A few years ago a buddy — whom to this day is so embarrassed about this episode that he refused to let me name him — was invited on a “hog hunt” at a game ranch in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

Not wanting to seem ungracious, he accepted. And as someone who understands where meat comes from, he figured if nothing else there’d be a mountain of pork chops in his freezer.

The hunt went something like this: Early morning they were dropped in the enclosure and told where the pigs might be. Some time passed, and the ranch operator drove into the enclosure again to see how they were doing. Within moments, the truck was surrounded by pigs expecting to be fed.

One bow-toting member of the “hunting” party decided that would be an opportune time to shoot a hog. He picked one out and drew, but the animal came closer, still expecting a meal. So the guy kicks at the hog to back it up, then grabs a stick to get it far enough away to shoot. Finally the porker gets the picture and backs away, and a point-blank arrow pierces its chest.

It runs away squealing, but that doesn’t deter the other hungry little piggies. So my friend shoulders his muzzleloader and pops another porker.

End result: Two fat pigs for the table, and a story that I cannot do justice. It still makes me belly laugh every time I hear it at deer camp. But it’s hard to call that a hunt. On any level.

I can’t help think about that as Michigan’s game managers go to battle against feral hogs, most of which have escaped from some sorry facility just like the one described above. They’re horribly destructive, a threat to wildlife, livestock and humans.

Michigan’s DNRE wants them declared an invasive species, which would make them illegal to possess, which would effectively shut down swine hunting operations statewide. The goal is to “shut off the faucet” and stop new animals from escaping.

First, I understand that there are high-end operations that manage their fences, keep strict control of their animals and even test for disease. I believe that those facilities are not the problem. I also believe they afford something that resembles a hunt, with quarry that could hurt you.

I’m not a high-fence guy. If it can’t turn and run for a mile the second it detects you, it’s not a free-ranging animal, and it’s not my bag. But we’re predators after all, and if you’re eating what you kill there’s no appreciable difference between collecting your own meat and having a butcher do it.

Hog-shooting lodges are not in themselves evil. But a hog-shooting lodge done poorly is. The risks of allowing such facilities to keep turning hogs loose are just too high.

Everyone agrees that a well-regulated industry would not be a problem. A bill introduced Wednesday by three Michigan lawmakers would mandate it.

Let’s see that it becomes law. Let’s see that the good operators pay for the sensible regulations that will ultimately keep them in business. Let’s see that the bad ones fail.

And let’s save future hunters the embarrassment.

Crossbows. Michigan. Statewide. It is on.

With one small exception — no crossbow use on deer after Nov. 30 in the Upper Peninsula — Michigan on Thursday (August 12) became the fourth state in 2010 to make crossbows standard equipment for archery seasons. Delaware (?), North Carolina and Oklahoma already took the plunge. Beginning October 1, crossbows are legal equipment during archery season all over Michigan.

The Natural Resources Commission, which sets game law in the state, decided that the benefits of increased opportunity outweighed any possible impact to the deer herd (biologists say there will be none), and at the same time agreed to maintain a three-year study period so they could revisit actual Michigan data in 2012.

“From a biological standpoint it’s fine,” said Wildlife Division Chief Russ Mason. “We haven’t been able to demonstrate any impact to the herd at the level crossbows are being used, and crossbows could increase hunter opportunity, which is why the commission voted the way they did. It could have some benefit for recruitment, and it probably will have some benefit for retention.”

Proponents argued that crossbows put kids in the deer woods sooner and keeps older hunters out there by giving them a weapon that’s physically easier to manage. Opponents argued that bowhunting is supposed to be a challenge one must earn through physical ability and practice, practice, practice. They decry the proficiency-in-a-box that crossbows provide.

The one obstacle to all-out inclusion was the exception that closes the U.P. to crossbows after gun season. Some people argued that a December muzzle-loader season renders that ruling moot, but the rationale was that in December deer yard up and become easy prey for poachers. Enough Yoopers expressed that concern to make it the law.

“I think that people look at the crossbow and think it’s a quiet weapon for unlawful behavior or somehow more effective than a longbow,” Mason said. “From the distance you can get in a deer yard you could reach out and kill a deer with a stick. And I dare you to shoot a crossbow inside a truck cab. You just can’t do it. But some of the people in the Upper Peninsula had some concerns and we had to listen to those. But it’s purely a social concern.”

Last year I had the good fortune to shoot the biggest buck of my life, a two-and-a-half-year-old 9-point that came into range in the closing minutes of October 24. He had decent width, decent height and ginormous browtines that almost evened out with his G-2s.

When the tape was applied, he came in a hair over 110 inches. To the trophy-minded I’m sure he seemed a year undercooked. But at first glance I knew he would be my biggest, and since I first shot a buck with my bow in 2003 I’ve held myself to shooting only bucks that were bigger than the last one (and of course does for herd management). He fit that easily.

A couple weeks later I was hunting the same area and saw the virtual twin to my buck — same height, same mass, same configuration. Since he did not meet the above criteria — and because I knew there were bigger bucks around — I let him go.

