Regional Wildlife Biologist
The third week of deer season is upon us and here in the north country the hunters start coming into the lodges and camps. It’s not like it used to be, when the first and second week of the deer season had all motels, camps and lodges full. Speaking to camp owners and motels around the Ashland and Portage areas, there seem to be very few hunters booking reservations the first and second week, but bookings are full for the third and fourth week.
Another good indicator on how much hunter effort is out there is to check the North Maine Woods gate receipts. The North Maine Woods are managed gates for industrial landowner into unorganized territory, and anyone going through these gates must fill out paperwork on where they are going and type of use. This information is quite interesting in indicating hunter effort throughout October and November. The receipts from the first and second week indicated very few hunters were entering the “Big Woods” for deer hunting, and now with Canadian hunters needing a Maine Registered Guide there should be even fewer hunters.
What seems to be the driving force that hunters are looking for up in these parts is snow. Snow enables the hunter to direct their hunt to a location where there as been recent deer sign, primarily tracks, or deer beds. With pre-hunt populations only around two or three deer per square mile, hunters are looking for any advantage they can find in locating the game. By reading tracks in snow, at least the hunter knows they are hunting in a location where there has been deer recently, and their chances of observing a deer, and hopefully bagging a trophy buck, are considerably better than on dry ground.
Snow also offers the hunter the ability to track, by moving slowly along recently laid tracks to perhaps get close enough to view and harvest a trophy white-tailed deer. Out in the western part of the region there is presently six to eight inches of snow on high ground, and three to four inches at lower elevation.
In the eastern part of the region there is only about an inch of snow.
Contributed photo/Bill Graves
A VIEW THROUGH THE TREES – The photographer used a bleat call to bring this big doe up close and personal.
