“Now they’ll always be together, in their happy hunting ground,”

— J.P. Richardson

In the years that I was growing up, my dad had already quit hunting deer and rabbits. He said he used to hunt both when he was younger, but that was before I knew him.

I was acquainted with his pursuits of ruffed grouse that he called “partridge.”

He and my mom would ride the old dirt roads that were covered with wet leaves in the fall looking for birds. My sister and I were taken along for the ride sometimes and were told to cover our ears before my dad would shoot.

This was before blaze orange had become a big thing in Michigan, but it was starting to gain some popularity. Instead, I remember my dad wearing a heavy black-and-red buffalo plaid jacket.

His numbered hunting license was kept, as they all were back then, inside a soft plastic covering that was pinned to the back of his coat with a large pin that was like a safety pin.

Since my dad didn’t hunt deer, I didn’t grow up in a house that offered venison on the menu.

Our wild game diet was limited to brook trout, smelt and grouse, which we augmented with apples and various wild berries we’d pick in season. My mom and dad ate hazelnuts too, but I didn’t.

Likely because my dad didn’t hunt deer, I didn’t either.

I also wasn’t in one of the schools that dismissed students from classes to go deer hunting, likely another reason I didn’t naturally fall into the practice.

I did enjoy seeing the cars of successful hunters with bucks tied down over the roof or sticking up from the bed of a pickup truck. I also enjoy hearing stories of hunters out there experiencing nature in their own way.

I also like to look back at hunting in decades past through newspapers to find bits of interesting information. Here are a few items I found this week from across the state.

The Niles Democrat reported on Feb. 17, 1866 that “a rather odd incident” had occurred involving a woman whose husband was away working.

The woman was startled from her spinning when “a fine, large specimen of the deer species” appeared at her door. Her small dog attempted to attack the deer and the woman “rushed out and caught the deer, and pressing upon him held him down.”

But she couldn’t continue to hold the deer. She “summoned all the lung power she possessed” and shouted until her nearest neighbor, whose husband was also away from home, rushed to her friend’s assistance.

Seeing the scene, the friend ran into the house and returned with a shoemaker’s knife and “speedily deprived the deer of his dearly prized life.”

The Times Herald of Port Huron reported the details of a strange death on Nov. 16, 1874.

“Jacob Spausback and his son-in-law, Steven Shanks, were out deer hunting on the afternoon of Nov. 13th in the woods east of the old schoolhouse site, near Pack’s Mills, in Sanilac County, when Shanks raised a deer with the dogs, and soon heard Spausback shoot some distance away.

On reaching the place, he was horrified to by the sight of the deer and the hunter lying dead together. Spausback had shot the deer and cut its throat, and the ground was covered with blood. Dr. Oldfield was summoned and upon a post-mortem examination it was found death had resulted from an affection of the heart, caused by the excitement of the chase, and perhaps a severe struggle with the animal.”

The Independent reported on Oct. 9, 1886: “The Ishpeming sportsmen’s association is pushing the war so strongly against ‘pot hunters,’ who kill deer and take trout in and out of season regardless of law, and ‘for revenue only,’ that deer hunting will soon be as good as it was 10 years ago.”

The Times of Harbor Beach reported on Oct. 29, 1886 that “A party of sportsmen from Saginaw, Mich., who were deer hunting, exhausted their supplies after four days of tramping, and, as they had killed no game, had nothing to eat. They met a lumberman and asked for aid. He chased a large buck into the river, killed it with a pike-pole and divided the carcass with the city sportsmen.”

The Ironwood Times reported on Nov. 9, 1895: “Although the season for deer hunting has only been open a week, the market is already flooded with venison, Deer are more plentiful in this section than ever before.”

In the same issue, the Times said, “It is reported that Dr. J.R. Moore and party, who are camped at Tamarack Lake, near Watersmeet, ostensibly for the purpose of hunting deer, are becoming vegetarian.

Prof. Wright left Friday evening for Tamarack Lake, where Dr. Moore and party are hunting deer. He took a liberal supply of venison with him, as it is reported that the party are sadly in need of meat.”

The Bessemer Herald had some surprising details on the deer-hunting season on Nov. 30, 1895. Things have changed a lot since then.

“The deer hunting season in Michigan closed last Monday for this year and the hunters can now lay aside their guns until another year. There has been fully as many hunters in the woods during this season as there was before the new law effecting nonresidents went into effect, but most of those were resident hunters.

“There was not a single license issued to nonresident hunters in Gogebic County and if the new law has worked as well in other counties of the state as it has in this it has certainly answered the purpose well for which it was intended — of lessening the number of nonresident hunters in the state.

“Another thing noticeable in regard to this law is that it has to a great extent prevented the shipment of venison out of the state, which has given the home markets a chance to secure more than enough to meet all demands, and by this means the price of venison in the last two weeks of the season was less than one quarter in the same localities than it has been in previous years, thus placing the luxury of venison steak within reach of all who had not the time or ability to capture it themselves.”

The Independent reported on Nov. 7, 1896: “The deer hunting season in this state opened Tuesday. About 20,000 licenses have been issued up to date, which is 3,000 more than the total number issued in 1895. Experts who have counted every deer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan declare that this makes about five hunters to every deer in the forests.”

The reasons for the invention of blaze orange were readily available long before experiments brought the fluorescent-colored safety clothing to the fore in the early 1960s. Today, some states still do not require its use.

On Nov. 2, 1911, the Sebewaing Blade reported: “Six killed and 14 wounded is the toll humanity has offered in the upper Michigan deer country to date. It’s time deer hunting were prohibited altogether. This useless slaughter of mankind can be easily stopped by our legislators if they but will.”

In 1936, the Soo Evening News reported that “A total of 503 persons will have no legal right to hunt deer during the 16-day open season beginning Nov. 15 because state law forbids the issuance of licenses to those who have violated the deer laws or killed or wounded another hunter in the woods. Many of these deer hunters must remain without deer-hunting privileges not only for this year, but for the next two, three, four or five years.”

In November 1940, McCabe Hardware advertised the availability of special hunting insurance in the Petoskey News-Review. “Hunters get one of our new insurance policies. Pays up to $1,000 and covers you for the Deer Hunting season for only $1.”

These days, hunter consensus on numerous regulations or hunting practices is hard to come by, but it wasn’t always this way.

The Muskegon Chronicle reported on Feb. 6, 1943 that “Deer hunting is good in Michigan and has been for a great many years, surprisingly good in view of the fact that recent seasons have seen in excess of 200,000 hunters in the woods.

“Many sportsmen will argue that is unwise to upset the applecart. Present regulations have afforded plenty of hunting and given the herd ample protection. There will be a natural inclination to oppose any change.”

Thinking about all these things makes me miss my dad, who headed to that happy hunting ground in the sky 16 years ago already.

I often think of him when we eat a venison meal at home. I wonder about how things might have been different or if we’ll ever get to see and remember each other again.

All I know for certain to say about that is I hope so.

I put on my own heavy jacket and head out the back door headed for the woods.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.