Dave Richey
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Dave Richey: Faces of a conservation officer
'The duties of a state conservation officer are 50 percent public relations, 40 percent law enforcement and 10 percent other things, such as filing paper work." That was Leelanau County conservation officer Mike Borkovich speaking. He is a great big walking contradiction to many people as he goes about enforcing the state's fish and game laws.
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Dave Richey: Collecting patches can be fun
They are just bits of colored cloth and thread, but Department Of Natural Resources Successful Hunter or Management Cooperator patches for bear, deer and wild turkey are fun to collect but some can be costly and difficult to find. My personal passion is buying and collecting old hardcover books on fishing and hunting, but patch collecting is fun as well and prices remain reasonably steady for the hard-to-find patches.
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Dave Richey: Bagging second-season bucks
The second firearm season is upon us, and many deer hunters are wondering where the animals have gone. What's that, you ask? The second firearm season? That's right. The DNR tells us that 75-85 percent of the deer taken during the 16-day firearm season, which runs through Nov. 30, are taken Nov. 15-17. The rest of the month is the so-called second season.
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Dave Richey: Weather's effects on winter deer
My late father, bless his soul, always had a problem understanding why I would head out to hunt deer, especially when the skies opened up and dumped a bunch of rain or snow on his No. 1 son. "It's stupid," he'd say, "to go out into a bad storm or foul weather just to hunt deer. Why not stay inside where it's warm and dry, and not get sick. It's a wonder all the deer don't die of exposure." Dad simply didn't understand deer.
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Dave Richey: Avoid opening day mistakes
Nov. 15 offers something very special. It's the only day of the year when you can hear the sun rise. Rifle shots, shotgun blasts and occasionally even the flat crack of a handgun going off becomes an audible clue that the annual firearm deer season is underway. But, all things are subject to change. That's the way it once was, years ago, in those years before bait.
Continued ... - Saturday, November 1, 2008
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Dave Richey: Trolling for steelhead
The rod tips were nodding softly in the rod-holders as the small outboard motor pushed the14-foot boat slowly across the mouth of the Manistee River where it empties into Manistee Lake. The water was 10 feet deep, an ideal depth for our lures to be. I made a slow outward turn into slightly deeper water, and as we made the turn to port one of the rod tips snapped down toward the surface, and 60 feet off our stern a 10-pound steelhead seemed to hang two feet above the water before crashing back down with a heavy splash.
Continued ... - Saturday, October 11, 2008
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Dave Richey: Passing up a bow shot
The rain was pouring down the other day, and one of my friends made a bad hit on a small buck. It was a scraggle-antlered six-point, with a rack that looked like it had been put together by committee. Size or beauty isn't the issue here. Wounding an animal is.
Continued ... - Saturday, October 4, 2008
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Dave Richey: Deciding when to shoot a buck
The buck was a nice animal. It was an adult two-year-old with eight points, the beginning of a really nice rack, and he wasn't rut-crazed just yet. This rack, while still thin and spindly, had an inside spread of 16 inches and good brow points. The buck came to me early Wednesday evening with plenty of shooting light, and he stood at an extreme quartering-away angle for long minutes. It was a tempting shot possibility. Did I want to shoot that buck?
Continued ... - Saturday, September 27, 2008
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Dave Richey: Archery a fall tradition
I sit here at my computer, staring at a blank screen, and begin to contemplate today's topic, thinking about Wednesday's archery deer opener. Doing so gets me remembering past bow season openers. That causes a chain reaction about the past 10 openers, as well as allowing me to recall a few other Oct. 1 bow hunts.
Continued ... - Saturday, September 20, 2008
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Dave Richey: Do deer find you stinky?
Humans have some funny notions, and oddly enough, some people believe them. Our beliefs often are very strong about things concerning hunting, and we believe them even if they are not true. For instance: we may think we smell just dandy after a bath or shower using a liberal amount of shampoo and soap, but a whitetail deer would probably think we stink.
Continued ... - Saturday, September 13, 2008
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Dave Richey: Learning your hunting land
The complexion of deer hunting has changed. Bait piles are no longer legal in the Lower Peninsula, and hunters must return to their roots and learn how to hunt trails, scrapes and farm crop locations. There is no better way than laying down boot leather when it comes time to learn a new or old hunting area, and that is what most people do. Some take this "learning-the-land" attitude even further.
Continued ... - Saturday, September 6, 2008
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Dave Richey: Fishing in the fog
The fog seemed almost alive. Heavy tendrils of white cottony clouds twisted and turned over the water in the soft breeze, coming together to make the murk even thicker, and then it would separate and any sounds were distorted. We were just 10 yards from the dock, and the next boat to launch was invisible. We could hear a faint string of conversation from the other anglers, but making sense of what they were saying was almost impossible.
