By Kristine

I don’t really remember the first time I saw the Sleeping Bear Dunes.  I’m guessing that’s because I was still a baby when I originally encountered those mountainous sand hills.  I know we made a pilgrimage to the dunes every year for most of my childhood.  I can still remember fighting to climb through the slippery sand, and thinking the top of the dune looked much too far away.  I can also remember emptying my shoes, my pockets and generally my clothes of small piles of dune sand when we headed back to the car. 

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore lies in Benzie and Leelanau Counties in Northern Lower Michigan.  The Dunes themselves took their names from an Ojibwa legend about Mother Bear and her two cubs that were driven out into Lake Michigan by a fire.  The cubs swam bravely, but were too small, and finally slipped beneath the waves.  When Mother Bear reached shore she climbed to the top of a sand bluff and waited in vain for her cubs.  Finally, the Great Spirit took pity, and raised North and South Manitou islands to mark where Mother Bear’s cubs had been lost.  He also sent Mother Bear to sleep and gradually the dunes grew over her.

For those who’ve never visited, the Dunes can be quite an awesome site.  They look like some giant child has dumped buckets of sand everywhere.  Wind and water carve some of the dunes into fantastic shapes.  The odd tuft of grass gains a foothold here and there and sprouts bravely like the last few hairs on a balding man’s head.  There are trails to walk, and huge hills of sand to scramble up, and clear blue water in which to cool your feet when the sand gets too hot.

A day at the Dunes is also a fairly economical way to spend a vacation day. Up until 1998, the Park Service did not charge fees for walking the Dunes.  Today a Park Pass, good for seven days, is 10 dollars, and an Annual Park Pass, good for 12 months, is 20 dollars.  Fees for camping near the dunes are also quite economical.  You can learn more about the Dunes at the Official Sleeping Bear Dunes Website.  If you’re a rebel, you can also read about the Dunes at the Unofficial Sleeping Bear Dunes Homepage.

If you’re looking to add some water to the sand of your Dunes adventure, you might also want to canoe the Platte River.  We did this several times when I was a kid, and it was a lot of fun.  The Lower Platte, which we canoed most often, ends on a sandy beach in Lake Michigan.  The Upper Platte is not white water, but is a faster water trip.  The river also has a lot more twists and turns, so it is a trip for canoeists who are more experienced.

Finally, if you like music, you may want to consider attending the Sleeping Bear Dunegrass and Blues Festival at the end of July.  I’ve never been to this music festival but I’ve heard from people who have been that it’s a lot of fun.  The dates of the festival are July 31 – August 3, and there are already a lot of local and national artists scheduled to play. 

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by Rick

I have got to tell you that that when I was given a chance to do a guest post for Arthur over at the Simply Outdoors blog I was happy to be asked. Working with the limited amount of time I have to complete this task I sat here and thought to myself, “What can I write about?”. As usual the only thing I could think of is my passion/obsession for whitetail deer and hunting. It has consumed me beyond belief so much so that I constantly get joked about it even from my very supportive wife Heidi.

It all started eighteen years ago when I came home from work and told Heidi I wanted to try Bow Hunting. Out of the blue it had come to me, I don’t know why but it did. I went the local K-Mart at the time and put a bow on layaway. Little did I know that was the start of what is now my passion/obsession. I am not trying to blow my own horn but I had become so proficient with the bow I started competing.

The competition part was ok but it just was not for me. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my tree stand one autumn morning during bow season that I realized what I wanted to really be doing. I had saw two deer run past my location at what appeared to be mach speed and the thing that amazed me the most was that they did not make a sound. It was like they were running on air. I had no idea where they came from or what if any had spooked them but I was officially hooked.

That was eighteen seasons ago and since then I have harvested quite a few deer. I like to consider myself an accomplished deer hunter and I take a lot of pride in that because I basically learned it all on my own. I never had anyone to teach me when I was growing up. Sometimes I wonder how and why I have stuck with this for so long and I don’t know if I can ever answer that question.

I will say that I am proud to be a deer hunter that believes in 100% wild and 100% fair chase and would not hunt any other way. I do not harvest more than I can eat and contrary to what some hunters feel my definition of a trophy is not the size of the rack on it’s head but the amount of food it puts in my freezer.

The only other thing I can say is that I hope to be able to teach my son Tyler who is five the tradition and heritage of whitetail hunting that I have become to love and admire. The respect I hold for the whitetail deer and all of god’s creatures in my mind is unbreakable.

