What is the Grand Slam of hunting you ask, for those of you wondering, it is four different species of an animal or four different animals harvested to make up the four hardest to take. The first time I heard of the Grand Slam it was associated with wild turkey hunting. It consisted of the Eastern, Osceola, Merriam, and Rio Grande Turkey species. They are now an official record awarded by the NWTF along with the Super Slam and the World Slam, that consist of taking a Gould and then a Ocellated turkey in that order.
Now the reason I bring up a Michigan Grand Slam is, that once again I was reading through the Michigan Sportsman Forum this morning, looking for any hot hunting and fishing news. I came across this post:
“Does anyone know what a Michigan Grand or Super Slam is? Is it just for bow kills? What animals are involved and what are their minimum scores? Thanks”
And of course I had to respond, here is what I wrote:
You bring up an interesting point! A lot of us hunters don’t have the money or the resources to do a true Grand Slam throughout the U.S. I did think about this a couple of years back and I came up with my own Michigan Grand Slam for me and here are the reasons. First, Whitetail Buck, the most hunted game animal in Michigan and its in the fall. Second a Spring Eastern Wild Turkey, it is somewhat harder to kill and you must draw a tag for it. Third, I chose one of two animals for this one. Either a Bobcat or a Coyote, the reason is these can be hunted in the winter and they are extremely elusive. And Fourth is the Michigan Black Bear, because it is hunted in the early fall, technically season starts in late summer and also you must draw a tag for it. I know everyone is saying wait what about the ELK!!! That is for the Super Slam you mention! It is so hard to draw a tag that most people will never get the chance to hunt them in Michigan. So I reserved it for the Super Slam!!! The grand slam animals are all available for us to hunt within a reasonable amount of time and they cover pretty much all four seasons in Michigan. What do you think?
So guys what is your Grand Slam for Michigan, or if you live in another state and your reading this, what is your Slam for your state? Every state has different hard to take animals to offer, so it might be different for each state. What’s fun about this is, that you get to make up your own unique Grand Slam for the animals you hunt. What I like about the four I chose is that they cover almost an entire year, along with the difficulty of hunting them and their availability. You might even come up with a better name for the distinction if so, let us know. I hope that the name Slam is taken lightly, sometimes even the names of awards or distinctions can be misleading. This is not a contest, but a personal achievement of hard to take game animals that you would normally hunt. I want this to be something fun and light hearted, not a hot point of discussion on the name. So lets hear your “Fantastic Four” or “Grand Slam” for you or your state! Put it in the comment link below.