Continued ... - Sunday, August 31, 2008
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Dave Richey: CWD our worst nightmare
The worst disease any sportsman, deer-lover or right-thinking conservationist could imagine has arrived in this state. No one yet knows whether the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) found in one deer on a game farm near Grand Rapids has spread to other pen-raised deer. This could be our worst nightmare come true.
Continued ... - Saturday, August 23, 2008
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Dave Richey: Educating the bow hunter
There are many things in life that go well together. Ham and eggs. Tea bags and hot water. Bow hunting and IBEP? Whoa, back up a bit! Bow hunting and IBEP? Explain that one. It's simple. Those four letters stand for the International Bowhunter Education Program, an advanced course in hunting with a bow and arrow.
Continued ... - Saturday, August 16, 2008
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Dave Richey: A Solo Show
Fishing or hunting alone isn't a popular thing these days. Let's face it, most sportsmen are gregarious by nature, not by necessity. Most sportsmen love the camaraderie of being with other like-minded people, the sharing of nearby campsites or putting a canoe sneak on a bunch of bedded bluegills. Two or more sportsmen enjoy planning their next deer hunt, bear hunt or trout fishing trip.
Continued ... - Saturday, August 9, 2008
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Dave Richey: Why do we hunt?
As drake and hen mallard slanted down over the tree-tops, flitted low over the cattails, then settled to the quiet surface of a small pond, I thought, one day soon we may meet again during the open duck hunting season. Those waterfowling thoughts carried me back to past days when I asked myself the big question: why do I hunt?
Continued ... - Saturday, August 2, 2008
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Dave Richey: Creating our own insect hatch
Catching grasshoppers for bait was a hoot as well as a necessity when twin brother and I were teenagers. We'd walk or run through a dusty late-summer field, and up the hoppers would flutter, flying in all directions including back over our heads or into our face.
Continued ... - Saturday, July 26, 2008
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Dave Richey: Sitting still: It's all in your mind
There is an art to sitting still. It means much more than being motionless; it means being still without making a sound. This may sound easy but it is a very difficult thing to accomplish for more than 10 minutes. Everyone who bow hunts for deer will fidget at times, moving around, easing that tree stub that pokes you in the back, and swatting at pesky, whining mosquitoes.
Continued ... - Saturday, July 19, 2008
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Dave Richey: The Fishing Challenge
This is true confession time. Those years between the age of 11-13 and 40 are difficult for me to recall because I was a gluttonous angler. I was mired in the first two phases of trout fishing. Lots of fish and big ones, and the bigger the better. Bragging-size fish made me feel good, and I'm ashamed to admit it but that's the way it was back in those days 40-45 years ago.
Continued ... - Saturday, July 12, 2008
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Dave Richey: A fish-fighting option
Fighting and landing big fish is an acquired talent, and becoming skilled at doing so means doing it often. Two schools of thought exist: go with light line and play the fish to total exhaustion over a long period of time or fight the fish hard and fast, and release it alive and healthy. What follows can apply to fish caught from the Great Lakes, inland lakes or streams.
Continued ... - Saturday, June 28, 2008
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Dave Richey: Bugs in the air, on water
When Hexagenia limbata (giant Michigan mayfly) emerge or mate in mid-air and fall to the water to release their eggs and die, they may do so in such huge numbers that fishing becomes sporadic at best. A steady hatch is much better because it can drive jumbo brown trout into a voracious feeding frenzy and anglers to the depths of frustration as they try to catch selectively feeding trout at a time when hearing becomes a far more important fishing tool than the ability to see.
Continued ... - Saturday, June 21, 2008
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Dave Richey: Stranger in the night
There are times during an active fishing life when things happen that cannot be explained. One special night on the Sturgeon River between Indian River and Wolverine serves as a good example, and it occurred close to the witching hour on a dark pool.
Continued ... - Sunday, June 15, 2008
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Dave Richey: Dreams of big muskies
It's already started. A dream came wandering through my brain last night, and there I stood, knees braced against the stern, and a rod bowed almost double from the force of a big muskellunge. It was taking line, and then began circling back to stare at me with an evil look on his toothy shovel-shaped face.
Continued ... - Sunday, June 8, 2008
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Dave Richey: Poacher trapped by his greed
Bob was sitting pretty. He was making about $1,000 per week, and was able to set his own hours. No time-clock punching for him. He owned a boat, motor and trailer, and fished or hunted every day. He was a laid-off factory worker, and was entitled to some rather sizable work benefits. However, Bob's life was a little bent.
Continued ... - Monday, June 2, 2008
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Dave Richey: Apathy hurts wildlife management
Public apathy runs rampant among state anglers and hunters. Ooops, I'm sorry, I thought many of you knew what the word meant. The American Heritage dictionary describes apathy as "a lack of emotions of feelings; a lack of interest in things generally found exciting, interesting, or moving."
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