Pointe MouilleeYouth Duck Hunt

Bring your young hunter to one of Michigan’s Managed Waterfowl Hunt Areas (MWHAs) in November for a memorable hunting experience. Parties with at least one youth will be given priority in the draw.

• Nov. 10 – Pointe Mouillee State Game Area (a.m. hunt) in Rockwood

Pointe Mouillee will host their youth hunts in the morning only. Drawings for morning hunts will occur at 5:30 a.m. Youth priority drawings are available for hunting parties with at least one youth and up to two adults (maximum party size is four). All youth participating in these priority hunts must be properly licensed to hunt. Youth hunters 9 years old and younger must be accompanied by a qualified Mentored Youth Hunting Program mentor. 

This is always a big affair at Pointe Mouillee. State wildlife biologist supervisor for the DNR Joe Robison makes it a special day for the youth hunters. His passion is known far and wide and earned him a spot on the Michigan Out of Doors show a while back showing want is done for the youth hunters. Every effort is made to make this a most enjoyable experience for the youths. 

Here's a short video of the duck hunting opportunities at the refuge.



Get Outdoors Downriver.

Google Camping

In these times of short money going on vacation or just a quick getaway can mean going the camping route. Which park to use, private or public. Well now the state of Michigans will provide camp views much like Googles street scenes. No more excuses to yurt it up.

http://www.midnr.com/Publications/pdfs/communications/glenbrook_yurt_360/glenbrook_yurt_360/interior.htm

Beginning Nov. 3, state park campers who make reservations on the new, improved central reservation system (CRS) website, administered by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), can view one or more photos of each campsite prior to making their reservations.

"With the existing reservation system website, customers read descriptive text about the campsite to determine if it's sunny, shady, flat or elevated," said Christa Sturtevant-Good, DNR central reservation system liaison. "While text descriptions will remain, altered slightly to an easier-to-read format, campers can also look at between one to three photos of every site, and then visually decide if that campsite has all the features they're looking for."

The photos will be shown as smaller thumbnail images which, when clicked on, open to a larger size in a new window.

"In this way, viewers can see the site up close," said Anna Sylvester, DNR Parks and Recreation field operations chief for northern Michigan. "Often campers wonder where the fire pit or electrical box is located on the site, but they can't tell this just by reading text. These features are shown in most photos, allowing campers to determine if the location of campsite elements will meet their camping needs."

The addition of campsite and lodging photos is a customer-driven enhancement made available through the new CRS provider, Camis USA, Inc., which has a call center in Ann Arbor, Mich., and servers in Southfield, Mich. The new reservation system becomes active in early November, with important transitions taking place as the activation approaches.

During the transition phase to the new CRS, customers can continue to make reservations through Oct. 30 using the call center. The phone number, 1-800-44-PARKS, will remain unchanged. Reservations through the website, www.midnrreservations.com, will be possible until Oct. 22 at 8 p.m., when the website will taken down to begin the transition process to the new website. The address will not change.

Important transition dates include:

• Oct. 22-31: Website reservations cannot be made. The call center will remain active through Oct. 30, taking reservations for dates through Oct. 31, 2013.
  
• Oct. 25: The new reservation website goes live. Although reservations cannot yet be made on the website, customer profiles can be created and viewers can navigate the site to create familiarity.
  
• Oct. 31: Reservations cannot be made. State parks can register walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis.
  
• Nov. 1: The new CRS system, both the website and the call center, opens to state park lodging, which typically has a one-year reservation window (camper cabins, mini-cabins, rustic cabins, yurts and modern lodges). Reservations for these facilities can now be made for dates after Oct. 31, 2013. From Nov. 1-2, campsites and slips are not reservable. During this time, campsites and slips are available at the facility on a first-come, first-served basis.
  
• Nov. 3: The system opens to facilities with a six-month reservation window. These include campsites at state parks and select state forest campgrounds and harbor slips.

Harvest or Hunter's Moon

After last weeks spectacular showing of the International Space Station, 3 views in 3 days and each lasting over a minute, tonight's moon should be equally impressive. The main reason these viewings are so rare is that the view times coincided with clear skys, something that normally doesn't happen especially 3 nights in a row for the ISS.

