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.
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