Girl, dad find good will hunting Winterport pair participate in state’s first Youth Deer Day

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WINTERPORT – The sun hadn’t even considered rising, and Angela Patterson, 11, was raring to go. She cradled her late grandfather’s well-polished hunting rifle, and wore a hunter-orange knit cap crammed down over her braids.

“Part of coming early is just to enjoy the sunrise, to enjoy the new day,” Howard Patterson said as he helped his daughter load her rifle in the dim glow of a dying flashlight. “It isn’t to come out and kill a deer. It’s to be part of Mother Nature, part of the forest.”

An impatient rooster heralded morning from somewhere in the distance, but Howard poured one more capful of coffee from his steaming thermos and checked his watch. It was 6 a.m. and the faintly pink sky was still too dim for Angela to see her imagined target – a 12-point buck.”How big did we decide on – 200 pounds?” asked her dad.

“Two-ten,” Angela said with a shy smile.

The Pattersons were among many hopeful families who took to the woods Saturday for Maine’s first Youth Deer Day. Junior hunters, aged 10 to 16, were the only people allowed to hunt deer on this special morning, a full week before the start of the regular deer season.

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife created Youth Deer Day in response to fears that Maine’s hunting tradition is literally dying out.

The sale of hunting licenses in Maine has been plummeting for three decades, particularly among children. When Patterson was a boy, it was an accepted fact that high school boys would skip school, en masse, to participate in the first day of deer season. Today, the low license sales indicate that only about 5 percent of Mainers under age 18 hunt.

“You think about the things you did as a kid, and you see more subdivisions going up and more land posted [No Trespassing], then you start worrying about our outdoor heritage,” said Matt Dunlap, a legislator from Old Town who sponsored the bill to create Youth Deer Day.

“There’s so much offered to kids that’s distracting,” Dunlap said. “People get detached from the tradition of hunting.”

Crammed between soccer practices and flute lessons, Angela’s hunting gives Howard precious one-on-one time with his youngest child. The Brewer father of three daughters taught all his girls about hunting and fishing.

“I can’t think of anything that teaches a child more responsibility than giving them a loaded gun,” he said. “You learn to be a part of nature, you learn your place in the food chain. … You learn how fragile our lives really are.”

When Angela was only 3 years old, she used to toddle along bird hunting with her dad and her two big sisters, toting first a toy, then her BB gun.

After she passed the state’s hunter-safety course, Howard decided the fifth-grader was mature enough to go on her first deer hunt this fall.

Angela doesn’t really like venison, and thinks that mounting the head of her buck would be “gross,” but she was excited about Saturday’s hunt.

“My sisters would go out hunting with my dad and I wanted to be with them,” Angela said. “I just kinda like being out in the woods.”

Hunting has always been a social tradition that’s passed down through families, shared primarily by boys and their dads. Howard has his own memories of hunting with his father and brother, sleeping in the back of the family’s old suburban to be ready to go at the crack of dawn.

But with the proportion of female-headed households on the rise, catching the attention of girls like Angela at an early age may be the sport’s best chance of survival.

Patterson was conscious of letting Angela take the lead Saturday. Dads and moms were banned from even carrying guns on Youth Deer Day, to preclude any poaching and to guarantee that first-time hunters have the full attention of their teachers. Patterson liked the state’s line of thinking.

“This is her day,” he said.

Angela walked ahead and chose the paths through their friends’ Winterport woodlot. She walked as her dad had taught her, stepping silently, heel-toe, heel-toe through the crackling leaves. As they advanced, he pointed out broken twigs and muddy hoof prints, explaining how to think like a deer.

At one point, both stopped and, heads together, crouched down to peer at a mass of fresh tracks.

“This is a deer highway,” Patterson said, fitting his fingers into the hoof prints to show his daughter the direction of the trail.

Angela nodded, then asked what the deer were doing together in this spot.

“I think they were dancing,” her dad replied.

A few hours later, the duo saw their only deer of the morning – just a flash of tail and a thunderous galloping as the animal fled into the trees.

Howard pinched his nose and blew his best rendition of a deer call to try to lure the animal back – but no luck.

Maybe that’s because the noise sounded like a frog, Angela said, grinning up at her dad.

Angela never did get her 12-point buck despite about 6 hours of hunting on Saturday. Maybe she never will.

Still, the day was anything but a loss, her father said.

As Angela packed up her rifle and talked excitedly about the one that got away, he smiled with satisfaction.

She’ll be back.