Monday, December 13, 2010

Deer camp diaries: Steaks and stories at ‘does’ only deer camp


Dear diary:
I’m a big buck so I’ll admit it: I was scared.
After smacking a deer on M-55 Sunday night before the Opener, getting to the steak dinner at a female deer camp was the last thing on my mind.
Instead, as I peered along the side of the road with a flashlight, trying to find the deer I collided with, I was thinking of fleeing, heading home where I could bury myself in a heap of blankets and watch “Sanford and Son” reruns until the feeling burned off and I could face the world again.
My fingers trembled. My thoughts darted. It’s always so strange to see the vehicle that was in perfect shape just moments before dented, cracked and broken.
The impact had the same effect on my nerves.
How did this happen? I thought. I’m a notoriously slow, cautious driver. My wife-to-be chides me because I’m a wimp about passing slow trucks and senior citizens in sedans. I have an impeccable driving record. I’ve never even hit a squirrel.
Yet, there I was, my car in a ditch.
Moments after the accident, two dudes in a Volkswagen pulled a U-turn and drove up next to me. They looked like they were about to stop and offer some sort of advice or soothing words of encouragement, but they didn’t. They slowed down on the shoulder, gave me a strange look, and then zipped away.
“Thanks for the help, guys,” I thought.
But, I had to press on. My car was still operational.
I was free to go on my way. But where would that be? Sitting in my car on the shoulder of the road, listening for any strange noises coming from the running engine, most of me wanted to turn back west towards town.
But, I had a job to do. There was an all-female deer camp out there that had a steak waiting for me. The ladies at the camp would nurse my nerves back to vigorous health with a fine dinner and a little understanding. Calling everything off just because I hit a critter along the way would be a blow to my bravado. So, I headed east into the woods. I gave the camp a call to let them know I’d be late.
Gene Smoter answered. He was the one who contacted me about the camp. The ladies who hunt from it are his daughters and granddaughters.
Gene, an ebullient man with a large heart and healthy sense of humor, said, “You’re not supposed to get them with your car, you know.”
I laughed and told him I’d see them about a half hour later than expected.
When I pulled into the driveway of the cabin, I could see a man who I guessed was Gene with a woman I figured was one of his daughters standing on a porch landing that led up to the cabin.
“I see you still got both of your headlights,” the woman said. “That’s a good sign.”

DOES BEFORE BROS

Girls get preference at this deer camp, plain and simple.
Since the ladies have married names there’s no easy camp appellation. I suppose, technically, it could be called the Schmidtke/Sonkiss/Hanusack/Smoter deer camp.
Let me quickly explain. Gene Smoter, a retired autoworker from Dearborn Heights, has three daughters: Debbie Schmidtke, Brenda Sonkiss and Shelly Hanusack. Debbie and her husband technically own the place near Irons, but, from the moment I walk in, it’s obvious this is an all-out family affair.
There’s Gene and seven ladies in the cozy cabin that resembles any other northern Michigan cabin. There’s only one bedroom, I’m told.
A close family, especially come Opening Day, when all the ladies come up. Their husbands have to wait until Thanksgiving to come up for dude deer camp.
“We have seniority,” Debbie said, who has been hunting with her dad since she was 12. “We always thought we would marry guys who did not hunt so they could watch the kids. And then, they all started hanging out with our dad and learning how to hunt.”
Debbie and Brenda are the main huntresses, but, this year, they are initiating Shelly’s girls, Jennifer, 15, and Becky, 12, who both recently finished hunter’s safety.
Debbie and Brenda also have sons, who were only allowed to hunt Opening Day until a certain age.
“After they’re fourteen, they’re kicked out,” Brenda said. “They can come up Thanksgiving.”
I feel lucky to have been allowed inside this all-female hunting sanctum. From the moment I walk in, the family makes me feel at home. I’m seated at the head of the dinner table and humored with stories and jokes for an hour and a half, forgetting all about my car/deer debacle. It’s especially nice to discover that a lot of the family now resides in Livonia, where I grew up. Debbie’s daughter, Danni, even attends the same middle school I went to.
I’m put at ease immediately.
“We do a lot of laughing when we’re hunting,” Debbie said at one point. “The guys get kind of ticked off that we’re always successful with our deer camps because whenever they hunt with us we’re always goofing around and joking.”
But, I learn, the ladies also slay deer. The mounts and hides in the cabin are mostly from the girls’ kills over the years. In fact, Debbie’s husband, Mike, has to sheepishly admit to his buddies during the guys’ deer camp that none of the evidence of success are due to his hunting prowess, but his wife’s.
Debbie told a story how she scheduled an inspection for the cabin at 9 a.m. on Opening Day one year. Gene questioned her reasoning.
“I’ll be done by then,” she told her dad then. “We all laughed about it. We went out early that morning. First daybreak I got a doe. We were laughing, partying it up, waiting for our truck to come pick up the doe, heard some noise, (my dad) and I sat down behind a tree and here comes this buck right around the corner. Got the buck, too. I was all done by the time of the inspection at 9 a.m. That was kind of nice.”

