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Flat River 9 point By: John Eberhart
It was the last Saturday in August when I received permission to hunt some property bordering the Flat River near Edmore Michigan. Lynn, the property owner, is a dairy farmer that has gun hunted for many years and has unsuccessfully dabbled in bowhunting the past several years.
We met after a seminar engagement at a local sports shop. He asked if I would be interested in scouting his property, and I told him I just didn’t have the time. His next sentence however, aroused my interest. He said that if I did scout the property that I could also hunt it, well that threw a whole different light on the matter. After all the property was only a half hour from home, and most places I hunt in Michigan are at least 2 hours from home.
The timing of this new permission couldn’t have come at a better time. Earlier that summer I had lost permission of a 40-acre parcel that I had been hunting since 1997. The owner’s daughter was getting married and her fiancé was a bowhunter, so obviously he was in and I was out. To say the least I was bummed, but that happens all the time in heavily hunted areas if you don’t own or lease your own property, so I was used to it. Even though I had to share that small parcel with 3 other local bowhunters, and I lived nearly 3 hours away, I had been fortunate enough to take 3 good bucks from it.
After a couple phone conversations and pulling up an aerial photo of Lynn’s property to see how it was laid out, we set a date to get started. Lynn told me that there were 2 other bowhunters that he allowed to hunt his property, so I asked the whereabouts of their hunting locations and how frequently they hunted. The season opener was right around the corner and I didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with the other hunters, so we scouted in a different area that where they normally hunted.
Lynn’s property has about 100 acres of timber that is divided into four small quadrants. A major highway cuts through the center going east and west, and the Flat River runs north to south through the timbers long narrow length. Once on foot I was a bit disappointed in the understudy of the mature timber, or should I say the lack of it. At least 80% of the timber had little to no undergrowth, we’re talking bare dirt here.
One thing I noticed right off the bat was the easy access to immediate timber from side roads and the lack of no trespassing signs down his property line. This property was perfectly laid out for easy drop offs by trespassers, which is just something you have to take into consideration and deal with in Michigan.
We discovered one small primary scrape area from last falls rut. The location offered no food source, but the scrape area was located in a hub where three different transition zones converged. Although the scrapes were not active, there were a couple fresh rubs leading to the area. There was also sign in a nearby tree that someone had been hunting there in recent years.
We found some other decent locations that day, but due to time constraints only set-up a tree in the old scrape area and hung a no trespassing sign on the tree. To keep from spooking deer, proper access to this tree on morning hunts would require crossing the shallow Flat River with waders.
For several hours the next day I hung no-trespassing signs in every likely area a trespasser had easy access.
I went back one more time and set-up three more trees in areas we found on our first scouting venture. One for Lynn in a small stand of white oaks where Lynn had seen a couple good bucks during the summer, one for me about 30 yards inside the edge of a hay field in some dense cover, and the other for both of us in a red oak bordering a small swampy area of cattails.
Now I had to get Lynn comfortable hunting from an Ambush saddle because that is all I use and the tree’s were all set-up for saddle use. He quickly learned how to sit in it and adjust it, in fact after a few days of hunting he said he liked it and felt much safer in it than in any of his previous hang-on stands.
Other than the spike antlered buck that came in and fed on acorns, Lynn’s first evening in the oaks was uneventful. I honestly believe that my presence of clearing several shooting lanes and preparing his tree so close to season turned the bucks he had previously seen there nocturnal, it doesn’t take much in a pressured area. There was absolutely no other reason for them not to show up other than my molestation of the area.
My first two appearances were far worse than Lynn’s. On opening morning I arrived at the scrape area tree an hour and a half prior to first light only to find my steps gone. I do not carry extra steps so my opening morning hunt was ruined. This confirmed my initial concerns about potential trespassers, but it was something I have dealt with on many occasions, so I sucked it up and went home.
Other than going to a different tree the next morning was a carbon copy of the first, all my steps were gone. This time I went back to my van and waited for daylight. I changed into my scouting gear and walked the property. When I went back to the scrape area location I actually found a tree stand. Not only did he take my steps and take down the sign, he hung a stand. My assumption was that he had been hunting that location for a while and did not want to give it up, even to someone with permission.
His stand was well hidden just above some branches in a huge white pine. I took the stand down, put up another sign, and put steps back in the tree Lynn and I had originally set-up. Only this time I left out the bottom 6 steps so the others would be hard to access. Unless he had steps with him he would have had to shimmy up the tree about 14 feet to the first accessible step.
I continued to look for hunters, footprints, stands, and scarred trees from climbers, but other than one more stand being found and removed by one of the other hunters, nothing else was found.
I hunted the property a few more times in mid October mainly to check for trespassers. I saw and passed on a few small bucks and had seen one very nice wide racked buck.
In late October I loaded up my waders and headed back to the scrape area tree for an evening hunt, hoping my steps would be there. They were there, but the nearby scrapes were not active. Instead there were some new scrapes about 50 yards away and behind some brush.
Much of the traffic that eventually ended up at the new scrape area passed by the original oak we had set-up so I ascended the tree for the evenings hunt. Perched about 28 feet off the ground in my Ambush saddle I soon saw two button bucks walking towards me followed closely by their mother. They passed within 8 yards and continued on the runway that passed by the new scrapes. After they were out of sight I could hear them splash through the river as they headed to the nearby picked cornfield.
Within minutes a spike came from the same direction. He was a beautiful buck with long perfectly symmetrical spikes. I thought to myself, boy if you would have went by me back in the late 60’s or 70’s you would be in big trouble, I always had a thing for symmetrical spikes.
He was followed by a 2 ½ year old 8 point and both were allowed to pass within the same 8 yard distance. They too passed by the scrapes without touching them and were soon heard crossing the river.
The next hour was spent watching fox squirrels, noisy red squirrels, crows, blue jay’s, chikadee’s, a possum, and a hawk, all of which are part of the bow hunting experience.
Facing in the direction of the scrape area I though I caught the movement of some branches. Sure enough one of the licking branches over one of distant scrapes was moving. Of course I assumed it was a big buck, after all that is what we do isn’t it. Now my dilemma was whether he would come in my direction, after all, the other deer went in the direction he had came from, so why would he come by me.
I could not see the buck and it was absolutely killing me, at least let me see what he is. I don’t know who I was talking to, but I was hoping the buck was listening to my thoughts. He must have been, because he stopped working the scrape and headed directly towards me. The first thing I noticed was the width of his rack, then the short tines.
I told him to keep coming and he did, he was actually paying attention to my thoughts, or at least I thought so. God, my wife doesn’t even do that.
He soon passed by on the exact same runway the other deer had passed on and offered me the same 8-yard shot opportunity, only this time I took it. The shot was true and I watched as he ran about 60 yards and expired. He sported 9 points and had an 18-inch inside spread.
Unlike TV and Video’s where they list everything they were using as if anybody cares, I was using a bow and arrow and sitting in a tree in the woods. I will say that I did use a canoe to get the buck out because I did not want to drag him across the 15-yard wide river.
That was the only buck I saw during the entire Michigan season that was big enough to make the book, and fortunately it worked out where I received an opportunity. I did however end up bowhunting a week in Iowa where I saw several big bucks and took a good 10-point and bowhunted 2 days on public land in Illinois in late December and took a good 9-point.
John crossing river with wide Michigan 9 point in October.
