MAYBEE, Mich. — The jaunt through the early morning foggy northern Monroe County, Michigan, backroads to the public land was dicier than I expected when I first headed out shortly after 6 a.m. Sept. 22 from Toledo.
There were about three, maybe four, different turns to take along winding roads after getting off U.S. 23 before I arrived at the destination. Meanwhile the streams of haze were waving back and forth across the pavement, and you never knew if a white-tail deer would come bolting out of the cornfields lining the roads.
I was one of the first to arrive. As the fog lifted, a couple of the Mountain Gap Beagles crew members were in their vehicles waiting, getting their boots on, and so forth, taking their last gulps of coffee. We met and chatted. But the rabbit commander Dr. Dave Yatsonsky II had yet to pull in.
During the hunt and afterward he explained how this unlikely lot of hunters came together.
A few years back, a group of medical residents at University of Toledo Medical Center and medical supply representatives got together on some rabbit hunts in Michigan and Ohio and decided to build on their love of small game hunting and form a beagle club.