BUCK NAKED

Firearms deer season is generally considered a primarily male activity. A man leaves his wife at home and joins his pack of friends in the woods where they drink up and let loose. There are plenty of common traits found at these deer camps.
With the ladies, though, things are a little different.
“You won’t find this at a guy’s camp,” Gene said, smiling, before he launched into a story about Debbie.
You see, Gene and Brenda usually hunt together. They’ve sat side by side on Opening Day for 27 years. Debbie, on the other hand, likes her solitude.
“Debbie is a bon vivant on her own. She was hunting on the side of hill 200 or 300 hundred yards away,” Gene said. “We’re on top of a hill watching Debbie’s doghouse blind with a little orange cover on it. At about noon, it looks like a huge turtle. It gets up. And this big round thing moves. And there’s her chair and fanny pack and her Thermos and a flashlight and a gun. I ask, ‘Why did she move fifteen feet for?’ Then, the turtle lifts up, and backs up.”
The blind had basically lifted up, moved over for a few minutes, then moved back over the gear. Later, Gene asked her what happened.
“She said, ‘Dad, when a girls got to go a girl’s got to go. You don’t think I’m gonna go behind a tree on Opening Day with 500 guys in the woods, do ya?’” Gene said.
There’s also the drunken tom-foolery men partake in during deer season that needs to be taken into consideration.
“There’s this one place I like to hunt over by the Pine River,” Debbie said. “There’s this huge camp that goes way back there. We don’t go back there too often anymore. All of a sudden, I could hear something coming through the woods. I’m getting my gun ready because this is where I got my six-point one year. I’m sitting there ready. I could see this light brown. And I’m waiting and watching with anticipation and all of a sudden here’s this naked man walking down the two-track! I think he had a rough night. I’m not sure where he was going, but I think he was heading back to the big camp.”

