Steve and Alex Gyllstrom
Posted By
Chad Lathrop
at
9/29/2009 12:00:00 AM
Steve Gyllstrom grew up in southwest Michigan and has been hunting deer for 40 years. He is a supervisor for a water heater manufacturing company in Three Rivers where he has lived for the last 30 years. He has taken deer during all but a handful of those years and some years he's tagged multiple deer. He considers each and every one a trophy in its own way. His buck tag has sometimes gone unfilled as he and his son Alex are advocates of Quality Deer Management practices.
They hunt private land exclusively and must contend with other hunters on adjacent properties. This can be just as challenging as hunting public land. Steve feels one of the biggest obstacles in trying to manage your property for older bucks is that not all of the neighbors believe in QDM. Steve says it’s tough when everyone around you subscribes to the “If it’s brown, it’s down” theory. 
This year Steve and Alex and are looking forward to documenting their season on tape as they attempt to locate, pattern and harvest some great bucks in their area.
He also has a son, Eric, a sophomore in college, who enjoys pursuing whitetails with them. All this would not be possible without the love and understanding of his wife, Joyce. Steve also has two grown daughters, Abby and Molly and three grandchildren: Olivia, Jack and Annabelle.
Alex
Steve and Alex's Hit List
Make sure that you keep checking back to see if anything happens to Steve and Alex's hit list as the season goes on.
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"BIG JOHN": He is a big nine-pointer Alex spotted while driving down a dirt road bordering one of his properties. He took the opportunity to tape the deer through his spotting scope. Alex was listening to the song “Big John” by Jimmy Dean when he passed the bean field and saw the buck - thus the name. Big John is right at the top of the Gyllstrom hit list.
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"BACKYARD BUCK": Again, the name means exactly what you'd expect. Alex's grandparents caught this buck on tape last November as he was right along the edge of their yard on one of the hunting areas the Gyllstroms frequent. Backyard Buck has been spotted a couple of times this summer but always when the video camera was somewhere else. Figures. The Gyllstroms believe the buck is three, possibly, four years old.
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"JUNIOR": This is a buck the Gyllstroms encountered as a two-year-old and elected to pass. He was a tight-racked 9-pointer last season and they were able to spot him in late winter so they know he at least survived the season. They haven't spotted him yet this summer but that's not unusual for an older Michigan deer. These old survivors aren't fans of daylight. The Gyllstroms are hoping to see him just once at about 20 yards in November.