The forcast for tonight is clear sky so the view of the moon should be impressive. I'm going to try my hand at digiscoping the event to see if I can get a decent pic of the moon. The you can use it to see the man in the moon.

Right in the middle of the moon are the eyes, nose and mouth.The dark spots on the upper right give the illusion of curly hair. If you're out at dusk give the moon a look and maybe you'll see him in the Harvest/Hunter's moon. It just depends on if your crops are dry enough or your quarrie is plentiful.

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A Meal Fit for the King

If you find yourself hungry without money or are just tired or the same old noodleroni head for a swamp for a fine meal. That's what Chase told the Explorers Club recently before taking the group to the nearest water. Earlier in spring the cattail pollen was collected and acts like a flour to cook with, if you can collect enough. There's also wild rice in the area but the stands are few and far between now so we got a sample of wild rice from Minnesota which still has Native Americans that collect and sell it. Chase then displayed a main entree of the meal, crawfish.

While the water was warming the group tried hatchet tossing. It's not as easy as it looks at least for the girls. There was also a primitive hut to explore.

 Chase brought in some cattail stalks and peeled the root ends for a veggie side dish and combined with the crawdads, lemon and butter it was a meal fit for a king.

 Get Outdoors Downriver.





Don't APR Me ASAP.

There's a movement a foot to enact a law to force every hunter in Southern Michigan to only harvest a deer with at least 4 antler points on one side. The laws have already been changed for most of the Northern Lower Peninsula to only harvest a deer with at least 3 antler points on one side. I've posted earlier about my hunting party's success over the years and 3points on one side would've caused us to only harvest 1 deer in over 25 years. We're not expert hunters in the least but to get the 15-20 bucks over these years someone had to be spending time in the field. Like most hunters we don't own large tracts of land or live close to where we hunt so it's hard to scout out the older deer. With the advent of the trail cam we saw what kind of deer that are in the area within a week of opening day of deer gun season.

The deer are there and if you hunt hard enough and long enough you could have an opportunity to harvest such a buck. When your available time to hunt is compressed into a weekend and part of a week, if you're lucky, the chances of seeing a brute like this are very low. So don't Antler Point Restrict me and if you agree let the DNR and the LPDMI what you think. The group LPDMI is behind this push for large racks, which every hunter loves to see, but the loss of the harvesting experience far outweighs the chance for a few hunters to harvest large racks. The group is paying $14k to "survey" 1000 hunters to get their opinion on the restrictions. Years ago the state voted on keeping all hunting and fishing laws in the hands of the DNR and using sound science to make new laws. This survey is an end around to get a change in law without science being involved. A survey of opinion is just opinion, the opinion of 1000 to govern the other 700K hunters.

Many of the recent law changes have come about using these same surveys of opinion and because of the survey rules manipulation of the laws are favoring certain factions of outdoor enthusiasts. Lets keep these decisions based in science and not in opinion of a chosen few.

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Check Out a Fish

A fishing rod and tackle box lending program has been started at the Wyandotte and Riverview libraries. This is thanks to the Wayne County Community College retiree Dennis O'Connell and the people from Gander Mt., Flambeau Outdoors, and Eagle Claw along with the Downriver Walleye Federation. Each community library card holder can check out a fishing rod and a small tackle box for either fishing a pond or shallow lake or a fishing pier in Wyandotte on the Detroit River. Riverview library is located right on a pond in Patriot's Park and is suited for kids of all ages especially beginning fisher people.

The banks gently roll down to the water and there is some shallow water near the edge. Don't be surprised if you see a mossy backed turtle begging for scraps. Wyandotte's Bacon Memorial Library has rods and reels better suited for river fishing on the pier. They have both regular and river specific tackle boxes depending on what type of fishing you want to participate in. The regular tackle boxes have hooks, lures, bobbers and plastic jig bodies to use at any good fishing spot. The pier fishing tackle boxes are geared toward keeping your line still fishing from the pier and include only spreaders, sinkers and plastic jig bodies. It's highly recommended to bring some bait for this fishing and there's a list of local bait shops by the rod carousel.

Please support these shops because they all donate to the Kid's Fishing Derby and without their support the derbies wouldn't be the same. Make sure and tell them about the lending program and where and how you'll be fishing and they most probably will give you advise if you ask for it. If you do fish off of the pier don't do any overhead casting to keep the outing safe.