THE BEAR DEN

But these ladies aren’t squeamish.
Both Debbie and Brenda clean their own deer. Brenda even likes deer hearts, which she pickles.
Debbie can only recall an instance two years ago when her dad wouldn’t let her clean her own deer. He told her to stay put until he got there after she shot a buck from 170 yards away at the top of a ridge. The deer was at the bottom of a ravine.
She was impatiently waiting, wanting to go down there and start gutting, but Gene kept telling her to not go down until he and Brenda got there.
“They came up. Man, we never walked so fast down that hill. He said, ‘Here, hold the gun.’ The next thing I know, he’s cleaning the deer. And I said, ‘Hey, I always clean my own deer.’”
But her dad insisted on telling Debbie to hold his gun so he could operate. Within a few moments, the deer was cleaned and dragged out of the ravine, but Debbie still didn’t understand the hurry.
“I said, ‘What the heck? I always get to clean my deer.’ My dad says, ‘Well, that spot where you shot a deer on that nice little hump was a bear den,’” Debbie said.
Gene had run into a Conservation Officer while hunting grouse earlier in the month near the same ravine. The CO said there was a sow and two cubs in the area. Gene didn’t think Debbie was in a position to even shoot a deer there.
“She took her 30 aught 6. Cranked it over to the seventh power. Saw a deer on the other side. Put a scope on it and goes ‘bang’ and kills the deer just about where these poor bears are hibernating. But we got the deer out and nobody got hurt,” Gene said.
Gene, Debbie and Brenda have plenty of other hunting stories, all of which they excitedly relay before and after dinner, which thoroughly entertain. By the time I’m back out in the dark, cold night, I barely even glance at the dented hood of my car. I never got a look at the deer that did it, to see if it had spikes or not.
But, on the drive back to town, I think there isn’t really much of a difference between bucks and does after all.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Deer camp diaries: Nothing says revenge like a Bartles and Jaymes cut-out in a deer blind


Dear Diary:

I was lost.
It was dark.
The woods had repeated for miles by the time I came to a fork in the two-track. I’d been in the area last year to do a story on the very deer camp I was headed to. I should’ve known where I was going, but I didn’t.
Right or left, that was the question. One would get me to Chisler’s Lodge, where there was the promise of a barbecued buck and some beer. The other possibility could have taken me off the map, off the edge of the world for all I knew. I chose my way and, soon enough, electric lights were visible in the darkness of the woods. I could hear the deliberate sounds of humans. I pulled into a clearing, where a row of pick-ups were parked outside a well-lit cabin. I heard men laughing. I saw their heads through a window.
This must be it, I thought. It just looks a little different during the night. I’ve made it!
But, like that other explorer, Chris Columbus, I was wrong. What I took for the land of Chislers was actual the land of Linkes.
It didn’t dawn on me until I was out of the car and walking up to the door: I didn’t see one familiar face through the window as I went up to knock.
Still, the fellas waved me in.
“I think I’m lost. I’m looking for Chisler’s Lodge,” I said.
I explained who I was and what I was doing out in the woods that night with a camera dangling around my neck and a notepad in the back pocket of my blue jeans.
“Well, this is the Linke deer camp,” someone roared. “Come on in and have a beer.”
So I did.

LINKE DEER CAMP

Inside the cabin is what one would expect from a deer camp. Logs flaming in the fireplace, radiating hypnotic heat. An old Olympia beer mirror hangs on the wall. The furniture is about the same caliber as a college dorm room’s. A couple guys throw a game of euchre at a table. Opening Day isn’t until Monday and it’s only Saturday. Time to have some fun.
There is, of course, enough beer to go around.
“We used to have some parties out here, but we’ve scaled it down the last few years after our dad died,” Rick Linke said.
From what I could gather, Dickie Linke, Rick and Brian Linke’s old man -- the family that owns Linke Lumber Co. -- started the deer camp on 120 acres in the 1930s.
The dozen or so guys there that night were starting new traditions.
“This group is just starting to get together,” Rick said. “Stragglers from all over the place. Delvey’s always been around. And Brian, of course.”
Delvey Lindeman points to a picture on the wall taken around 1973 in front of the “old cabin.” There are about 10 or so guys clad in black-and-red. Four bucks are roped up behind them.
“I’m one of the ‘last of the mohicans’ in that picture,” said Delvey.
He was just a teenager in the picture. But, he explains, many of the other guys have died off.
A new cabin was built, mostly with whatever materials the guys could get their hands on.
“The lumber was torn off the walls of our (old) cabin and that’s what was used to do the walls in this one. We used whatever someone had laying around and brought up,” said Rick Linke.
Now, in the cabin, were friends and family from as far away as Pennsylvania up for the hunt.
“We eat, drink, play cards and get in a little hunting when we can,” one of the fellows said.
I ask if they get bucks.
“Usually there’s always a few hanging there Opening Day,” Rick Linke said.

