Michigan is known for its deer hunting. Not necessarily, however, for its deer.

Team Realtree

The Great Lakes State has a deer herd of roughly two million animals and darn near as many deer hunters. The hunting tradition is long and rich. And that generally means one thing: Lots of hunting pressure, few mature bucks.

But Scott Norkey, a lifelong Michigan resident, is one who prefers to ignore the odds.

In two seasons, Norkey has pulled an astounding 350 inches of antler from the southern Michigan hardwoods in Lenawee County. And, no, that’s not a four-buck tally. That’s two whitetails. Two really big freaks.

Call him the luckiest man in Michigan. Or, if you really want to be accurate, just call him a guy who works at the ways of the whitetail. And reaps the rewards in massive amounts of horn.

“I take my hunting pretty seriously and I think I do a few things differently than most people,” said Norkey. “Two things have probably made the biggest difference for me: In 2005, I started keeping a journal of all of my hunts and I started letting young bucks pass. Those two tools were huge learning aids for me.”

In 2006, Norkey took a non-typical beast that grossed more than 200 inches and netted out at 191 6/8.

He followed that up by tagging a super-wide, 9-point typical that netted 146 6/8 and grossed nearly 160. That buck boasts an inside spread of 21 inches.

In a state where only about one in 5,000 hunters tags a buck that meets the Pope and Young minimum of 125 inches, how did Norkey tag not one, but two super-bucks in consecutive seasons?

“I don’t think there’s really a secret to what I do. I just have learned how the deer where I hunt react to certain conditions and the journal has really helped with that. I pay attention to scent control-I’m very, very careful about that. I don’t hunt a stand in the wrong wind and I have a couple of stands that I try hard not to hunt until late in October when the rut starts going.”

Norkey killed his 191 6/8 buck on November 15, 2006, the opening day of the Michigan firearms season. A few days earlier, Norkey had a close encounter with a buck he figured to be in the 150-inch range but simply couldn’t get a shot. He climbed into his tree stand early on that opening day of the gun season with hopes of spotting the buck with a longer-range weapon in hand.

“I was in my stand very early and I had heard a buck grunting. Right at first light a doe came through. About 15 minutes later, he came through. He basically got between the fork of a tree and I knew it was a good one. He took two steps and I shot.

“I didn’t know what he was. I assumed he was the buck from the bow season. I actually had my brother on the cell phone when I walked up to the buck. He still makes fun of me because he said I sounded like a girl trying to tell him how big it was.”

The following season, Norkey was back on the same property.

“It’s a piece of ground that’s about 250 acres. It has everything on it: pines, hardwoods, wetlands and some farm fields. It’s a pretty special place.”

Norkey, who works as a juvenile counselor, had an encounter on Halloween morning with a good buck that came to within 15 yards of his stand before legal shooting light. The following day, he was back on stand and the rut was clearly getting underway.

“I had a 2 ½-year-old buck come out and I was using a can call and one of the new buck growl calls. I heard something come out a thicket and when I looked, all I saw was a buck that had to turn his head to get through the thick stuff.”

Can you say “shooter?” Norkey could. And did.

“When the big buck came out, he made eye contact with the 2-year-old and started moving towards him. The smaller buck was actually looking up at me in the tree and it was tough to draw. I finally decided to just try and get the bow back. Incredibly, I did without him boogering and I took the shot at about 13 yards.”

Unsure of the hit (it was actually perfectly-placed), Norkey again got on the cell phone to call his brother. This time, however, his dad and brother drove to the property to aid in the recovery.

“That was pretty cool. The year before they had been up north hunting and couldn’t be there when I got the first buck. But this time they were with me and I was really happy they were.”

Norkey says that he has become a student of the hunting game and his journal has helped him study. In the journal, Norkey notes the date, stand location, moon phase, weather conditions, wind direction and deer sighting and behavior.

“Since I’ve started the journal, I’ve really noticed some trends. For example, I know that the mature deer I’ve seen have moved in a northeast wind. That’s sort of an unusual wind direction here but that’s when I’ve seen all of my mature bucks.”

Norkey likes to use calls and scents during the rut phases employing mock scrapes as well as blind calling sequences when the timing is right.

“I can’t see very far in the area I’m hunting because it’s pretty thick. So I blind call quite a bit and I’ve really been impressed with the growl call. That thing works.”

Norkey, of course, will be back in the woods this fall looking to make it three straight years of bucking the odds.

“I’ve been a hunter my whole life. My dad has really had a big role in my hunting career. Hunting with my friends, my family and my kids-that’s what it’s all about to me.”

Friends, family and the outdoors. Hmmm. Now where have we heard that before?

Tony Hansen, Michigan
http://www.realtree.com/community/feature.php?ID=431

Throughout the summer, it’s been pretty easy to see a bunch of deer in an evening. You simply drive around the backroads and look for those lush green fields of soy beans.

Well, in the last few weeks seeing the same number of deer has been impossible. Spotting mature bucks? Even tougher. The vast majority of bucks here in Michigan (and throughout the Midwest) are still in velvet and running around in bachelor groups. It’s a bit too early for those deer to really break up and start doing the things they do that drive us crazy trying to locate them during the bow season.

I’m not the only that’s noticed the sudden lack of whitetails. I’m the host/producer of Midwest Whitetail-Michigan and oversee a prostaff of a couple dozen guys. Almost all of them have commented about the sudden disappearance of deer they’d been watching. I was miffed.

So, I did what every hunter should do — I went to my office. Okay, so maybe we should all spend a little less time at the office but this is one time when going to work actually helped in the woods. See, we have a big red oak tree near the sidewalk that leads to our entrance. It’s a sidewalk that is covered in bits of fresh, green acorns. Aha!

So I went to the woods to confirm my suspicions. The acorns are dropping — and dropping in a big way. One of the areas I hunt is home to scores of big red oaks and the forest floor is littered with fresh nuts. Well, mystery solved. The deer haven’t left. They’re simply feasting on the freshly-fallen acorns. I don’t have a ton of white oaks in the areas I hunt but I suspect they’ve not yet started to drop. They tend to run a bit later than do red oaks. And, of course, deer seem to prefer the acorns from white oaks over those of red oaks. But there is no doubt the local whitetails are absolutely pounding the red oak acorns here in Michigan right now.

I don’t recall this many acorns dropping this early in the year. But it’s happening and it’s absolutely going to impact the places I choose to hunt when the archery season opens on Oct. 1. How about you?

Tony Hansen, Michigan
http://whitetail.realtree.com/rack-report/