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Safari Wish Hunt - One of the major initiatives of the Northeast Michigan Chapter has been the Safari Wish program. This program is designed to provide hunting opportunities to those individuals (primarily youth) who, because of personal health, physical abilities or other limitations, would not otherwise be able to hunt. Over the last several years, the Chapter has been able to provide hunting opportunities for sixteen individuals. These special opportunities have included hunts at the Drettmann Ranch near Bellaire; Jack Pine Safaris near Lewiston; Anschuetz Whitetail Way in Ossineke; a Lake Huron fishing trip with Captain Ed Retherford; and, out-of State hunting trips with Table Mountain Outfitters in Wyoming; Double D Outfitters in Montana; Tuff Ayers Outfitters in Alberta, Canada and Eagle Ridge Outfitters in Linn, Missouri.
Sportsmen Against Hunger - Area Meat Processors and the Northeast Michigan Chapter of Safari Club International have joined forces to help feed the people in our communities! The Northeast Michigan Chapter pays for the processing and delivers the meat to area soup kitchens, shelters and families.
Michigan Heroes
The Northeast Michigan Chapter of SCI has sponsored a program called “Michigan Heroes” since 2008. Michigan Heroes is designed to recognize individuals from Northeast Michigan who have served our country in the Middle East. Our list of service people who have been selected to participate in hunts are:
- Army National Guardsman Sergeant E5 David Purol, Posen – 2009 - Hunt provided by South Paw Outfitters, Alberta, Canada
Shown below are some of the hunting stories from our Michigan Heroes.
South Paw Outfitters , Alberta, Canada Nov 2008
By TSGT Kevin Dreyer
Day One - Left Traverse City, MI at 0720. Arrived Edmonton, Canada at 1315. Rene Semple picked us up and drove us the 1 1/2 hours NW to South Paw. Unpacked and set up for an early hunting departure the next day. Had a cow and calf moose 80 yards from the house. Fantastic chow from Kelly Semple. Met guide Ray Knutson who would be taking David Wells from KY. We were the only 2 on the 32,000 acres. Went scouting in the pickups. Saw 3 bull moose sparing about 100 yards out. Way cool.
Day Two - Put in a blind along some soft woods overlooking an old horse pasture with about 15 acres of standing oats. Spotted a coyote 300 yards out loping along the edge of the oats coming right at me. He crossed 48 yards to my left and joined the pack behind me in the woods who greeted him with howling and yipping. Hair on the back of my neck stood up even though I knew they were there. At 1600, I anticipated the coyotes starting out on their evening prowl. By watching over my left shoulder, I picked up movement at 325 yards. Was really glad Anna loaned me her binocular/range finder. When the coyote was 143 yards crossing left to right, a 165 grain Nossler ballistic tip just cartwheeled him. Saw 2 whitetail does at 250 yards step into and get swallowed up by the oats. The only thing you could see was their ears IF their heads were up.
Day Three - Moved to a blind watching a gas pipeline for the morning. Moved to a blind watching a hay field with a swamp 170 yards to the other side for the afternoon. The fence posts running along the swamp were just shredded by the bucks rubbing. Started drooling with anticipation. Had 4 mule deer does come within 30 yards and lay down. The dominate doe had white tipped ears like a bobcat. Squeaked my glove on the gunstock and called a younger doe 10 yards from the blind. The clicking camera didn’t even phase her. Watched several whitetail but nothing with bragging rights.
Day Four - Cool, damp, snow showers and foggy. Same blind. Had a squirrel chatter behind me, then scratching as he climbed the back of the blind. Shifting only my eyes to the right, he was peaking in the side window. He scurried down then came up the front, and IN the window. I could see his little beady eyes focus on my moose sandwich Kelly had packed for me. We were just about ready to do hand to paw combat when I flexed some muscle and he freaked out deciding he didn’t want to tangle with that. An hour later in one of the snow squalls, I saw 2 coyote sniffing through the alfalfa looking for a mouse meal. This crow chose to be the fighter pilot and dive bomb them trying to thump their heads. The coyotes would sniff for awhile, then leap, snapping at the crows aerial attacks. Had an absolutely great time watching God's creatures. Topped off the evening with a visit from my Mule deer friends and glassing a monster whitetail buck at 405 yards checking his scrape line and challenging the "little" 8 pointer and some does. David Wells got a 290 pound 10 point whitetail. All the tines were broken from getting his butt kicked from the "BIG BOYS".
