# What rules and regulations do you recall from your early days of hunting?



## answerguy8 (Oct 15, 2001)

I started hunting in the early to mid 70s and I recall that blaze orange wasn’t required yet. Deer hunters usually wore black and red checked wool or solid red cloth hunting apparel. Upland bird hunters usually wore all tan clothing. The blaze orange requirement has certainly saved a lot of lives. 
Another one was that on October 20th, opening day of pheasant hunting, start time was 10:00am. This applied not just to pheasant hunters but bow hunters too (if I recall correctly duck hunters weren’t affected by this). But also if I recall correctly the 10:00am start time for bow hunting wasn’t enforced stringently. What do you recall?


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## Stubee (May 26, 2010)

Man, I’ve hunted deer since 1963 and don’t remember inability to bowhunt on the pheasant opener? I may not have cared because back then my hunting was weekends only. 

The back tag being displayed was a main difference and the introduction then requirement of blaze orange was a big deal. I was convinced that deer would shy away from blaze orange, especially if it moved. In the late ‘70s I’d take my orange hat off and lay it beside me on my little blind in a thick tag alder state land swamp, then wear my bowhunting camo cap. I’d put the orange cap back on if I heard a hunter anywhere nearby, but I only saw one hunter in 20-odd years in that swamp and he looked totally lost. I only did the cap switch for a few years because I figured out that deer weren’t alarmed by it at all. 

I was in the state land where I mainly bowhunted around 1975 when I came upon a tree stand somebody had built and was shocked to see remnants of an old bait pile out in front of it! Poachers!! I called the sheriff or DNR when I got home to report this serious crime and they informed me that baiting was completely legal. So I gathered up dropped apples from an uncles yard and carried a few backpacks back to old that stand. 

I was anticipating a parade of deer when I approached the stand before dawn a few days later, backpacking in yet more apples. The deer were there alright, but they scattered in the dark before I even got to the stand. I returned that afternoon and again tied a rope to my pants belt while I sat on that piece of plywood. The deer sure did come in, but they all started approaching after shooting light. I later hunted over other guy’s bait piles on their property a couple of times and did shoot a doe over bait when our camp insisted we do that, but those apples were my one and only attempt at baiting myself. 

Big changes in regs included allowing two bucks per hunter and the intro of youth seasons. Both concepts probably seemed inconceivable to me way back.


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## stickbow shooter (Dec 19, 2010)

If I remember correctly we couldn't hunt deer in December in the Yoop or it ended on the 15th of December.
4 buck tags.


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## dpretired (Dec 15, 2008)

I'll tell you what I still remember clearly. In 1966, I was 17 years old and was out all by myself on my first duck hunt ever in the Beard's Hill State Game area 18 miles northwest of Port Huron. I was carrying my brand new Browning 12 ga. Auto-5 that I had made small payments on every Friday for a year at Doc's Sporting Goods. In the early morning darkness I could hear the ducks babbling away not far from where I was standing in knee deep water. I hadn't noticed any other flashlights or headlamps other than mine when I waded in to my secret spot that I had so carefully scouted out before then. I thought, "I got this place all to myself on opening day; doesn't get any better than that."

It was still dark when I heard this duck get up in the air not far in front of me, and here it came flying right over my head about ten feet off the end of my gun barrel. "Boom!" I let him have it and watched it splash into the black water about twenty yards behind me. I had no idea what kind of duck it was, just that it was shaped like a duck. I didn't bother to move just in case another duck wanted to try the same stunt. It was only a few minutes later when I heard, "Splash, splash, splash" and saw this man with a flashlight coming towards me. It looked like it was the old local game warden named Duncan wearing his hip boots with his gun belt on, and all. When he finally got up close to me, he said, "Unload that gun boy, and give it to me!" To which I said, "What's the problem?" And he answered in a very unfriendly tone, "You do what I tell you, and you do it now!" This old boy didn't seem like anyone I wanted to mess with, so I immediately complied with his order and handed him my brand new Browning.

