Today, I will join approximately 527,000 other Michiganders dressed in camouflage and hunter orange as we head into the woods.

For some it will be their first hunt, for others it will be their last.

Regardless, it will be an experience, a sort of right of passage to Michigan.

Growing up in Nebraska was very similar to growing up in Michigan, but it wasn’t deer. They were pheasants.

My father was a pheasant hunter, and what 5-year-old doesn’t want to be like and be with his father?

I begged to go, but instead he made me a promise. When I was 10, he gave me my first hunting rifle and I could go with him.

I don’t need to tell you that the next five years seemed like forever, but, true to his word (and the five years of pestering him), he got away with a one-shot shotgun. .410 shot.

I remember the first pheasant I shot. I’m pretty sure we filmed it around the same time and he said I was the one who filmed it. I believed him then, not so sure he was telling me the truth, but I stuffed him into the pouch on the back of my new hunting coat anyway.

Fast forward about 60 years.

This year my grandson will join me in the hunt. No, this isn’t his first deer hunt. It was last year, when he didn’t know what to expect, he borrowed my equipment and managed to complete his tag.

This year he has his own hunting bag, binoculars, knife and flashlight, and instead of training the deer in the field, I will be watching him!

For me, that’s pretty good. I’m more into the hunting experience.

I enjoy the dark walk to the blind, the heating turning on, the whispering and listening to the morning alarm. It usually starts with the birds, or maybe the ducks a hundred feet behind us in the Little Thunder Bay River. Maybe it’s a squirrel scurrying around looking for breakfast, or maybe it’s me digging through my bag looking for our own breakfast sandwiches!

Then all eyes are turned towards the edge of the forest to detect any movement. It’s cold and calm as the sun peeks through the trees. We will open the windows on the blinds to hear better and be ready when and if the moment comes at any time.

Anticipation will build and hopefully my grandson will get his chance on opening day.

Of course, he has visions of a trophy buck coming into range, and I hope that happens too. But for me, it’s not important. My hunting land has way too many deer, with literally dozens of does, which will be what I’m looking for.

To be honest, I don’t really like killing, but I do feel the need to control the herd, because there are so many of them that it affects crop yields.

In fact, the farmer who was renting my land to plant beans or corn told me a year ago that he could no longer farm it because the deer were having a very negative impact on the crops.

Without my grandson, I might have missed out on this year, but remembering my youth with my father meant so much to me. It wasn’t the gift of the gun. It was the gift of the hunt.

It taught me so much. When he first handed me that shotgun, he knelt down on one knee to look me straight in the eye, put on a serious face, and said, “Son, that shotgun is still loaded. Even if you think it isn’t, you treat it as if it is. Never point it at something you don’t intend to kill.

And on every hunt we went on together over the next few years, he said it again and again. He taught me to respect the weapon, other hunters and especially the game we hunted.

And it stuck with me, and I will do my best to pass it on to my grandson.

Last weekend he saw the old Winchester lever action .30-.30, gave me a huge hug after seeing his new gear, and yes, tears rolled down my cheeks.

Does that sound silly?

Not for me.

Big buck or little doe, if he is lucky enough to drop one, he already knows that the first thing we will do is kneel down, pat the deer on the head, thanking him for giving his life for us.

Yes, it really is a right of passage.

Good luck, hunters. Stay safe and enjoy one of the many gifts that Northeast Michigan so graciously offers.

Let me know how your hunt turned out at [email protected].

Greg Awtry is the former publisher of the Scottsbluff (Neb.) Star-Herald and the York News-Times in Nebraska. He is now retired and lives in Hubbard Lake. Greg can be contacted at [email protected].