Day Five - Quite foggy so tried glassing from the pickup for awhile. Saw the biggest whitetail beast ever but was beyond my range of confidence. Rats!!! Went to a blind watching another gas pipeline through the poplars with pasture behind me full of cattle. After using the range finder to get distances on trees for judgment, I put them on the shelf. Then pulling the camera out of my backpack, I also put them on the shelf. Looking down, I spotted the moose sandwich Kelly had packed and was reaching for them when I noticed movement. He was a beauty with antlers well past his ears and tall tall tines with a gray muzzle quartering away at 105 yards. I had only about 5 seconds to decide as he was starting to go down a valley and would disappear. The bullet entered just forward of the last rib on the left, going through the left lung, nicking the heart, and exiting through the right lung and right shoulder. He hunched over, indicating a hit, and trotted over the edge and out of sight. This all happened in 15 minutes since Rene dropped me off. Rene was now out of my radio range, so I waited all of 3.2 minutes before exiting the blind to get on the blood trail. For the first 30 yards, all I had to go on was the scratched up leaves where a hoof had disturbed the forest floor, and 2 drops of blood. Then I found another, then another drop, then some on a fern leaf, then LOTS of blood as the tracking got easier. He went 87 paces before collapsing and there he was leaning on a tree… What a beautiful animal. He was a very respectable 4 x 4, the biggest deer I had ever taken. After saying a quick prayer of gratitude, I put my camo into the backpack, and pulled out a rope for the drag back to the pipeline. Knowing Rene would be at least 2 hours, I gutted the buck, propped it open with a stick for rapid cooling, and lynched him up a tree. By now the sun was out, so I went back to the blind, ate my moose sandwich and started reading my Steve Chapman "What a Hunter Brings Home" book. Of course, when Rene shows up, there was the high 5, and my-nothin-but-teeth grin. What a great day.
Day Six - Felt good to know both of us were going home with deer in our packs. South Paw is a very professional, first class outfit. The North East Michigan chapter of Safari Club International wanted to say Thank You to a veteran for their service, so donated a trophy whitetail hunt. I had just gotten back from Iraq, and Colonel Sansom gave SCI my name. They paid for my airline ticket, my hunt, my licenses, and my mount. How do you say thank you for something like that? How do you say thank you for a well guided classy hunt like South Paws? We stayed right in the Semples house, ate like Clydesdales with Kelly's cooking, and were treated like royalty. All I can say is, it was an honor to protect my family and my country while overseas, and if needed, I'd do it again.
Day Seven - Up at 0400 to make the Edmonton airport by 0615. Sorry, but the early flight was overbooked, so waited until 1400 for the next one to Minneapolis. Recognized Devils Lake, ND, Fargo, and St Cloud. Then the flight to Traverse City was delayed by an hour, so we arrived at 2400. Anna gets better looking at every airport she waits for me. Probably didn’t stop telling stories until 0130. My heart and soul were blessed. I, among men, am a rich man.
Anchor Bar Expeditions – Alberta, Canada – September 2010
Written by Troy Brown
I was fortunate enough to participate in the Hero Hunt program sponsored by the Northeast Michigan Chapter of the Safari Club International (SCI). This hunt was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and I am sincerely grateful to SCI for providing the hunt for me. The club was gracious enough to provide plane tickets, outfitter/guide tip, license fee, and also had a taxidermist on hook to mount my trophy, if I was successful. My hunt was an archery elk hunt and took place at Anchor bar Expeditions in Alberta, Canada the week of 19 -26 Sep 2010. The accommodations were great and the food was spectacular, you never left the table hungry. The outfitter, Mark Parsons and his crew, bent over backwards to see that I had a good trip and a great hunt. Although I didn’t fill my tag, I was able to see some beautiful country and drew my bow back on 4 different nice bull elk. It was an awesome experience and I had a wonderful time. If not for efforts of the Northeast Michigan Chapter of SCI, I never would have had this experience. The following paragraphs explain how the week went.