As he looked my gun over, he said, "How can a kid like you afford an expensive shotgun like this?" I told him that I had a steady part-time job at the A&P store in Port Huron and that I'd been making payments on that gun every Friday at Doc's Sporting Goods for a year. Then he said, "Gotta ask you son. Did you ever bother to read your rule book?" To which I said, "Rule book? What rule book?" He then said, "The one that you're supposed to read before you go out hunting; that rule book. I suggest you go back to the store and pick one up and read it because what just happened here was I heard you shoot way too early in the day. It's not legal shooting hours yet. I didn't notice any duck floating in the water, so I assume you missed it, which is a good thing for you." 

After that lecture, he wrote me a $14.00 ticket for taking a shot way too early in the day and suggested that I immediately leave and go back into town and pay it before coming back out again. Which is exactly what I did. When I finally got back out there to hunt again, there were so many cars and trucks on the road, I couldn't find a place to park. Some secret spot! Ever since then, I make sure I read the hunting rules thoroughly. And I've never been issued any kind of a ticket again either. Like the game warden said to me that day, "Ignorance is no excuse."


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## wpmisport (Feb 9, 2010)

Back tags and there was only a few hunting seasons listed in the hunting guide.
Private property was not posted like it is everywhere these day, we still stayed to state land unless we had permission.


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## answerguy8 (Oct 15, 2001)

Stubee said:


> Man, I’ve hunted deer since 1963 and don’t remember inability to bowhunt on the pheasant opener? I may not have cared because back then my hunting was weekends only.
> 
> The back tag being displayed was a main difference and the introduction then requirement of blaze orange was a big deal. I was convinced that deer would shy away from blaze orange, especially if it moved. In the late ‘70s I’d take my orange hat off and lay it beside me on my little blind in a thick tag alder state land swamp, then wear my bowhunting camo cap. I’d put the orange cap back on if I heard a hunter anywhere nearby, but I only saw one hunter in 20-odd years in that swamp and he looked totally lost. I only did the cap switch for a few years because I figured out that deer weren’t alarmed by it at all.
> 
> ...


Baiting certainly has been something that has changed since the 70s. Hardly anyone did it then, but then if got to be a bigger and bigger deal. Soon people were bringing in dump truck loads of beets carrots and or corn.


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## Chessieman (Dec 8, 2009)

dpretired said:


> I'll tell you what I still remember clearly. In 1966, I was 17 years old and was out all by myself on my first duck hunt ever in the Beard's Hill State Game area 18 miles northwest of Port Huron. I was carrying my brand new Browning 12 ga. Auto-5 that I had made small payments on every Friday for a year at Doc's Sporting Goods. In the early morning darkness I could hear the ducks babbling away not far from where I was standing in knee deep water. I hadn't noticed any other flashlights or headlamps other than mine when I waded in to my secret spot that I had so carefully scouted out before then. I thought, "I got this place all to myself on opening day; doesn't get any better than that."
> 
> It was still dark when I heard this duck get up in the air not far in front of me, and here it came flying right over my head about ten feet off the end of my gun barrel. "Boom!" I let him have it and watched it splash into the black water about twenty yards behind me. I had no idea what kind of duck it was, just that it was shaped like a duck. I didn't bother to move just in case another duck wanted to try the same stunt. It was only a few minutes later when I heard, "Splash, splash, splash" and saw this man with a flashlight coming towards me. It looked like it was the old local game warden named Duncan wearing his hip boots with his gun belt on, and all. When he finally got up close to me, he said, "Unload that gun boy, and give it to me!" To which I said, "What's the problem?" And he answered in a very unfriendly tone, "You do what I tell you, and you do it now!" This old boy didn't seem like anyone I wanted to mess with, so I immediately complied with his order and handed him my brand new Browning.
> 
> ...



Yep, Old Duncan was hard to beat for us in St. Clair County, I think John Borkvich was close but no Cigar. Doe permits ( they did not call them political correct) was like winning the lottery! During a rainy opening day of Pheasant every bar was full at noon.


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## 6Speed (Mar 8, 2013)

Where I grew up it was still legal to hunt deer with dogs. CB radios were popular and we never realized this fun would go away one day. Other than sitting under a tree in a pair of blue jeans, it was all I ever knew back then and of course it worked.

