
My time had come to an end in that deer blind, but maybe that’s the way God intended. He let me experience failure, hardship, and success in that deer blind, but my time was up and it was time for a new young man to hoist himself into that blind. It was time for a new young man to experience the ups and downs of life from that deer blind, and grow into a mature man who appreciates what hunting is all about. He’ll text his first girlfriend from that deer blind, he’ll have his heart broken in that deer blind, he’ll study and write papers in that deer blind, he’ll find his passion in that deer blind, he’ll grow closer to God from that deer blind, and maybe, if he’s lucky, harvest a few whitetail bucks from that deer blind.
Life is all about flipping the page toward new chapters and remembering and learning from the old chapters, but just because that old chapter is finished for you, doesn’t mean that it can’t be a new chapter for somebody else in their book of life. So, here’s to old chapters, new chapters, and deer blinds. As Fred Bear once said, “Immerse yourself in the outdoor experience. It will cleanse your soul and make you a better person.”