Day 1-- Out of bed at 5:30, breakfast at 6:00 and off we go. This morning is nasty rain and fog,
can’t see more than 25 yds we make our way out to what is called Pete’s hole, my first climb of the day is about a 15 deg grade for approximately 300 ft. Not even 25 minutes later we’re walking along the ridge, just off the top and bam! Bugle, he sets me up behind a brush pile and then takes off over the other side of the ridge and starts calling, alternating between cow calls and bugles. On his last attempt to confuse the bull and bring it in he comes over to my side of the ridge and 80 yds into the fog heading right for me is nice 5x5 but he makes the guide and leaves. We head off down the other side of the ridge and find a few cows but no other bulls, now we have to climb back up the ridge, not fun, we’re at 4500 ft on the ridge and the valley is about 4000 ft. Anyway I make it back up after a few rests and we decide to let Elk bed down and we come in for lunch. In the afternoon we head out at 4:30 and hit the same ridge, took us about an hour to hear a bugle, but we finally heard one. We skip along the top of the ridge for a few hundred yards and then start calling. This one is hot and ready for something, after about 20 minutes of calling and playing with this guy he finally decides to come up the ridge, mind you this is the same ridge I barely made it up earlier, I could hear him breathing from 100 yds away. I finally spot him and he’s made a circle around us coming up the ridge on our downwind side. He completely crashes the brush and runs up the ridge to the top, I’m at full draw for about 10 minutes waiting for this guy to come out of the brush, but naturally he winds us and breaks back down the ridge. This bull was a really nice 6x6. Tomorrow is another day.
Day 2-- Awoke this morning to a half inch of snow and the bugling started before we even had breakfast, I heard at least one in the pasture close to the house. We head out to that god forsaken ridge, and yep, a bugle down the other side of it so we go after him. After we get down the ridge and into a pasture we call and sure enough an answer. We’re not quite sure which direction this one is going to go so I set up on one side of the fence row and the guide is about to drop back behind me when the bull shows up 80 yds down the fence and watches our every move. Well he takes off heading into what is called the Moose Hole; we skirt the hole moving the same direction trying to cut him off. We end getting him to bugle a couple of more times. About 200 yds down the edge of the hole we cut into the thick of things and find this clearing, of course the guide knew it was there, and he also knew the bull was heading for it. I get setup to view the clearing and the guide is about to move back behind me and call when the bull shows up coming across the clearing. I didn’t have time to range any distances, so I played it by ear. The bull had me dead to rights, but wasn’t quite sure what I was and didn’t think I was a threat. By this time he had come to within 50 yds of me and was staring right at me the whole time he was walking. I couldn’t even draw the bow. I was shaking like a leaf and you could hear my arrow bouncing around in my rest, tink, tink, tink. The bull finally stuck his head down into the tall grass where I couldn’t see his eyes, so I chanced it and drew. My backpack raked across a branch behind me and the arrow made an awful noise scraping against the rest, the bull jumped and started to run. My guide cow called and the bull stopped and turned around to look at us, bad angle with the bull quartered to me and I misjudged the distance, I let loose the arrow and missed a decent 5x5. The arrow was short; the good thing is I didn’t wound him. Well back out in the afternoon and we tried a different area. Not much excitement till about 7:00 ish, a bull started bugling at us and wouldn’t quit. So we went after him, he sang to us for an hour but wouldn’t come out to play then it got to dark to see anyway.
Day 3-- Started the same, however the fog was burning off quick, or so we thought. Had a new guide this morning, he liked to climb ridges too! We spotted 2 bulls with about 5 cows and we took off after them. One bull was singing quite regularly, but we just couldn’t pull him off the cows. We couldn’t get the second bull to even talk. Stayed out till noon climbing ridges, saw a few nice mule deer bucks. Tonight we went out at the usual time and proceeded to the North oil well area, scanned many ridges and valleys, today was the first day the sun had come out since I arrived. The Elk were pretty content with just laying still tonight soaking up the sun, no talking from them whatsoever. Looks like clear skies tonight so they should be feeding all night and things may be different in the morning.
Day 4-- Full moon last night and the skies were clear. Elk fed all night and we didn’t get a peep out of them this morning. We saw 1 bull spike with 4 cows and 3 lone cows, which is very weird for the middle of the rut. We went out in the afternoon and had no luck locating a bull, just didn’t want to talk or cooperate with us.