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Hunt for Free

It's true, with the help from the good folks from Meijer.  For the fifth consecutive year, Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer Meijer is providing young hunters across its five-state footprint with free youth hunting licenses. Meijer shoppers can redeem their print coupon or mPerks digital coupon for a youth hunting license in-store from Sept. 13-14.

It's suggested that an adult be with the jr. hunter for purchase but an adult must accompany the jr. hunter during the hunt. The following restrictions apply to youth hunters who participate in any firearm deer season:

• Youth under 14 years of age may hunt with archery and crossbow equipment on 
public or private lands or with a firearm on private or Commercial Forest 
lands only.
• A public-land antlerless deer license is required to hunt antlerless deer on 
Commercial Forest land.
• All hunters under age 17 must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or an adult 
designated by their parent or guardian; additional qualifications apply with the 
apprentice or mentored youth licenses.
• All hunters participating in firearm seasons must wear hunter orange.

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Peddlerama

As a benefit for the nonprofit organization Top of Michigan Trails Council, this two-day event will feature a Saturday "Paddlerama" where paddlers will participate in a series of events, including: sprints, stand-up paddle boarding (SUP) jousts, SUP yoga, demos, races, and water safety programs on Mullett Lake in Aloha State Park. Following the day on Mullett Lake, paddlers and the public are invited to enjoy a craft beer festival Saturday evening featuring some of the tastiest beers, local eateries, and bands from across Michigan. Sunday will challenge paddlers with a 13-mile paddle from Aloha State Park through the inland waterway to the beach at Cheboygan State Park, including a paddle-through and photo opportunity at the Cheboygan Locks.

This should be a great time. The location has flashed me back to 1973. After the end of my first year at Michigan's Toughest University, Harold Carter and I decided it would be wonderful to ride 10 speeds from Houghton to Hazel Park, his hometown. There were many ups and downs in the 600 mile trip and Aloha State Park was definitely an up. We had a great nights sleep after a long day previous. In the week long trip a night's sleep was a rare indulgence that separated 80 to 100 mile days on a bike.

We made it the first night to Marquette and spent the night at a friends house. It's surprising how sore you can get just peddling a bike but sore we were in many places. The next night was spent in our 2 man tent in a roadside stop in the middle of the Seney Straights. The straights are a stretch of road for 30 miles as strait as an arrow with very little on either side of the road save this stopping area. The next day dawned overcast and was a sign of things to come. It soon started to rain and rain and rain. The cold temps and cold rain were welcome to our sore muscles, but not for long. Five hours of peddling in the rain found us in McMillan cold, wet and arguing with each other about whose idea this was and how stupid the other guy was. The Cobblestone Bar was an oasis in the myriad of emotions and pain from our situation. A boilermaker or two got me back on track and motivated to push on. We found out that Engadine has a laundromat and we could dry off and get warm. The 40 miles at breakneck speed got us to downtown Engadine, two buildings one of which was the much sought after laundromat. Things were looking up and the rain had even slowed to just a drizzle. A sign on the front door said "Closed for Father's Day". When the twitching and swearing subsided we both talked it thru about how we were in the middle of a long trip and needed to maintain our pace and could probably make the bridge that night. Our plastic bag rain gear was now reducing the wind chill and helping to retain body heat so press on we did. We were soon in Naubinway and they had a laundromat!

Same sign, same message. As we were looking in the window at the beautiful dryers a voice shouted out to us. Looking around the source of the voice couldn't be readily seen but there he was waving at us from the steps of his church. Across the parking lot was the pastor asking if we wanted to use the laundromat. This was as close to a sign from heaven that I've ever witnessed. We were allowed to use the facilities for free and got an invitation for supper. Later after a sing-along session an offer was made to sleep on the floor of the living room with no mosquitoes or cold wind. That was the best nights sleep we had on the trip and was a perfect end of the most tumultuous day.

The next day found us at a gas station just before the Mackinac Bridge. Harold's gear box was becoming very hard to peddle and with no tools we asked to borrow some. After the hospitality from the previous night this was a sharp slap in the face. We had to rent the tools for between $10-$20. This would leave us with just enough money for the toll to get across the Mackinac Bridge and a can of noodle-roni, our staple food source. So rent we did and soon were in the bridge pick up truck heading to Mackinaw City. 

