Hi Folks, hope everyone is doing well. Here's a "feel good" story for you. 
13-year-old Michigan teen bags 500-pound elk, 200-pound black bear this hunting season
Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette By Tom Haroldson; found at Mlive.com
December 11, 2010, 11:45 AM
From left, Scott, Luke and Kelly Haynes pose in Atlanta, Michigan, with the
500-pound elk that Luke killed on Dec. 7. Courtesy of Kelly HaynesVICKSBURG — At the age of 13, Vicksburg Middle School eighth-grade hunter Luke Haynes has bagged a 500-pound bull elk, a 200-pound black bear and a double-bearded wild turkey, all in a matter of months.
He credits skill and luck with those achievements, but mostly to the fact he is one of only three people in the state who won the 2010 Pure Michigan Hunt lottery that allowed him to purchase special hunting licenses for elk, bear, antlerless deer and turkey. The license gave Haynes first selection of hunting during the reserved hunt period at any managed waterfowl area.
“It is my best year for hunting,” said Haynes, who has been hunting with his family most of his young life. “Pure Michigan Hunt had a lot to do with it. They gave me the opportunity to hunt elk, bear and turkey.”
Haynes was chosen as one of the three winners out of 12,693 applicants in the Pure Michigan Hunt lottery. Unlike the other two winners who purchased 15 to 20 Pure Michigan Hunt applications at $4 each, Haynes bought just one.
He said getting his 500-pound bull elk on Dec. 7 was more about perseverance than luck. With his mother and father, Kelly and Scott Haynes, a guide and representatives of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Environment, he hunted four days stalking the bull elk at a 4,500-acre property near Atlanta in Montmorency County, which is south of Cheboygan.
“I guess I was relieved more than anything,” he said. “We had already hunted two seasons and I just really wanted to get one. I couldn’t believe how big it was.”
To help haul the elk to the family’s truck, Luke field dressed the animal, which reduced its weight by 150 pounds, and then had help from an adult with a front-end loader and tractor. He laughs when talking about the trip back to Vicksburg with the elk in the back of the Dodge Ram pickup.
“It was funny because when we were driving down the highway everyone drove by us and were gawking at the elk,” he said.
His mother, Kelly, added “Every time we stopped at a gas station we drew a crowd.”
Kelly Haynes said she and Luke’s dad are proud of him for not only his hunting achievements but for the type of person and hunter he is.
“He’s good, he’s ethical,” Kelly Haynes said at Stubby’s Smokehouse in Vicksburg, which the family owns and where the elk is being processed for meat the family will have for many months.
“He has made good friends with the DNRE field offices and said on the way to the elk hunt that he wants to be a field officer,” she said. “They have been fantastic and taught Luke a lot. It has been an awesome experience with Pure Michigan Hunt.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/12/13-year-old_michigan_teen_bags.html
