Come hunting season, there are certain places you’re guaranteed to find plenty of ammo – literally and figuratively – that’ll fuel you when you sit in a tree stand on those cold, rainy afternoons.

Every town’s got one or two of these clearing houses for hunting equipment, information, opinion, and (as even the owners will admit) tall tales.

Down in South Brewer, folks can, and do, head over to Van Raymond Outfitters. Once there, they bend the ear of anyone they can find.

At least, that’s the way it is most years.

This year, proprietor Van Raymond and store manager Rick Lozier say, things have been a bit different … even if it’s not readily apparent to a casual observer.

Look around, and you’ll still see a steady flow of customers stream through the door and across to the back staircase.

You’ll still see these avid outdoorsmen tromp up those stairs to the hunting department that fills the second floor.

But when they get there, they’ve been acting a bit different, Raymond said.

“People aren’t quite as enthusiastic about deer season as they usually are,” Raymond said.

Raymond says some people have cited safety concerns, though he discounts those, pointing out that hunting’s safety record has improved over the years. Other people say that there’s so much land being posted, they don’t have the same access they used to enjoy.

Whatever the reason, hunters don’t seem to be as excited as they usually are, Raymond said.

“Usually people are just real ruddy when they come in. They pass us their wallets and give us great stories,” Raymond joked. “This year, even if they shoot a big deer, they’re kind of ho-hum about it.”

Lozier said the warm weather of last week likely led to fewer successful hunts, while economic concerns have probably tempered the enthusiasm of others.

“If you get a big deer and you’re worried about losing your job, getting the deer’s not that big of a deal,” Lozier said.

Lozier did say that a couple deer weighing more than 200 pounds were brought in to be weighed over the weekend, and two others were brought in that showed obvious and atypical signs of battle.

“[On one], both brow tines were busted, and [on another], the whole front tine was snapped right off, Lozier said.

Raymond said that while his store does tag some deer, its location in the middle of Brewer means that many people have already tagged their deer before they head back to town. Some go to Van Raymond’s so they can play the hunter’s game of show-and-tell … and get their deer weighed in the process.

While the hunters may not be too enthusiastic, Raymond is optimistic.

“Yesterday’s weather and today’s should be pretty good to get [deer] moving and [provide] good tracking conditions,” Raymond said. “This is one of the better snowfalls we’ve had in mid-November in a while.”

And if that snowfall improves hunting the way he thinks it will, Raymond’s confident that something else will change, too.

“This week I think we’ll start hearing the stories,” Raymond said with a chuckle.

– . –

For the past three years, Sasha Tracy has been an avid – if unlucky – young hunter.

The 13-year-old eighth-grader at Hermon Middle School loved spending time in the woods. She loved hunting, and went out with her dad each Saturday during hunting season. But she only saw one deer … and never had a shot at it.

That all changed on Oct. 26, when she went back into the woods on Maine’s first Youth Deer Day.

Tracy said her father, Ellory Tracy, led her to a spot, then gave her a couple pieces of valuable advice.

“He sat me down and told me to watch and told me to be quiet,” she said. “And one just jumped out.”

Tracy bagged the hefty 197-pound buck with a short-range shot with her single-shot .30-.30. The buck sported a 10-point rack.

“It was about 15, 20 feet [away],” she said.

Tracy said she was both nervous and excited when the deer stepped into view, partly because neither she nor her father could hear the deer due to steady rain.

Her anxiety was short-lived.

“I knew what I had to do,” she said. “I practice hunting, and [my father] told me what to do when I was little. And I did it.”

Friends in Hermon who haven’t had much hunting success might want to try to capture some of Sasha Tracy’s good luck: Since Youth Deer Day, a friend of her brother’s, Duane Dunifer, borrowed Sasha’s gun and bagged a 154-pound five-pointer of his own.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.