It's crazy how deer hunting has changed with cameras, heated blinds, food plots and all that. Not complaining, don't care, but just making an observation. I saw an article a couple of days ago for the anniversary of the Windows OS. Version 1.0 came out in 1985 and they've been patching it since!!!


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## Biggbear (Aug 14, 2001)

Back tags, 4 buck limits, no raised platforms for rifle hunting, 10:00 pheasant starts, no sunday hunting in many places, camp deer. As someone else mentioned, the doe permit lottery. I remember my Dad drawing a doe permit once, you would have thought he won a million dollars. Then at one point we bought one doe permit a day for $4 until they were gone for that unit, and they were never all gone in that unit.


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## ForestvilleJack (Apr 25, 2007)

No hunting on Sunday in the Thumb except on State Land. Made for 2 gun opening days a couple of years.
4 buck tags 2 for bow 2 for gun.


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## ice house (Dec 27, 2017)

shoot a bear with a deer tag, no bear season


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## MossyHorns (Apr 14, 2011)

I remember applying for an antlerless tag in hope of drawing 1 for private land in Zone 3. Now they hand them out by the dozen.


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## Lund Explorer (Jan 23, 2011)

Lots of changes.

Mandatory Hunter Safety if born in 1960.
Had to be 14 years old to deer hunt.
Back Tags - Bow and Rifle Tags.
Blaze Orange
Baiting
The first Compound bows - Then crossbows.
Muzzle Loaders using round ball only.

Steel Shot for ducks and geese.
100 point limits.


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## Wolverick (Dec 11, 2008)

What ice house said.

Bounties.
No raised platforms.
The deer regs were on a single tri-fold page as were small game and trapping.


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## jjlrrw (May 1, 2006)

wpmisport said:


> Back tags and there was only a few hunting seasons listed in the hunting guide.
> *Private property was not posted like it is everywhere these day*, we still stayed to state land unless we had permission.


That is because back then it was the hunters responsibility to know where they were at all times, today its the land owners responsibility to post their land to the letter of the law or your land is open for someone to hunt until asked to leave.


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## cotote wacker (Jun 12, 2012)

Anterless rifle season was first 4 days in Zone 3....
Only one tag all seasons....buck in firearms or a buck or anterless in bow season.....
Turkey permits were for 4 days you had take them in to a check station that day....could only hunt to noon....
Private Land preference anterless permit you needed 40 acres....then changed to 10....
You filled out a computer punch card sent it in for a Anterless permit with a stamp on it was returned with your hunting area....did the same thing with early turkey permits....
Send in a stamped post card to get a bear permit in the early 70's....returned post card was your permit....
Sportsman License good for deer, bear, small game, trapping and fishing....$22.50....1/4 th of a weeks pay....


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## Biggbear (Aug 14, 2001)

needing land owner phone number when purchasing antlerless permits


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## Big Skip (Sep 1, 2010)

Biggbear said:


> needing land owner phone number when purchasing antlerless permits


Lol wasn't that just last year?

Sent from my SM-A205U using Tapatalk


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## fishdip (Dec 29, 2010)

A chance to buy a LIFETIME hunting license,I was 12 yrs old and wish i would of bought one.


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## cotote wacker (Jun 12, 2012)

answerguy8 said:


> I started hunting in the early to mid 70s and I recall that blaze orange wasn’t required yet. Deer hunters usually wore black and red checked wool or solid red cloth hunting apparel. Upland bird hunters usually wore all tan clothing. The blaze orange requirement has certainly saved a lot of lives.


I started hunting in the western UP in the late 60's....to get in to camp we had to cross 2 rivers the second one had to use a winch to help pull the trucks up the hill...was a group of old men that had a local logger with a 2 horse drawn sleigh bring them back to a tent camp they put up for the season....they dressed in all grey wool with fine red plaid strips had on L.L. Bean boots all used lever actions they were still hunters and very good at it....opening day they would shoot a spike for camp deer meat the tag was $5.00 there needed to be 5 in camp to use it....

In 1992 the timber company put in 2 bridges and turn a 2 track in to a 2 lane road....I quit hunting there in 1994 it was never the same and buck quality went down the tubes....just to many hunters killing any horned buck....