Day 5-- Cloudy skies all night, struck out to the south end of the ranch this morning. Climbed the first ridge and found a herd of a dozen Elk with at least 2 nice bulls, 1 6x6 and 1 5x5, so we gave them a shout and they answered, off we go. We scrambled around a couple bluffs and got ahead of them with the wind blowing in our face, things looked good, the bulls were singing constantly. I got setup at the bottom of a little rise and my guide setup a cow decoy about 30 yds behind me. He started really tormenting the bulls, bugle then cow call back to bugle, within 5 minutes I seen antlers coming to the top of the hill so I went to full draw before he topped it. He hit about 25 yds headed right at me just on the other side of the hill, I could see all the way down to the bottom of his neck. At that point he stopped and stared at the decoy, mouth drooling, he started to arch his neck to bugle when my guide gave short cow call and that bull took off the other way like a scalded dog. We figure he must have had his butt kicked a few times already, obviously not a herd bull. So on the hunt again; we took 2 more ridges before we stopped for a quick lunch and let the Elk settle down for their afternoon nap. We sat for a few hours and napped ourselves, sitting on the ridge we heard a few branches snap and 6x6 bull came running up the valley over the top before we could say boo, something spooked him down in the valley. We started to bugle after that and got a few answers, problem was they were down in what is affectionately known as “chucks hallow”, due to an individual tossing his cookies after he made the trek into the area and barely being able to stand still when confronted by some huge Elk. My guide gave me the story and then asked if I wanted to make the trip in, well with at least 3 bulls bugling back at us, I had no choice, we were going into “chucks hallow”. It took us a couple of hours to wind around the ridges and valley’s and make our way through some dark timber areas to get into the place, but we made it. The bulls were still talking so we set up and started to torment them. I could hear branches snapping and looked downhill to see a 6x6 making his way out of the bush coming up the trail toward me. For the second time today I’m at full draw, this bull stops behind some scrub brush and 3 spruce trees about 2 inches in diam. At about 20 yds, of course he’s quartered to me and won’t take the last 3 steps around the brush to come into good view broadside with me. I stood there for 15 minutes at full draw waiting on this guy to take 3 more steps, he kept ducking his head in and around the brush looking up at me and then at the trail. I kept my 20 yd pin on his neck so if he turned to run I would be able to maybe get a shot through the brush at his vitals, well he turned to hightail it out of there and I let loose then thump, I killed that darned middle spruce tree dead…………..the way my week has been going. We dig out my arrow, and of course snap a picture of the trophy kill, then head out of the hallow toward home. I didn’t realize when we went in that getting back was going to be such a chore, we walked about 12 miles today, up and down ridges around bluffs through creeks and valley bottoms, finally made it back for supper at 9:00 pm with nothing to show but wear and tear.
Day 6-- I’m not going into “chucks hallow” today. We went the north ridge and saw a bull making his way along the top, we head to the north end of the ridge to intercept him and run into a big black bear sow with 2 cubs. Well the bears head toward the Elk, so we skirt the ridge and hit the valley on the west side of it were we had heard a bugle. Going down into the valley we jump an Elk, couldn’t get a good look at its head so we’re not sure about bull or cow. My guide lets out a bugle and we get an answer on the other side of poplars so we head into the trees and setup. This bull didn’t waste any time coming in, no sooner did we get setup when we heard branches snapping, I see his head bobbing through the brush and he stops behind a spruce tree and an old dead poplar, naturally I’m already drawn waiting on him to make those last final steps to come into the clear when the wind swirls and I feel it on the back of my neck. Yep, gone in the wink of an eye. We close out the morning by jumping the black bear again on the way back in. The last hunt of the week starts with a walk into the “Moose Hole”. We start by sitting on a small grassy knoll overlooking a fence line that runs through the hole. The Moose are starting their rut, we can hear a bull chasing a cow, and we also see a cow with a bull calf in tow. As the sun sets behind the ridge we make our way into the hole, the first thing we see is a 2 yr old bull moose following a cow. Naturally, my guide can’t help himself and calls the young bull over our way and the thing walks right up to within 15 ft of where we are standing. He leaves within a few minutes and we go further into the hole, we get one or two bugles but that’s about it. The entire time we’re in the timber we can hear branches breaking around us, so we sit still right up until 30 minutes prior to dark. When we weave our way out, we find the guide’s little buddy has been following us the whole time, so of course he has to call him over again. Wish I had a Moose tag.
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