Michigan is gearing up for its deer gun season this weekend that will put hundreds of thousands of hunters on foot across the state, but there might be something for those to consider who do: what might be in the trees watching you while you’re out in the dark moving stealthily through the woods.
Take Woodville resident Joe Grzegorczyk, 20, for instance. He was walking under a pine tree while coming down off a hill at dusk from a Nov. 8 bow hunt in northern Michigan’s vast Huron National Forest near Glennie in Alcona County, when suddenly something hammered him from behind on his backpack.
“Felt like a big punch to the back of my head,” said Grzegorczyk, who might know a thing or two about being hit hard since he was a former Eastwood High School football player and wrestler.
Next thing he knew, he was in a wild free-for-all with something he couldn’t see but only feel fur from whatever part of the animal he was able to pull on while twisting around. Its claws had clamped onto his backpack, and it was yowling in his right ear. He estimated it to weigh 30 to 40 pounds. Afterward, he was guessing it was a bobcat.
“My adrenaline was high so I started just trying to grab it [gesturing over his shoulders],” he said. “Screaming ... I was trying to pull it off me, so I fell to the ground. Then eventually I scared it off.”
In the aftermath of the fray, he noticed the animal had taken a chunk out of this left hand, and he was bleeding from the wound.
Meanwhile a member of his hunting group, Randy Van Dyke, 65, of Oregon, heard the mad scramble and the yelling all via cell phone while he had been talking to Grzegorczyk to see if he was on his way back.
“I was just wanting to know if he had got on the right path because I had been back for a few minutes waiting on him,” Van Dyke said. “We were just having an average conversation ... I told him I was waving the light [to direct him the way down]. Right about then he started screaming at the top of his lungs. I was heading up there. I thought he got attacked by a bear. Go help him. I lost contact with him for a couple of minutes.”
Benjamin Wiese, USDA Forestry Services district ranger for the Huron Shores Ranger Station in Oscoda, Mich., along with Eric O’Neil, a USDA Forestry Services wildlife biologist, both were skeptical that a bobcat was what jumped on Grzegorczyk but couldn’t rule it out completely.
“It would be very rare so we question it because it’s highly unlikely,” Wiese said.
“I’ve only encountered three [bobcats] in 10 years,” O’Neil said. “And I walk in the woods every day. They see you coming from way off and disappear like smoke.”
He said he’s come around bends in trails and surprised racoons before and had them react aggressively toward him and growl and rear up.
O’Neil said that if Grzegorczyk wasn’t using a headlamp or a flashlight it might have confused the animal from knowing what was below it.
Grzegorczyk admitted he had put his flashlight in his pocket to take the call from Van Dyke.
“But it’s not entirely out of the realm of things [that it was a bobcat],” O’Neil added. “Very disconcerting for whomever was ambushed.”
As far as Grzegorczyk was concerned, things that go bump in the night weren’t keeping him out of the woods.
“I went out the next day,” he said laughing.
That’s dedication.
Even with much said about the declining numbers of deer hunters in recent years, there are expected to be between 450,000 to 600,000 residents and nonresidents in Michigan take up arms and blaze vests in hopes of bagging the buck of their dreams.
I plan on being one of them, but later in the two-week gun season that started Friday and ends Nov. 30.
Last year, just under 595,000 bought deer gun tags, which was a 32 percent decrease from 1995, according to a Department of Natural Resources survey. Additionally, in the survey, about 25 percent were nonresidents, which was up 3 percent.
Other things the Michigan DNR would want you to consider beyond knowing what your surroundings are when hunting deer during gun season are:
■ Online reporting of harvests is required now since 2022 at Michigan.gov/DNRHarvestReport.
■ Be safe and make sure to wear blaze orange to be seen by other hunters.
■ Gain landowner permission first before retrieving a deer that has gone over onto private property.
■ DNR officials are encouraging hunters to shoot does because of the overabundance of white-tails.
In addition, if you would like to donate your venison, go to Michigan.gov for participating processors.
In Ohio, archery hunters have found the best day so far of the 2024 season was Saturday, Nov. 9, with 5,390 deer taken, according to a Division of Wildlife news release. The second best day was also on a Saturday, Nov. 2, with 5,047 harvested.
Overall, Buckeye State hunters have bagged 65,783 deer through Nov. 10. It is a slight decrease of a little less than 6 percent from last year, which saw hunters tag 69,886 at the same time in 2023.
The counties leading the state with deer harvested are: Coshocton (2,318), Tuscarawas (1,995), and Knox (1,882). For northwest Ohio counties nearest Toledo, Huron led with 775 checked-in deer, followed by Seneca with 719. Lucas County racked up 400.
The Division of Wildlife is projecting the next best days based on 2023 figures to be Saturday, Nov. 18; Sunday, Nov. 19; Saturday, Nov. 25; Friday, Nov. 24; and Sunday, Nov. 26.
The bow season opened in Buckeye State on Sept. 28 and runs until Feb. 2.
Ohio’s first gun season begins Dec. 2 and goes until Dec. 8, with the second two-day half part on Dec. 21 and Dec. 22.
First Published November 16, 2024, 9:25 p.m.
