Hunter, 84, found after night in woods

An 84-year-old hunter from Eastport was found cold but safe Thursday after having been lost in the Down East woods since early Wednesday afternoon.

Fred Trott survived the night in No. 14 Township just west of Dennysville by making a bed from boughs of pine.

The single can of sardines he started out with was gone by the time darkness fell, when he realized he wasn’t going to get back to his camp.

“He said he just lost track of time and the daylight got shorter,” said a family member who did not want to be identified. “He was just glad to get warm clothes on.”

Trott was found about a half-mile from his camp on the East Ridge Road, about 20 miles north of East Machias, near Little Cathance Lake.

Trott was resting at home Thursday. He declined to be interviewed.

He was discovered around 8 a.m. by Jim Martin, a game warden from Alexander. Another warden, Joe Gardner of Edmunds, had received the call about a lost hunter 13 hours earlier. Ten wardens joined the search along with an employee from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and an animal damage control agent from Dennysville.

“He was very happy and he needed no medical attention,” Gardner said. “For an 84-year-old who spent the night in the woods, he was in good shape. He wasn’t too worse for the wear.”

Four other men, friends and family, stayed at Trott’s camp all night, hoping for good news from the wardens.

“They wouldn’t allow us to search with them in the dark, so we stayed back,” said Max Trott, 20, the hunter’s great-nephew. “We went out this morning, looking for him. Next thing you know, he popped out of the woods.

“His first words were, ‘Who’s been in my camp?’ We had broken the latch on his door, and he wasn’t happy about that.”

Fred Trott began his morning by firing one shot, and one of the wardens returned it. Jim Martin then set off in the direction of Trott’s shot, and the hunter was discovered.

The searchers knew that Trott was hard of hearing. Once found, he told them that he had not heard the warden’s returned shot.

The man who sounded the first alarm late Wednesday afternoon was Wallace “Skip” Lifer, who lives a quarter-mile from Trott’s camp. When Trott appeared not to return in the dark, Lifer discovered that Trott’s van was there and his camp locked.

But the old man wasn’t around, and heavy rain and fog had set in.

Max Trott said the hunter described becoming disoriented in the darkness. He had fired some rounds from his .410-caliber shotgun to see whether others were nearby and then made a camp for the night in the rain.

Gardner said Fred Trott was well-dressed for what ended up as mild temperatures through the night.

“He was quite lucky,” Gardner said. “The weather helped him out, and the danger of hypothermia was lessened. It was quite nasty when we started out after him.

“He said that during the rain he stopped moving and hunkered down. He had a place to crawl into, but no ability to light a fire.”

Gardner said that staying in one place in the darkness is the safe procedure for a lost person.

Only two weeks ago, the county’s wardens had conducted a night search at Meddybemps Lake for a pair of 17-year-old kayakers. They were found in the middle of the night on an island in heavy rain, Gardner said.