Opening Day of Michigan Bow Season 2009

It's about 5:30 a.m. and I am wide awake. I have butterflies in my stomach as if I was 12 years old. It is opening day of bow season in Michigan and I am up north at Timber Ridge Ranch. It is a perfect 35 degrees and the wind is dead calm. The ground is covered in a hard frost. The skies are clear and lit by the stars and three-fourths moon, all is as is supposed to be.

There is something special about opening day of bow season. I have not even entered the woods, yet I am already in the zone. I am less than one hour from climbing into a new tree stand nestled next to a water hole about 75 yards east of a 10 acre corn field. The stand is situated just south of Skinner Lake and adjacent to a tangled up red brush buck zone. I placed the stand there after repeatedly seeing a brute I call the "Skinner Legend." I have pursued him for two years, unsuccessfully.

Who knows what the day ahead may bring. I may never see the "Skinner Legend," but I bet I will smile up in that stand more than once this morning. I belong in a tree and this a.m., I am going back home.

No matter what problems the world has in store, today I feel alive, energized and as excited as when I first started bow hunting some 25 years ago. There is no place I would rather be than right where I am.

Good luck to my fellow hunters. No matter what the day brings, take a moment to smell the roses, for it is opening day!

David F.