Agency’s ides hot ve days a ity Senior ocated at31 North is open to or older. i for theome and :ions are jy callingavailableHillsdale)in with es, green I, purplecheese,Harvardlandarinsauere bread,*k with8 juice, unes.fy with teamed Jressing, cream.erved at Friendly he menuable in lay and Frontiererved ativ aiiHToday is the big day for Michigan deer hunters. Maybe next week I will write about the deer stories that I will hear. I do know that hunters are going to bag some very fine bucks right here in Hillsdale County. The population is up, there will be many hunters moving deer, and some real monster bucks will be sighted, but I want to save all the deer stories for next week. I have two stories to tell this week, one about steelhead, and one about a pheasant hunt, and both took place earlier this week.My stepfather, Ed Wolf, my uncle, Nelson Gamble, and I traveled to Berrien Springs last Sunday morning to go steelhead fishing with Deraid May on the St. Joseph River. Somewhere near Moscow on US-12, a big, hairy black cat ran across the road in front of us. We all saw it.Ed drove. He recently bought a brand new Ford stationwagon. The car had just over 3,000 miles on it. My uncle is a car salesman. He sells GM products in Clinton. I asked Ed to drive. He drove the new car. A few miles from Niles we spotted a deer. Just as Nelson and I began to warn Ed, the buck leaped at the new car. It looked like he would crash through the windshield. He didn’t. His horn hit the top of the front fender. The buck’s neck and shoulder dented in the fender, the front door, the rear door, and the deer’s hindquarters were spun into the rear quarter panel. The rocker panel and rear hub cap were also damaged.We coasted to a stop after the collision. The engine died and failed to re-start. We all commented on how large the deer was and how lucky we were that we struck the deer with apromised to mail Ed a copy of the report.We finally arrived at Berrien Springs about 9 a.m. The river was crowded. Deraid moved us into a good spot. We lost the first fish. Ed had hold of the pole; it just wasn’t his lucky day. Nelson landed a nice steelhead of ten pounds or so. We threw it in the fish box after pictures.Ed and Nelson were up in the heated cap of the boat, eating everything in sight when a steelhead surfaced and cut across the back of the boat. May and I looked at each other and laughed as we waited to see which rod would start bouncing. I grabbed the doubled over rod. Ed and Nelson dropped coffee and sandwiches to help clear rods. The big fish kept taking the line. We chased it about 500 yards downstream. Somehow that steelie spit out the gold Wiggle Wart and hooked himself near the anal fin. I muscled him up to the back of the boat. May grabbed the hook with a pair of pliers and shook the plug free of the big fish. Foul hooked fish must be returned to the water. It was a good fight, and that big fish is free to fight again.We looked for a place to fishiOutdoorLifeDave Knoxweekend and would like to hunt with me on Monday, the last day of the season. Tom hunts all over North America, including Iowa. He has a book coming out in March all about quail hunting in North America. He writes for all of the big outdoor magazines and many of the smallerones.Tom organized a couple of writing seminars that I went to. He wrote a story on duck hunting on the Saginaw Bay quite a few years ago. The story was published in Gray’s Sporting Journal. I liked the story and remembered his name. He is one of the few famous outdoor writers that I can visit with on the telephone, a truly nice guy. I wanted to show him some pheasants in the worst way.Monday morning was cold and frosty. We heard roosters crowing before we began hunting. We jumped three or four hens. We had a rooster flush wild in the first spot we hunted. My dog hunted poorly, running wild and not coming when I called. Luke finally settled down to hunt. We went to a field across the road and Luke immediately flushed a rooster that flew the wrong way — right at Tomand me. We dropped that old bird.Luke made the find and the retrieve. Huggler’s yellow lab, named Holly, flushed another rooster a short time later from some cattails. Tom kicked himself for not following his dog into the swamp.We hadn’t gone far when weflushed yet another rooster. He flewup in a brushy fence row, flew into some more swamp grass and landed. Luke ran him across the swamp and flushed him out of range.It was time to change huntingGood catchNelson Gamble checks out the steelhead hecaught Sunday at Berrien Springs. Ed Wolf joined Gamble andKnox on the fishing excursion. (Photo by Dave Knox)coude of hens, but saw no cocks.I have alvvavs prided mvself in mv