After many inquiries in town as to cashing a check we were directed to the sheriff's office for advice. The sheriff heard our story and just shook his head. Why would anyone ride a bike for 600 miles and not have cash instead of a check book? Instead of explaining the economics of the end of the college year finances I just asked if he would cash my check personally. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife but in the end he wanted us out of town more than he didn't want to cash the check. With hand on holster he explained what would happen if the check bounced. With more money in checking than was needed we confidently made our way to Aloha for that nights sleep.

The rest of the trip was much more subdued if 100 mile days on a bike could be considered that. If you ever travel M-33 between Fairview and Atlanta check out the hills. The northern most largest one had a car struggling to get over the top as we approached. At the top of that hill we could see another in the distance looking just as big but there was nothing to stop us now.

As a side note I didn't own the bike just borrowed it with a $100 check as collateral. When we returned the bike the day after the trip my bike renter had  just cashed the check thinking the bike wouldn't be returned. Thank God for snail mail, with a phone call and stop payment the touchy situation with the sheriff was avoided.

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Wyandotte Leather

This isn't a baseball post. Nor a noir article. Just another step in the journey to try and get my granddaughter interested and good at shooting a bow. Back in December she was introduced to archery at Oakwoods Metropark. Chase had set up a target with prizes hanging on it. Stella was one of the first ones to shoot and said she wanted the bag of jerky nailed to the board.

Sure enough she was the first to arrow anything and had her interest sparked in the sport.

Santa was asked to help with a bow and came thru xmas morn. Well she had a bow anyway. It didn't really shoot well so i tried to set it up for more accuracy. While searching for accessories I came upon a website offering many archery products from Wyandotte Leather. What a coincidence I thought but little did I know about this hidden gem in Wyandotte. Crossing the tracks on Northline in Wyandotte I've seen the white building with the big stenciled letters Wyandotte Leather.

The business has been in the same spot for over 50 years. Jerry Kaufman is the owner taking over from his father Gay who was a Chemist at Wyandotte Chemicals back in the 50's. He was able to combine work and pleasure to create a business that has lasted till now. Jerry's dedicated seamstress Taryn sews all the different products and can do so while carrying on a conversation.

Taryn and her namesake Taryn Asher from Fox 2 both got their names because of the fact their mothers adored Tyrone Powers of movie fame. This was verified when Taryn's mother called Fox 2's Taryn and ask her about how she got her name. Sure enough Tyrone had a big affect on both mothers.

Jerry's operation is very diverse covering any type of leather accessory for bow hunting.

The quality is very high and the accessories come in different colors and even camo. Stella got an arm guard.

Thanks Jerry. Keep up the good work. As we were leaving Jerry asked Stella if she was interested in hunting. Stella said definately not. Then she was asked about shooting fish... maybe. Pointe Mouillee here we come!

Get Outdoors Downriver.

Try Camping for $20.

The Department of Natural Resources and The North Face are teaming up to offer Camping 101 at Michigan state parks to educate first-time campers on the basics of camping. The Camping 101 experience includes a two-night stay with all the gear, guides and good times included for just $20. It begins with a First-Timers Welcome Kit filled with details on what to pack, what to expect and what to wear. Then, when visitors check in at their campsite, park staff members will walk them through the process of setting up camp and settling in for a great Michigan adventure. As part of their Camping 101 stay, visitors will receive a prime camping location, tent, tarp, flashlight, lantern, camp stove and four hot dog/marshmallow cookers. All equipment is provided courtesy of The North Face and must be returned at the end of the camping trip. You will also need a Recreation Passport to get access to state parks, recreation areas, state forest campgrounds, non-motorized state trailhead parking and state boat launches. You also will be able to access Passport Perks shopping discounts, visit www.michigan.gov/passportperks to view them. The closest parks are Pinckney Recreation Area (Washtenaw County): 734-426-4913 (Sunday-Thursday nights only) and Sterling State Park (Monroe County): 734-289-2715. Each park has it's own activity go to the DNR website to see the calendar of events for each. To make a reservation online, visit www.midnrreservations.com, or call 1-800-447-2757. Get Outdoors Downriver.