If grouse, woodcock and trout are your life...

[Ed Norman]

Andy,
I live in northern lower peninsula of Michigan, about 1.5 hours south of the mackinac bridge. We have very good grouse and woodcock hunting here, we have trout streams, good fishing almost everywhere. I can take a run to the upper peninsula and hunt and fish up there too. About an hour or so south of us seems to be the better weather area, if we get 8 inches of snow they get 4. Every once in a while the tables will turn and they will get more snow than we do. I am looking for property in the upper peninsula as we speak,for another grouse hunting area. I may end up in the eastern upper peninsula because I have a cousin that lives up there. We are in the snow belt area (around Gaylord on the map) So you just have to get used to snow, I have often thought about durham north carolina to get away from the snow for a while during winter we have relatives down there too. My taxes are under 2 grand a year, we live on a canal that goes out into an 850 acre lake. We will be selling this home and I am building a home with an attached/heated garage for my wife. She struggles every winter our garage is 100 feet from the house and full of my stuff. She parks as close to the house as possible and when she gets home at 11 p.m. its tough to walk to the house on ice. We also have cross country skiing and snowshoeing and ice fishing, if you set your house up correctly then the winters up here aren't nearly as hard. Good luck Andy.

[Harold Pickens]

Ed you are certainly in the snow belt. This past December your area was covered with snow on my way up and back down from the UP, but had no snow in the UP, except for right around the bridge. I remember several times when the road was quite dicey in the Gaylord area (4WD), but was nothing after getting across the Mac--and that was in October.