No matter how measured — from good behavior to bountiful harvests to the 21 points on perhaps the biggest island buck ever shot — the eight-day North Manitou deer hunt that ended Nov. 3 was one of the most successful on record.
“It was really cool,” said Dan Plamondon, owner of Cherry. Bend Grocery Store and an Elmwood Township resident. “We love people and we love our store and the business. But when you entertain a couple hundred customers every day, then you get out there and you don’t see anyone for a week, that’s good, too.”
Plamondon has been enjoying the North Manitou wilderness hunt experience since 1991. And he’s usually successful, having taken two large bucks and a doe off the island in 2023. Even though he didn’t bag a deer last week, he returned to the mainland refreshed and satisfied after camping for a week by himself in a small tent.
The 138 North Manitou deer hunters harvested 71 deer, of which 34 bore antlers. The most prevalent type of rack taken was eight-points, of which nine were harvested. Also downed were one 11-point, three 10-points, and five 9-points.
The overall take was on the light side compared to recent history as 196 hunters shot 160 deer in 2021, 207 hunters bagged 99 deer in 2022, and a whopping 230 participants returned with 127 deer last year.
All in all, it was a productive and enjoyable hunt, surmised Leelanau district park ranger Andy Blake.
“The hunters were good this year. We had no accidents and wrote no tickets. That goes to having fewer hunters on the island. As hunter numbers grow, so do the problems,” Blake said.
As whitetails are the most prevalent deer in North America, few hunts for them could be accurately labeled as unique. But the North Manitou experience may qualify.
The obvious separation from other hunts is water. North Manitou is comprised of 15,000 acres surrounded by Lake Michigan. Its wilderness designation outlaws fires everywhere except a small campground near the village. And this year the National Park Service capped the total number of hunters at 200 after hearing complaints about over-crowding in 2023.
However, nearly one-third of those permit holders did not get to the island. Many hunters withdrew their interest after Manitou Island Transit determined a temporary dock built by the NPS to be unsafe. The most prevalent alternative transportation consisted of two landing crafts operated by Manitou Passage, LLC, which increased the price of a two-way ticket from $150 to approximately $400.
Hunters have an important role on North Manitou, joining coyotes as apex predators on the island. NPS biologists want to keep herd numbers down to protect native flora from being overbrowsed.
Whitetails were brought to privately owned North Manitou in the 1920s to establish a selfsustaining herd for hunting. The effort proved too successful when supplemental feeding was suspended during a drawn-out process in the 1980s for the Park Service to buy the island,. Deer ravished what was left of their natural food supply, radically altering the makeup of plantlife. It was said that a person could see hundreds of yards under mature forests because all understory plants had been consumed.
After the transaction, biologists sought to control the impact of whitetails through liberalized harvest rules that allow hunters to shoot as many deer as they want of either sex. The effort was successful to the point of depressing the harvest to single digits from 2003-08, but deer numbers have since rebounded.
Allen Riggie of Midland, who like Plamondon was camping solo, bagged the 21-pointer. The massive animal was following a ridge while Riggie still-hunted one of his favorite island haunts.
“I just happened to be cruising in the area, and I got lucky. I knew he was a good one, but I didn’t know how big he was until I walked up to him. I was shocked,” Riggie said.
He guessed the buck weighed about 250 pounds but had to begin deboning meat quickly due to warm temperatures. It was never weighed. Riggie called Manitou Passage for a ride back to the mainland Monday morning to prevent meat spoilage.
He hasn’t had the deer’s antlers measured and is a bit shy about letting word get out for fear of having more people learn about the island hunt. He was glad when the National Park Service put a cap on the number of hunters.
Riggie treasures his island experiences — it was his fourth year on the North Manitou hunt, and his first buck harvested — and hopes that future hunters limit their kills to maintain herd numbers at their present level. His previous best trophy was a 10-point shot in the Midland area.
Plamondon seemed just as happy even after returning without venison. For him it’s how he hunts more than what he shoots.
Plamondon carries a handicap to the island, armed only with a scoped .44 pistol rather than a rifle. He downed one of his bucks in 2023 from 90 yards — an amazing shot — although he cleanly missed a doe this season from a shorter distance.
Warm weather and a delayed rut that kept deer movement to a minimum were also handicaps, he figures. Plamondon also likes to still hunt, while most hunters set up a blind in hopes of sighting a deer passing by.
“I was jumping deer every day; you could hear them run. I think the combination of fewer hunters and the warmth during the day slowed things down. That’s hunting for you.
“Most of the time the deer win,” he said.
