This deer was meant to hang on my wall. My hunt was unplanned, on poorly scouted property that had been heavily hunted, and on a day with no spare time after 9:00AM. The only reason I went out at all was that I couldn’t sleep.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a “prepare the house – guests are coming” day for my wife and I. As we worked, the discussion came around to the holiday calendar, and who would be doing what, when. It seemed that “Shopping Friday” would be my free day to go hunting, so the mood brought on by household drudgery was lightened considerably by thoughts of a whole day tramping the woods with my bow in hand. Somewhere during the furniture shuffle, decoration unpacking, or Christmas light untangling; I developed a hitch in my back. By bedtime I was unable to lie down without being in substantial pain – so I didn’t lie down. I sat up - - and sat up - - and sat up. At 3AM, I got onto the ASC website to see what properties were available for Friday. I booked the 22 acre Gunn Road property, which is only fifteen minutes from my house. It is a bow-only property, and most deer hunters were using firearms this week, so it was available for several days.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 12:58 am and is filed under John Benedict's Hunting Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The 2006 Summer scouting trips had been successful and exciting, with several good bucks captured on film. Two of our properties had resident bruisers, and one more had a neighbor’s field that consistently housed two more shooters. When the rut was on, these guys would, no doubt, spend some time checking out the doe population on our property. All in all, I expected a good season.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 4:32 pm and is filed under John Benedict's Hunting Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Talk about a star property! This Imlay City farm provided excitement from the first day of my posting efforts. In late June, I was putting up some signs along the northwestern border of the property when I noticed large fish breaking the surface out near the middle of a nearby pond. One of our members had left a small duck boat on the bank in anticipation of the waterfowl opener, and I carry a spinning rod and tackle box in the van all summer, so I decided to explore the fishing opportunities on the many ponds and connecting canals that predominated this farm. The first pond was too weed-choked for anything but a floating weedless lure, so I put on a floating worm and headed out.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 at 12:53 am and is filed under John Benedict's Hunting Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Jackson County has a sort of mystique for me. It is the mythical home of giant bucks in great numbers. I’m sure it must be in the top five counties in Michigan for trophy whitetails, and the top producing U.P. counties seem to be on the decline.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2004 at 12:54 am and is filed under John Benedict's Hunting Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.