Opening Day is Monday, a holiday across the state. Northern Michigan will see thousands of hunters make their way to the area.
Temperatures are going to drop over the weekend and snow is expected for most of the area, setting up for perfect weather on Opening Day. While the weather won’t be tripping up hunters, the supply chain issues seen everywhere may be.
“Supplies are limited on a lot of stuff,” said Tina Colosky of Jay’s Sporting Goods in Clare, “So if we have it, they’re buying it up.”
If hunters don’t have everything they need for deer camp Monday, it may be too late to find it. The rush is seen on the shelves and the majority of hunters haven’t even gotten here yet.
“We have a lot of people buying, not just one, they’ll buy two because they don’t know if they’ll be able to get it either this season or next season,” said Colosky.
At least Mother Nature is cooperating with a majority of the area expecting snow this weekend.
“Snow is a good thing for us,” said Colosky, “That will get the deer moving, who are already in the rut but when you stop dropping the temperature, they’re going to be bringing them out of the woods.”
“I’m hoping that the weather pushes the deer,” said Michael Balan, heading to Manton to hunt, “I’m hoping just for a good time.”
Deer on the move is good as bow season seems to be hit or miss so far.
“I did see a little bit of deer action but I never did harvest a deer,” said Greg Grummel, hunter from Mt. Pleasant, “I’ve seen a lot of action down here.”
The Monday start will benefit the out-of-town hunters but for locals they want to get back to mid-week starts.
“It cuts down on some of the chaos. Opening weekends are really terrible,” said David Neeley, hunter heading to Rose City, “Everybody and their brother is out because it’s the weekend and they don’t have to take time off of work. It gets the deer moving around more but sometimes for safety it’s not so nice.”
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