Well, I think this might be him that showed up on the trail cam last week. It’s the same general configuration, with considerably more mass and that intriguing palmation on the right antler. This picture was taken within yards of the stand from which I shot last year’s buck.

To which I can only say: Is it October yet?

Sometimes people just don’t get it.

I have on my desk a new video game titled “3-D Hunting 2010.” It’s made by a company called Kalypso, and promises that I can hunt 26 different species of “rare and wild animals” in a variety of “exotic locations.”

The selling points listed on the package include creating a unique “hunter,” developing skills, a wide array of weapons, realistic dangerous animal behavior, weather effects and 72 different missions.

It sounds like Kalypso did a nice job of making its game as realistic as a two-dimensional electronic game played in a controlled environment can be. But it’s the final feature that caught my attention: “Avoid being the hunted – don’t get caught by the gameskeeper or Game Over!”

Uh oh.

So I opened up the game, plugged the disk into my computer and watched my worst suspicion form on the screen. This is not a hunting game, it’s a poaching game. You start by choosing which POACHER you want to be. Half the game is shooting animals and the other half is dodging the law.

Really?

How hard would it have been for the folks at Kalypso to make this a legal hunt? You start the game by acquiring weapons and supplies with limited funds, so you’re already forced to make choices. Why not make a hunting license one of the requirements so that when the gameskeeper approaches, you can prove you’re hunting legally? Why couldn’t they have made part of the challenge passing up animals the hunter aren’t licensed to shoot? If they absolutely needed to include poachers, couldn’t they have made up some good guy/bad guy scenario where you can choose to poach with a different risk/reward structure? Or somehow pitted hunters against the poachers who are ruining their sport?

I realize that in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t quite rival thousands of barrels of crude oil billowing into the ocean every day. And I highly doubt that this video game will make kids run out and poach elephants.

But this game represents a frightening and somewhat disheartening gap that exists between hunters and non-hunters: Too many of the latter see no difference between hunting and poaching.

I never, ever hunt or fish without the proper licenses and legal equipment, and I believe that the vast majority of hunters are the same way. Do I want a conservation officer interrupting my hunt or stopping me to check out all my gear? Of course not. But I know before I start any hunt that if one does I will be in compliance. I have nothing to fear from them, and I’m glad they do what they do.

As hunters, we are willing and important participants in wildlife management in a world where more and more people have eschewed that responsibility. Game laws exist for reasons that most of us fully support, and if we disagree with them we adhere to them anyway because it’s right. If you don’t, shame on you and congratulations on your new video game.

The line between hunting and poaching is very clear to me, and I wish it were as clear to everyone. Anti-hunting groups like PETA and the Humane Society of the United States love to maintain that blur because it helps them convert the ignorant.

Hunting is hunting. Poaching is poaching. Equating them is offensive. The irony is that the folks at Kalypso designed this game for hunters – the very people they’ve minimized.

A sure sign that they just don’t get it.

A few years ago, ineffective survey methods, a couple harsh winters and some aggressive deer management turned northeast Wisconsin into a deer wasteland. The hunters who had been told to shoot, shoot and shoot some more went ballistic when they found out that the oversized herd they were whacking back was actually much smaller than anyone thought. When they found out the truth — and didn’t have many deer left to hunt – their flimsy trust of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was pretty much gone.

Now the DNR wants those hunters back, and it’s coming to the table armed with $2 million in federal money that hunters have already paid into the system through excise taxes on guns, ammunition and other gear.

In the interest of full disclosure, Wisconsin’s DNR has thrown open a number of processes for all to see — and participate in. Four research projects involve the survival rate of bucks, the impact of predators on the deer herd, aerial deer surveys and human effects on the deer population.

It’s you-want-it-you-got-it, and I think Keith Warnke was only half kidding when he told me that any hunter with a dual-axle trailer is welcome to help haul deer traps. They’re still looking for volunteers to help build the traps, radio-collar deer and monitor deer movements.

Here’s the sunshine part: All the research will be updated on a DNR Web site for all to see.

So join in. Take a look any old time. Be part of the process. It’s all yours.

Here’s some good news for pheasant and quail hunters: U.S. Ag secretary Tom Vilsack announced over the weekend that a new CRP signup will open up later this year, and there also will be more acreage allotted for specific habitats. He made the announcements at Pheasants Forever’s National Pheasant Fest in Des Moines, Iowa.

CRP, of course, is the practice of paying farmers and landowners for keeping their land in a natural state to provide wildlife habitat. There are 4.4 million acres of CRP land expiring this year, which means it could revert to crop production. In the next three years another 14.2 million acres of CRP are scheduled to expire. The new signup will hopefuly offset those losses.

Vilsack has said he aims to keep CRP levels at or near the 32 million acres it’s authorized for. He also announced acreages changes for the following conservation practices:

– 100,000 additional acres for upland bird habitat buffers in the south and midwest.

– 50,000 additional acres for duck nesting habitat, monstly in the Dakotas.

