PART ONE: THE BEGINNING Michigan winters are tough for me. The glow of hunting season has fully faded into the rearview, and the humid, halcyon evenings that bring long-awaited hatches lie still far ahead; impossibly out of reach, like a shimmering mirage teasing a parched desert traveler. The days are short, the air is cold, and the sun seems like a long-forgotten friend who rarely calls. This season of hibernal inactivity always leaves me restless and out-of-sorts. To add s

Outside the nylon walls a faint morning grey nibbles the edges of a sooty night sky. I'm tucked cozily into my sleeping bag, but I really...

Sweat from every pore of my body was dripping onto the cursed stationary bike when the text from my buddy Mark buzzed through. "When we...

I'm in the kitchen, because it's already dark, and I'm bored senseless; determined to remedy the situation with a few slices of salami,...

Overview: While I have backpacked all over the country and beyond and spent many years chasing Michigan whitetail deer, I have never combined my passions for hiking and hunting into a true DIY backcountry public-land hunt for big game until this year. So, while I had gear for both, I didn't necessarily have all the right gear for the combination of the two. I knew boots were going to be a critical piece of kit, so I spent a long time researching the options before I went. I n