I want to thank Arthur for the opportunity to do this guest post and I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this and want to say “Remember to take a child out hunting/fishing because that is where our future is”

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By Jeff

Many hunters keep a log of their hunts, and I know that Arthur is one of them. He is always posting when he hunts along with many of the details of the day such as what the temperature was and the number of deer he saw from which stand.I think keeping track of our hunts is a great idea, and I have kept a journal on and off over the years because there is so much more information in the details of a log book besides just precious outdoor memories. A log’s details will often indicate how you can hunt your property better as well as how to be more successful in less time. And while I have not been consistent with my log book entries lately, I thought I would show what all can be pulled from such a record. (Hopefully it will also remind me of the value of consistently logging my hunts so that I get back to it).    

Four years ago, I recorded every detail of every hunt that my friend Will and I had on our two leases totaling 310 acres in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Between us, we hunted 97 times totaling 284 hours, and we saw 149 deer. This averaged out to 3 hours per hunt with 1.54 deer seen per hunt and 0.52 deer seen per hour. We also killed 12 deer over those 97 hunts with 10 being bucks and 2 being does. This worked out to 8 hunts per deer killed, 9.7 hunts per buck killed and 48.5 hunts per doe killed. The biggest buck was my 4.5 year old 8 point that weighed in at 165 pounds while the smallest was a yearling spike that weighed 110 pounds. The farthest shot made on a deer was 250 yards and the shortest was 30 yards. Will and I also each missed one deer.

We saw 84 deer over 20 hunts during a first quarter moon, 15 deer over six hunts during a full moon, 14 deer over three hunts during a last quarter moon, and 36 deer over 13 hunts during the new moon. That means that we only saw deer on 42 of our 97 hunts, so 57% of the time we saw NOTHING. But what else does this tell us about hunting different moons? Well, we averaged seeing about 4 deer per hunt on the first quarter, about 2 deer per hunt on a full moon, 3 deer per sit on a last quarter hunt and almost 3 deer per sit during the new moon. This shows us that hunting during the first quarter moon should produce more sightings than during any of the other three phases. It also helps us to see that while not a total loss, hunting during a full moon should produce 50% less deer sightings than hunting during the first quarter and about 25% less deer sightings if we hunted a new moon or last quarter. Therefore if we are able to choose when to hunt and all other things are the same (hunting pressure, weather, food, etc), we would be better off hunting during the first quarter.

As far as which stands were better, we would have to break down how many deer we saw from each of our 10 stands to figure that out:

• * 27 deer from 4 hunts at the big field back stand = 6.75 deer per sit
• *  7 deer from 3 hunts at the honey hole stand = 2.33 deer per sit
• * 12 deer from 5 hunts at the first barrel stand = 2.4 deer per sit
• *  10 deer from 5 hunts the second barrel stand = 2 deer per sit
• *  1 deer from 1 hunt at the old tripod stand = 1 deer per sit
• *  10 deer from 7 hunts at the middle stand = 1.42 deer per sit
• *  49 deer from 9 hunts at the soybean field front stand = 5.44 deer per sit
• *  16 deer from 5 hunts at the Snooks stand = 3.2 deer per sit
• *  10 deer from 2 hunts at the wood pile stand = 5 deer per sit
• * 1 deer from 1 hunt at the new tripod stand = 1 deer per sit

This data tells me that the big field back stand and the wood pile should allow us to see the most deer per hunt while the least deer per hunt from the new tripod, old tripod and the middle stand. As for what the barometric pressure told us about our time spent hunting, it said that a steady pressure was the best. I say this because we only saw deer during 8 sits with a falling barometer and no deer during sits on a rising barometer. However we saw deer on 34 sits while it was steady. So, according to the data, we should be hunting the big field’s back stand or the wood pile during a first quarter moon with a steady barometer to see the most deer and have the best chance at killing one! Great, now let’s go put one in the bed of the truck…

Unfortunately this is where an incomplete log can hurt you and show that sometimes simple numbers will not tell the whole story. Smart hunters will then increase the amount of information they record as well as use their own experience and knowledge to add to the culled data’s usefulness. For instance, the deer-seen-per-sit figures should mean that I am wasting my time hunting the middle stand compared to the big field’s back stand (6.75 deer per sit). However that is until you realize that our biggest buck of the season came from the middle stand, the one that only produced 1.42 deer sightings per sit. The numbers also don’t tell you that the big field back stand produced all of its deer sightings early in the year when the planted soybeans were the deer’s preferred food, meaning a hunter will be wasting a lot of time later in the year once the deer abandon the beans for acorns and corn. And frankly the percentages of deer seen per sit and on which moon could be better since my program did not include all of the hunts where no deer were spotted. Nor did my program compute how many deer were seen during the different barometric pressures, just that deer were either seen or not seen. And frankly the numbers of hunting days invested to kill a deer do not tell the whole story since we passed on many deer, bucks and does included.