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## Gamekeeper (Oct 9, 2015)

Not being able to use a firearm during deer season until you reached 14 years old, was a great loss to Michigan’s deer hunting heritage.


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## cotote wacker (Jun 12, 2012)

Gamekeeper said:


> Not being able to use a firearm during deer season until you reached 14 years old, was a great loss to Michigan’s deer hunting heritage.


12 years old for small game....


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## Waif (Oct 27, 2013)

cotote wacker said:


> 12 years old for small game....


A family friend and hunter raised an eybrow when I announced I could get a license at 12 for small game.
Then said if I could prove it, he'd buy my license. 
When I showed him in the rule book later he gave me the 5 bucks.

I was not overly perceptive , as he had two sons and was a strict rules kinda guy.
He simply had wanted to buy my first.
(Thank you Ed!)

That first year hunting with him and my stepdad I carried an unloaded shotgun.
(Never mind what I did at Dads prior , they didn't know.)
But , their ways were their ways.
Introduced me to game and fish and places from here into Canada.
Safely.
Missed a fishing trip (well was not invited on that one) they heard falling water on a not overly tame remote river and pulled the canoe ashore to check. No obvious portage trails meant you checked suspicious areas first.
Moose hunters during fall , they got excited taking pictures of moose they spotted below the fall.
Walked back to the canoe , hopped in , and went over the fall...
Bent the canoe like a capitol letter L and dumped some gear.


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## Lund Explorer (Jan 23, 2011)

Gamekeeper said:


> Not being able to use a firearm during deer season until you reached 14 years old, was a great loss to Michigan’s deer hunting heritage.


It was never a loss, because no one knew anything different. A lot of us old guys call that a tradition.


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## Gamekeeper (Oct 9, 2015)

Lund Explorer said:


> It was never a loss, because no one knew anything different. A lot of us old guys call that a tradition.


I was probably in school with 700 young men that counted the days until November 15 when they could potentially shoot a gun at a deer. We threw all of the all of that away when we decided to arm children.


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## Lund Explorer (Jan 23, 2011)

Gamekeeper said:


> I was probably in school with 700 young men that counted the days until November 15 when they could potentially shoot a gun at a deer. We threw all of the all of that away when we decided to arm children.


And we've been losing hunters ever since.


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## stickbow shooter (Dec 19, 2010)

I remember when we use to hunt for deer ,not be at " War" with deer.


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## Gamekeeper (Oct 9, 2015)

stickbow shooter said:


> I remember when we use to hunt for deer ,not be at " War" with deer.


Gotta be a 1 percenter
Or you’re just another loser


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## Biggbear (Aug 14, 2001)

Big Skip said:


> Lol wasn't that just last year?
> 
> Sent from my SM-A205U using Tapatalk


Lol , could be I haven't applied for a doe permit in a long time. I thought I heard they ended that a long time ago, maybe not? That would be funny if I'm on here acting like it was a long time ago, and it was just last year. Ha!


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

Duck season always opening on a Wednesday at 10am or noon.
Goose season was shorter than duck season and the limits were much smaller than today.
Waterfowl hours were sunrise to sunset. Frustrating as all get-out when you could hear Wisconsin hunters on the river not far away being allowed to open fire a half hour before sunrise while woodies and mallards kept landing in your decoys and swam away before you could legally shoot.
Grouse season opening on October 1, as did squirrel and rabbit.
"Locking" metal deer tags that just about every old timer figured out how to unlock for potential reuse.
Figuring legal shooting time did not require connecting to the internet. Hours were less complicated: 6am to 7pm for small game and 7am to 6pm for deer.
A time before "doe tags" were issued.
A sixteen day beaver trapping season (nine days one year) where I grew up with a season limit of 6 or 8. They also had to be registered at a DNR office. Now the season if over 150 days with no limit. You could also shoot them on the very rare occasion one was found alive in a trap.
Bounties on fox, coyote and bobcat and therefore no closed season. Seems odd we have to have such arguably severe restrictions on taking them today when they were not wiped out after several decades of bounties.
Wolves were not protected.
It was legal to hunt mink with a firearm.
Just about the entire UP, except for Menominee, Keweenaw, and possibly one other county, was open to sharptail hunting. Now just a small area in Chippewa and east Mackinac is open.
Bears legal in deer season. Only a mere handful were shot each year but nary a wool clad hunter didn't hope that he would be one of the lucky <.001%. A well organized special interest group apparently did not like deer hunters having an opportunity to shoot "their" bears so they successfully lobbied to got that opportunity taken away from a few hundred thousand of us.
One deer/year.
ground blinds only, including archery.
crow season was year round. FM


