Outdoor Report

With the last week of deer season just around the corner, many of us are becoming concerned about how little time remains. But don’t get discouraged: As long as there’s time for one more trip into the woods, the season’s far from over.

Let those new scrapes and rubbings you encounter each hunt keep you encouraged. It’s been proved year after year that the deeper we push into the month of November, the more careless those big bucks become.

I think my brother said it best one year when he met me coming from my stand at the end of a hunting day. “You see anything?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied. After three hours of sitting patiently, a doe and two lambs suddenly appeared. I remarked as to how they gave no warning of their presence until they were only a few yards away. My brother looked up and said, “When they come up, they come quickly.”

As the season ticks by, those are just the words I’m clinging to, because I’ve yet to lay eyes on that buck that’s managed to elude me for a couple of seasons. But his presence is ever so prevalent, and lately it seems almost impossible for me to leave my tree stand without stumbling across his fresh signs. After hunting a good portion of the morning this past Saturday, I revisited my stand at about 2:30 p.m. A quick observation of the area brought me to a pawing about 75 feet from my stand. “Did it cover a large area?” you ask. He tilled enough ground to plant a couple of rows of beans. Now I’m not going on record as saying he performed his act Saturday while I was on break. When it’s so fresh that dirt’s still hanging in the air, I’ve got to believe it was recent.

Well, maybe I stretched the truth, but here are some facts from a few pretty straight-shooting biologists around the state.

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In the central Maine area, biologist Jim Connolly viewed 363 deer in the first week and found the animals to be in great shape. We don’t have deer suffering from poor nutrition and there has been a large number of yearlings with racks legal to the hunter without any deer permit, said Connolly. For the most part, these yearlings are tipping scales at between 120 and 150 pounds at tagging stations.

We can’t leave out the heavy weights. Connolly spotted two comfortably over 200 pounds: one 213-pound 10-pointer taken in the Lewiston area, and a 228-pound eight-pointer from the Belgrade Lakes area.

Car-deer accidents continue in the Augusta area, so stay alert.

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Over in the Eustis area, The Pines Market reports a 200 percent increase in deer tagged during the first week of the season, said biologist Mark Caron. The Rangeley area put a smile on one hunter, who bagged a buck that field-dressed at 263 pounds.

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In the Carthage area, hunters had their sights set on a couple of bears. Two big bruins bent the scales at 325 and 385 pounds.

Only a couple of days into the season, an Ellsworth tagging station registered about 20 deer, with six pushing the scales at more than 200 pounds, said biologist Tom Schaeffer.

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Regional biologist Arien Lovewell reported that 8-10 inches of wet snow fell in areas including Allagash and Clayton Lake during the beginning of the first week of hunting season. But toward the end of the week, temperatures reached 60 degrees and much of the snow melted. The hunting pressure was light in The County during the first week, but activity is expected to increase as many hunters prefer hitting the woods after the second week, said Lovewell.

The Portage-Ashland area produced a heavyweight contender that field-dressed at 257 pounds.

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Appalachian Trail hiker Brad Viles reminds us that camping is still available in Acadia National Park, and Blackwoods is open all year. Starting in November, the nightly fee at the Blackwoods campground is $10 a night. The Park Loop Road is open free of charge until snow falls or weather conditions make it unsafe.

Over the weekend, Viles added up his hiking miles for the season and found that more than 143 miles of trail had passed beneath his feet. That included climbing Katahdin twice and Bigelow Mountain three times.

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Answer to last week’s question: What is the usual life span of a deer? Eight to 11 years.

Question: A buck’s antlers reach full growth at what time of year?

– by NEWS staffer Terry Farren

outdoorreport@bangordailynews.net.