DELVEY’S MISSING GUN

Delvey did the math of how long he’s been coming to the Linke camp.
“This is my 43rd year,” he said.
He’s inherited the duties as camp cook. That night, I had missed a feast of roast elk and mashed potatoes by about a half an hour. Bad timing. Delvey has a fairly elaborate menu planned out for the rest of the week that includes turtle soup and homemade sauerkraut.
Delvey has also inherited the role of camp storyteller. He tells me about the time Dickie Linke made off with his rifle in the 1970s.
“I ended up in a nice blind that had a roof on it and straw on the bottom,” he said. “I was sitting there. The sun was out. I peeled off my old wool clothes. I put the strap of my gun in my hand. I woke up, and there was no (cussing) gun.”
At this point, I have to interrupt.
“So, you fell asleep?” I asked.
The rest of the gang in the cabin -- drinking, watching TV, playing cards -- laugh.
“Yeah,” said Delvey. “And then what happened, he came up to me, and he started whistling like a buck, and blowing and snorting and kicking the ground. He said I never broke a snore.”
Dickie then slipped the gun out of Delvey’s sleeping hand and caught up with another guy from their camp who was out in the woods.
“Here they come over this little hill and I’m walking back and forth like a tin soldier,” Delvey said. “Here comes Dickie and Bob. They got their heads real low to the ground. They said, ‘Delvey, did you see that big buck? I wounded one.’ I said, ‘Dickie, if I would have seen him, I would have thrown a knife at him, because someone stole my (cussing) gun.’ That was it. They fell on the ground laughing.”

DELVEY’S REVENGE

But Delvey had his own fun playing pranks on both his own father, Delvey Senior, and Dickie Linke.
The first trick gives new meaning to the term “killing time.”
As Delvey tells it, Delvey Senior was hunting in a tree on the edge of a quiet swamp one year. Delvey sent one of the kids from camp to sneak into the stand with a surprise.
“I put a Big Ben (alarm clock) out there, wound it and set it for 8 o’clock in the morning. It was all quiet. You could hear a mouse squeal out there. Everybody’s looking up there. Pretty soon it’s 8 o’clock and ‘ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding’ And then, all of a sudden, ‘BOOM!’ It stopped. He shot it,” Delvey said.
Sidenote: when Delvey BOOMS he really BOOMS, filling the cabin with his large sound effect for mock rifle fire. The guys look up from the card game and howl with laughter.
But it wasn’t the first time Delvey made his old man shoot at an inanimate object. At least the other time, he thought he was shooting at a buck.
“I put a deer head up on my dad’s shooting lane,” he said. “It was one of these old ones that were over a fireplace. In the evening, he went out there, he wouldn’t see it for awhile. Pretty soon, he saw it, and it looked like a buck turned at him. But it was just a neck mount. It looks like a big buck staring at him. ‘BOOM’ I heard him shoot. ‘BOOM’ I heard him shoot again. ‘BOOM’ The third one knocked the stuffing out of it.”
For his other stunt, Delvey used a resource he collected while in the food and beverage industry: a life-sized cutout of Bartles and Jaymes.
One year, he put it in Dickie Linke’s deer blind.
“So, he’s going to his stand with his flashlight in the morning on Opening Day,” Delvey recalled. “He’s coughing at them, but later he said they kept smiling at him. He coughed again. And they kept smiling at him. He got a little closer and spit, and said, ‘Sir, that’s my stand. And, furthermore, you’re trespassing. This is private property.’ He was talking to them until he got up there.”
Delvey seemed to have gotten his revenge.
And, as I sat listening to him and to all the other stories the guys had to share with me, I realized that I was glad I’d gotten lost and ended up here.
I wasn’t so lost after all.