– An additional 150,000 acres in the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement Program, which is designed to protect environmentally sensitive land that provides habitat for pheasants, quail, grouse and a plethora of non-game species.

Vilsack also signed a memorandum of understanding with Pheasants Forever that will help PF work with states to teach landowners how to improve conservation.

Luke Haynes, 13 (Detroit News photo by Dale Young)

If the future of hunting is in the hands of the Haynes family of Vicksburg, Mich., it’s all good.

They’re the ones who produced Luke Haynes, one of the three lucky winners of the first Pure Michigan Hunt. Luke is 13 years old, and winning means he’ll go to the front of the line for Michigan elk, bear, antlerless deer, turkey and waterfowl drawings this year. You can read more about Luke’s prize in today’s Detroit News.

Plans are in place for the News — and yours truly — to tag along on all of Luke’s Pure Michigan hunts beginning in April with the spring turkey season. We’ll chronicle Luke’s challenges and successes as he and his dad work their way through Michigan’s game species.

I met Luke on Thursday, along with parents Scott and Kelly and sisters Katelyn and Linsey, and it’s hard for me to imagine a better ambassador for hunting and outdoor sports. Luke is bright, friendly and funny, not at all averse to looking adults in the eye and answering their questions — even folks he’s just met. I have a 13-year-old of my own, and I can tell you many members of that species would rather stab themselves in the neck than carry on a conversation with an adult.

Above all Luke is passionate, and he comes by that honestly. Everyone in his family — mom, sisters, dad — hunts. Luke just turned 13 on January 6, and already he has killed a double-bearded gobbler and an 8-point buck. He hunts rabbits and squirrels behind his home in Kalamazoo County every chance he gets. He started tagging along with Scott on hunts as a toddler strapped in a backpack.

It may seem to Luke like he’s just going hunting. But in a lot of ways he’s sending a very important message to a society that is increasingly concentrated on pavement and learns about nature through electronic devices sealed inside the weatherproof boxes we call home.

There’s another generation coming up that knows how to do it the other way. And its face will look a lot like Luke Haynes.

Carson Dunn has three older brothers, two of whom have killed Buckeye Big Bucks.

At the rate he’s going, it won’t be long before Carson joins them. On opening day of this year’s Ohio Youth Hunt, Nov. 21, the 12-year-old dropped this dandy 8-point at 7:30 a.m. — 30 minutes after he sat down.

Carson, of Ashland, was 20 feet up when the buck came in, and he knew exactly what to do. He sent a Winchester Partition Gold 260-grain slug from his 20-gauge into the deer’s “drop now” spot, according to his dad Jim.

Carson’s first buck will be No. 16 on the Dunn family’s trophy wall, and we’re betting that won’t be his last entry.

Nice going, Carson!

It’s a messy job, but we all need to do it. When you take an animal’s life for the nourishment of yourself and your family, you have a responsibility to use as much of that animal as you possibly can. Waste is inexcusable.

I had the good fortune to spend a couple hours last week with Kenny Glenn, who processes deer for Dunbar Meats in Milan, Michigan. Kenny took the time to show me around dozens of freshly killed deer carcasses so I could see what hunters do right and do wrong when they field-dress a deer.

I was surprised at how much meat is lost by good, ethical hunters for the simple reason that they learned field dressing from someone who didn’t know better. That doesn’t make them bad people or even bad hunters. But it shows there’s plenty to learn for most of us.

I took along the video camera for this interview, and some of the footage is pretty graphic. But Kenny was eloquent and thorough in sharing a great deal of knowledge about how to save that venison.

Maybe you know everything there is about field dressing a deer, but it’s worth taking a look at the two-part video. I learned a few things from Kenny, and so has everyone else I’ve shown these videos.

Maybe you will, too. It’s worth checking out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love spring. It’s a magical time of year, when the birds migrate through from the tropics, the turkeys thunder in the woods, the sun shines, and everything turns from gray to green.

That does not, however, mean I want to experience it in November. But there I was Saturday, November 14, bowhunting on the eve of Michigan’s gun deer opener, when two pairs of bluebirds flitted in to look me over. Granted they dined on the white berries of poison ivy vines, a decidedly autumn activity, but still. I have never seen a bluebird from a treestand in November, and here were four of them.

As I watched them, I could distinctly make out the calls of chorus and wood frogs nearby. Never you mind how I am enough of an uber nerd to know those calls. I know them, OK? And I heard them plainly. And it is not spring.

The next morning, the sound of gunfire was punctuated by a gobbling turkey. Over and over he gobbled, just like he will when he’s lovesick in April. I half expected to see trilliums blanketing the forest floor.

This may seem like blasphemy to non-hunters, but to hell with them. I don’t want 60-degree sunny days in November. Make my November crappy. Give me gray skies and a stiff wind that’s pushing ducks around. Cold temps and even a little snow to keep the deer up and moving. Inversion on the lakes to bring on the ice.

Yeah, gimme that. There will be another spring soon enough.