Editor’s note: Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional biologists compile weekly hunting reports. Full reports are on its Web site: state.me.us/ifw/hunt/weeklyreport

Downeast

The deer season Downeast appears to be off to a somewhat slow start. A check of registration stations in western Washington and eastern Hancock counties showed relatively few deer taken on the opening Saturday for residents only. Registration during the first week continued a similar trend, and I suspect the warm temperatures experienced at the end of the week didn’t do much for weekend efforts.

Of the 20-odd deer I looked at, 65 percent were yearling bucks, which is typical of the early-season harvest of males. This age class represents the greatest number of bucks in the population, and they are therefore most vulnerable during the first part of the season.

In comparison to the past couple of years, this percentage for the first week is actually lower than what I have previously observed. It’s too early to tell, but this may be the first indication of the impacts of last year’s extended winter on last year’s fawn crop.

In keeping with the current guideline under our deer management system, the numbers of permits this year were significantly reduced across the state to offset the predicted losses from the winter of 2000-01. That means that much of the Downeast area is under a bucks-only restriction with no permits being issued for Wildlife Management Districts 19, 28, and 29. Any-deer permits were still allocated in WMDs 18, 26, and 27, but were reduced in number by as much as 89 percent depending on the Winter Severity Index for a particular district.

This WSI is annually developed by an analysis of temperatures, snow depths, and deer-sinking depths over the course of the winter.

The second half of the very generous 2001 waterfowl season has started in the southern or coastal zone and runs until Dec. 22. The daily bag limit allows, in part, for one black duck. Don’t forget that ruffed grouse, or partridge, season is also open until Dec. 21. Those that are fortunate enough to have some free time dedicated to November hunting have a welcomed choice of how to spend any particular day afield.

– Tom Schaeffer

Moosehead Lake

It’s that time of year again. We pulled our “check station ahead” sign out of storage and dusted it off along with our orange traffic cones. We affixed our archaic weighing mast to the back of a 4-by-4 and officially opened for business on Nov. 3. For those of you not familiar with this annual ritual in the Moosehead Lake region, I’m talking about setting up our deer biological check station.

Our station, located at the rest area at the south end of town and operated for four consecutive weekend in November, is the last of its kind in the state.

For many years, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife operated stations like ours in various parts of the state from Greenville to Alton to Kittery. In its heyday, we probably operated half a dozen or so stations. The purpose of the geographical spacing of these different stations was to find “bottleneck” areas where appreciable numbers of hunters would pass with their deer on the weekend, frequently after hunting the “big woods” country.

The objectives of our efforts were, and still are today in Greenville, to have professional wildlife biologists examine a sample of all hunter-killed deer to determine the sex ratio and relative age composition of the harvest as well as lactation rates of does and condition of young deer, especially fawns and yearlings.

The young deer are of particular importance to us because variations in their number, weight, and antler development (i.e. yearling bucks) provides us a relative annual measure of survival rates during the previous winter and competition for available food. The competition aspect sheds some light on actual changes in the population size.

All of the other stations have been closed because of declines in northern deer numbers and hunters and because we have found more cost-effective techniques to collect the same information. Unfortunately, we are leaning toward closing our station here in Greenville for at least the first weekend.

Hunters coming to the north country have learned that by waiting a week or two they increase their chance of encountering tracking snow. In addition, bucks, especially mature individuals, are more active during daylight hours as the peak of the rut nears in the third week. For these reasons, most of our sample is collected during the last two weekends of the season.

Hopefully, we will be able to keep our station open for years to come. Although technology allows us to become much more efficient by the use of population models and computers, I feel strongly that “paper deer management” will never or should never totally replace our priceless interactions with the hunters and a hands-on inspection of their game.

– Doug Kane

Aroostook County

The first week of deer season is over in the north country and the deer harvest numbers are lower than last year. Deer registration numbers for a few stations reporting were as follows: Portage 6, Ashland 17, Linneus 7, St. Pamphile 6. As predicted, deer mortality on the latter end of last winter is resulting in lower deer harvest numbers this season.

The region’s highest recorded snow depths were recorded the first week of April 2001, due to two major snowstorms at the end of March. St. Pamphile (T15 R15 WELS) recorded more than 63 inches for snow depth the first week of April, while Ashland also recorded the highest snow depth of more than 43 inches.

Along with the increased snow depth at a time when deer physiologically need to break out of their wintering yards for high quality and quantity of feed, plus the fact that there was no supporting crust allowing deer to walk on top of the snow to access woody brown during early morning hours, added to an already bad situation. Both of these factors occurred when deer were in suboptimal deeryards, with very little food and cover.

The end result was malnutrition resulting in starvation. Many deer that made it through may have relied on winter harvest operations supplying tops and walkways for food and mobility.

I have received many calls this week from hunters coming north to hunt. The first thing they want to know is when deer go into peak rut. The rutting period for deer is usually at its peak about the third week of November.

– Richard Hoppe