Strike Three

It's over. I'm beat.

At 3 a.m. on the first day of 2009, I arrived back in Michigan after my third attempt at travelling to Iowa and filling one of the toughest whitetail tags in the country to draw -- a nonresident bow tag.

I spent three days hunting as hard as I could. I saw two decent bucks that I would have loved to put that tag on but, in the end, I didn't get it done. I made a couple of poor decisions and the weather wasn't in my favor.

I'll be honest and admit that I'm very disappointed with myself. I ended up spending 13 days in Iowa over the course of three seperate visits. I spent about 90 percent of my time on public land and on a small piece of private ground that bordered the public land. I saw some outstanding deer and truly believed I was due to launch an arrow. But it just didn't happen.

Michigan's deer season ended about two hours ago. My whitetail hunting season is also over. I'll spend the next couple of weeks observing crop fields in the areas I hunt, hoping to spot a buck or two that survived the season.

It's a tough time of year for me. My whitetail passion is at fever pitch and I try desperately to figure out a way to make November last 10 months instead of four weeks. But I haven't been able to.

Post-season scouting, shed hunting and recounting tales of mammoth bucks that I run into along the way will help pass the time. The season is over.

The hunt, however, never ends.

Tony Hansen, Michigan Man