WEEK 1 RECAP
Week 1 of the Michigan Season is in the books! I always hear and find myself saying to treat hunting season like a marathon, not a sprint, but I’ll admit sometimes it is hard to treat it in such a way when weeks go by so fast! The weather was less than ideal this past week, but I can’t remember the last time we had great weather the first week of bow season. If it was cold, it was raining; if it wasn’t raining, it was too hot. To go on top of that a lot of east winds too, which more often than not leads to minimal deer activity. I like to see the barometric pressure between 30.15 and 30.35, and it only got above 30.15 one time this past week, which was Sunday evening, and even with that high pressure system there was still a strong east wind that kept deer activity low. The one positive thing we had going is there was virtually no moon this past week, and that will carry over into this coming week, which I will get into later.
For me personally it was a very uneventful week. Opening night was definitely the most exciting night of the week, and the only thing I was armed with was my camera. My good friend Tommy Enslen has had a lot of success on the bow opener the past few years from the same stand, so I decided to join him and get behind the camera for an evening. His opening day hot spot didn't disappoint, the only thing that disappointed us was the swirling wind. We had a good buck walking our way within the first 30 minutes of the hunt, only to wind us and whirl back to where he came from. A couple hours later we had a good buck coming from the opposite direction, but the wind swirled once again and he caught a whiff and was gone. Once we saw him walk out of sight behind us, we turned around to find a good buck walking straight at us and closing fast. He took a different trail than expected though, and stopped broadside at just over 30 yards. Camera was recording, buck was at a dead stop, Tommy got to full draw….swing and a miss. Tommy’s arrow barely missed underneath; he quickly admitted that he had rushed the shot and misjudged the distance by a few yards. However, a clean miss is better than a wounded animal. The night ended and we walked back to the truck carrying the same things we walked into the stand with, and no blood trail to look forward to. With that being said, it was an extremely fun night in the stand.
I also managed to hunt last Wednesday night up in Mancelona, Michigan at a family friends property. It was warm and windy with the wind out of the Southeast; no deer. My other two sits came Friday night and Sunday night; saw a few does and fawns, but zero bone. Both of my sits were relatively warm with East winds; the high pressure on Sunday night got me a little excited, but the wind wouldn't calm down and with it dead out of the east, it just wasn’t meant to be.
WEEK 1 SUCCESS
Even with the less than ideal weather, we did have some successes this week past week! Full stories will be coming from the hunters themselves on podcasts that will be available very shortly! In the meantime, here are a few of the highlights from this week.
-Prostaffer Jordan Cooper shot his first Michigan buck on opening evening! A beautiful 7 point in Barry County. Better yet, he was able to self film the whole experience
A good friend and hunting buddy of mine that I go up north to hunting camp with was able to harvest his biggest Michigan buck to date on Saturday night. A beautiful 8 point in Allegan county!
Last but not least, my good friend Robby Enslen was able to film his girlfriend Taylor shoot her first deer ever on Saturday night; a big northern Michigan doe! Congrats Taylor!
LOOKING FORWARD TO WEEK 2!
Onto this coming week! The first few days of this week are not going to be ideal. The highs are going to be in the 80s, with lows in the high 60s; use these next few days to get things done around the house or take your significant other out for dinner. I’m saying that because you might need some brownie points come this weekend because we have our first cold front slapping us in the side of the face come Thursday night and it should last through the weekend! Which means one thing, goodbye social life and hello treestand! The barometric pressure doesn't look like it’s going to top 30, which is a little disheartening, but the wind will be switching from primarily out of the south, to mostly a west or northwest wind. The temperatures will be diving from the low 80s in the early part of the week to the low 50s and high 40s come the end of the week. To go along with that, the moon will still be in the first quarter which should lead increased daylight activity. Even though the barometric pressure is not suppose to get above 30, I’m predicting the combination of the wind direction switch, significant temperature drop, and moon phase will have a lot of deer on their feet in daylight hours this coming weekend. If I were you, take a few days off of hunting during these summer temperatures and wait for this weekend to get 20 feet up. If you have only one day to hunt this week, I’ll recommend either Friday or Saturday night. Friday night will be the first cool night with the big temperature drop, so that should have deer on their feet and on the feed early in evening. However, if you rely more on pressure systems, Saturday night looks like the only night the pressure could creep above 30 which should also increase deer activity, especially around staging areas and food sources.
Good luck to all and don't hesitate to message us on Facebook or Instagram if you have any questions!