By Mac Arnold
MAHFS Editor

With one mighty step across the swollen stream, I attempted to reach the other side only to go splash into the drink. And it was a cold one at that.

As I sprung to my feet along the snowy white bank to survey what went wrong, I can assure you I wasn't a happy camper.

I saw the culprit sticking straight up among the ripples of water: a fallen branch.

"Was that what tripped me?" I asked Marysville Dan, who watched the whole event unfold from behind me.

"Yep," he replied.

I knew exactly what happened, that branch came alive, reached up, grabbed the tip of my boot and hauled me down.

But Marysville Dan wouldn't attest to seeing any such act.

It was a mere five minutes into the hunt after dismounting from the truck at the St. Clair County public land.

A wise man would have returned to the vehicle and put on dry gear but I had already slow-poked enough getting ready at the man cave and I didn't want to further ruin Marysville Dan's hunt. After all, it was the last day of the regular firearms season and he was without meat in the freezer.

So I manned up and continued on.

After about five minutes of ducking under low-hanging twigs weighed down from crusted snow, I decided to stop and relieve myself. Then I realized while going I had peed all over the strap of my fanny pack.

It was at that moment I knew I was in the throes of a folly hunt.

They tend to come around once out of every six to 10 outings in the woods.

But rather than get upset or down, I find a folly hunt uplifting -- depending on its severity because there's a difference between a drenched foot and dropping your bow 22 feet out of the tree, or even worse, and that's getting hurt. Eventually I find what comes around goes around and it'll be time for a hunt where everything goes right.

So I'm pumped to get a folly hunt out of the way with the opening of Michigan's muzzleloading season just days away.