As roughly 600,000 deer hunters head into the woods for the 2025 season, thousands more are targeting Michigan’s other big game species after years of applying for limited licenses.

In recent years, a growing number of applications for both Michigan bear and elk licenses have defied a decades-long trend of declining hunter numbers and driven up the time it takes to land a license, with some, for bull elk, limited to once in a lifetime. As covered in this week's Northern Express, sister publication of The Ticker, the situation makes for high-stakes hunts that are influenced in large part by factors hunters can’t control, from weather to natural food production - and 2025 is proving especially challenging for many in northern Michigan.

Read more about big game hunting this season in the Northern Express, available to read for free online or on newsstands at more than 650 locations in 13 counties across northern Michigan.