Sorry to report but I have nothing more tonight than a no-news blogging.

The past weekend hunts of Dec. 4-5 were uneventful.

On Sunday in Ingham County, Mich., we had the lil' devils moving but they wouldn't come out to play. With temperatures hovering just below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the small herd we were driving chose to stay in the thicket along the hill where it is just a little too much trespassing for our tastes.

Then we -- Walt and I -- moved on to our friend Art's property in Saginaw County where the temperatures seemed even less friendlier. Tracks and deer urine could be seen all around my stand but when primetime hit at approximately 5:30 p.m. we had no movement. Couldn't be sure if the barking dog outside the perimeter on the northside of the swamp had anything to do with it, but certainly didn't help.

Wasn't thinking I would go out Monday evening behind my St. Clair County house, but once the wife got home from work, I was itching to see how the temps would put the chill on the neighbor boy -- I think -- who sounds off during the evening hours with what seems like a volley every 15 minutes. Again, people, this doesn't help things any when you're not seeing any deer.

Dusk drifted in as I sat in the Old Mother Tree of which I've spoken of previously, and I was left holding close to her mighty trunk without any deer coming under to take in her shelter from the wind.

While walking out I found a makeshift blind on the neighbor's property where I cut through -- more things that hamper my huntin', and sleepin' for that matter, as one morn the bastard ripped a round off that nearly rocked me and the missus from our mattress. Well, with this knowledge stored neatly in my vengeful memory banks, I couldn't stand my bulging bladder for another moment and with nowhere else to relieve myself but in the direction I was standing, out came the stream directly into his fine sitting arrangements tucked neatly inside a triangle of stacked logs. And, of course, a couple of the logs became dislodged somehow as I was leaving.

Later, when I retold the story to the wife -- an act she called "juvenile" and I wholeheartedly agreed -- to warn her of a possible query over the footsteps in the snow (something I overlooked) leading to our yard from the site of the urine discharge, I recalled to her how I once had a stand that I fixed up in a tree near there removed to the last board and two nails. I then stated he was lucky I didn't dump in his dirt seat as well.

Anyway, let it snow, let it snow ...

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On another front, the Associated Press via -- a preliminary estimate released Wednesday by the state Department of Natural Resources -- reported Michigan hunters killed about 243,000 deer during the past firearm hunting season.

It was a drop of about 8 percent from the estimated 265,000 deer killed during last year’s firearm season. The record for a firearm season is an estimated 351,000 deer taken in 1998, according to the DNR.

This is what we hunters are dealing with this year. The pickins' just keep on shrinking. The time is now for a change in the doe policy with regard to the overabundance of tags, and also being allowed to take two bucks.

Can't shoot something that's not there.