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

Metal deer tags. They could be picked open if you knew how and used again.


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## plugger (Aug 8, 2001)

I remember no doe permits in most areas but party hunting on buck tags. I remember later still having still not drawn an antlerless tag but having four buck tags. The original private land antlerless tags were property owner of 40 or more acres or immediate family that lived on the land. The first couple years my wife drew a tag but I could not. I remember when tree stands first became legal. Muzzle loader was patched round ball only. Remember when all deer seasons ended the end of November and rabbit hunters owned the winter.


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## Robert Van Munster (Jun 13, 2018)

I always hated having to have my deer license displayed on my back while deer hunting. Those plastic license holders always got stuck on the bark of a tree while you were sitting against it in a tree stand.


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

Years ago I got intorduced to the daugher of the sport shop in the Whitehalll side of the cause way. i laughed and told her my dad had a gas sttion on the Montague side. I told her a few good stories about her dad.

A few years later I found a back tag holder with his sport shp name on it. I kept it in my work truck for a long time before I ran nto her in a resturant. I went to my truck and handed it to her. She did not have one and said her son would be glad to have it.

At least one of the red and black plaid wool coats I had were equiped with two grommets to stick the big pin through so you did not have to stick it though the material. That old red wool was great for still huning as it was noiseless when pushing through the brush.


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## Martin Looker (Jul 16, 2015)

I don't know when it started that you had to be 14 to hunt deer but I was 14 three years in a row starting in 1959.


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## Lumberman (Sep 27, 2010)

Forest Meister said:


> Duck season always opening on a Wednesday at 10am or noon.
> Goose season was shorter than duck season and the limits were much smaller than today.
> Waterfowl hours were sunrise to sunset. Frustrating as all get-out when you could hear Wisconsin hunters on the river not far away being allowed to open fire a half hour before sunrise while woodies and mallards kept landing in your decoys and swam away before you could legally shoot.
> Grouse season opening on October 1, as did squirrel and rabbit.
> ...


Holy Smokes. How old exactly are you.... lol.


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

Lumberman said:


> Holy Smokes. How old exactly are you.... lol.


Not exactly sure, but in my misspent youth I once consumed a six pack of Schlitz Malt Liquor and got into a heated exchange with dirt over who was actually the most senior.  FM


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## James Dymond (Feb 23, 2002)

Some one said there used to be a season using dogs for deer , I don't remember that. But there is a lot that I forgot. I do seem to remember a three day doe season at the end of the regular season. Anyone else think that happened. Jim


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## Forest Meister (Mar 7, 2010)

James Dymond said:


> Some one said there used to be a season using dogs for deer , I don't remember that. But there is a lot that I forgot. I do seem to remember a three day doe season at the end of the regular season. Anyone else think that happened. Jim


I don't think any of us are old enough to recall using dogs. I read in a book written by a Saginaw lumber baron (he hunted passenger pigeons) who gave up deer hunting when using dogs was banned. He claimed it was not sporting to sit by a runway and bushwhack a deer that didn't know he was being hunted. How our views about ethics have changed! FM


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## Gamekeeper (Oct 9, 2015)

Bi


Forest Meister said:


> I don't think any of us are old enough to recall using dogs. I read in a book written by a Saginaw lumber baron (he hunted passenger pigeons) who gave up deer hunting when using dogs was banned. He claimed it was not sporting to sit by a runway and bushwhack a deer that didn't know he was being hunted. How our views about ethics have changed! FM


Bill Mershon? My dad knew him.


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