However while our numbers could be better, I truly hope that this look at one year from my log book encourages everyone to keep or start one. I know that I am looking forward to having another season’s worth of opportunities to track my hunting to see how much more information I can pull from the numbers.

A sincere thanks to Arthur for allowing me to write a guest post!

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by The Hunter’s Wife

I would like to thank Arthur for allowing me to do a guest post while he’s vacationing.  It’s such a nice feeling to be on vacation and know your blog will be well taken care of by some amazing bloggers.  If I had the code to his template I would add a little pink around here.

When Arthur announced he was going to be a Father for the first time you could just feel his excitement.  He also predicted the new litte bundle of joy would be a girl.  A few weeks later,  Arthur’s prediction came true and he announced the good news to all of his readers.  It’s a girl!

So I thought what would be a more appropriate post than to share my advice about little girls. 

1. From here on out October will be a busy month and I’m not talking about hunting.
   4:00 a.m. rise and shine won’t be to get to your stand before sunrise it will be for feedings.
2. Using that grunt thingymajigger will have to be done a few miles down the road.  Can’t wake the baby!
3. When she has her first baby picture taken, that is what should go on the wall and not the deer mount.
4. Those hunting shows will soon turn to cartoons and Sesame Street.
5. It’s ok for little girls to like pink and purple and not just camouflage.
6. Little girls look cute in bows not always with a bow.
7. Being in the great outdoors with little girls is about being outdoors playing with barbies not about tracking deer.
8. Girls sometimes like to carry little purses not little tackle boxes.
9. You will find many trinkets in a little girl’s pockets not necessarily worms for bait.
10. And if she doesn’t ever want to take a fish off the hook…you know the drill. 

I have to say I can’t wait to see the picture of her in her pink camouflage pants with her first fish and her very proud Daddy.

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When Arthur asked me to write a guest post for his blog I started thinking about what I like about his blog and the kinds of posts that I really enjoy here that I don’t find elsewhere too. I’ve really been enjoying his posts about the battlefield of Shiloh so I decided to write about one of the historic places I’ve been – The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.In the summer of 1988 I was 13, my Dad was off work receiving treatment for cancer and my sisters were 3, 1 1/2 and about 5 months old. In between the Chemotherapy and the Radiation treatments my Dad had short break, he couldn’t go back to work yet so he talked to the doctors and they gave him the go-ahead to take a little family vacation. We lived in Ohio at the time and my step-grandparents lived in Georgia so we drove down to visit them. On the way we stopped in Virginia and spent a few days with some friends my parents had known for almost ten years and visited some of the great places in Washington DC.

I come from a patriotic family, my father served in the Air Force at the tail end of the Vietnam War. He didn’t have to go to Vietnam and I’m thankful, but he did serve his country as a member of the military for six years. I have always loved history and when I found out we were going to Washington DC I was more than happy to make the trip!

We enjoyed parts of the Smithsonian and visited the monuments and saw the Capitol but the place I have never forgotten was Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The rows of white crosses spread across a field of green grass are a visual reminder of just how many men and women have died serving our country, protecting our freedoms. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the respect and reverence commanded by the site and the soldiers keeping watch there are unforgettable.

While we were at the tomb I watched the changing of the guard and I thought about the mother’s who wondered if their missing son was entombed there or if he might possibly still be alive somewhere. I know those are deep thoughts for a 13 year-old, but at that time in my life I was having a lot of deep thoughts – we’d had a rough year as a family – almost losing one of my sisters, finding out how sick my Daddy really was and the stress of watching him go through the treatments. The reality of death was all around me personally and seeing the reverence and intensity of the guards at the tomb along with the rows and rows of white crosses resonated with me and is something I’ll never forget.

The sacrifices made by the men and women who have found their final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery are something I never want to forget. It is easy to complain about the government and gas prices while forgetting about the men and women who died so that we could complain out loud without worrying about our lives and the safety of our families. It is easy to lose touch with our history, but I think it is something that we should hold on to and stay familiar with. History has a lot to teach us and to remind us of, if we’ll just take the time to listen.

I’m Blessed.

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