Deer elude fledgling hunter

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Well, the regular firearms season on deer is over, and I trust many of you have emerged from the month-long process with either a pile of venison or a pile of excuses.

Me? This year I opted for the excuses.

According to my rough calculations, I headed into the woods 10 or 12 times and spent more than enough hours to realize a few more things about deer hunting.

First and foremost: Deer are sneakier than I am.

Most days, that’s a good thing. In interpersonal relationships, for instance, my lack of the sneaky gene probably serves me well. And at work, (I tell myself), that trait may help make me more trustworthy.

In the woods, however, the lack of the sneaky gene is not so productive, it seems.

Deer, thus far, have me pretty well figured out.

That’s not to say that the year was a washout. Far from it.

I ended seeing many more deer than I did last year (In 2002 all I saw was one tail, which I assumed was attached to a deer … though I’m not entirely sure).

I learned a lot. And (thanks to the fact that I kept my expectations very, very low) I had a great time.

Next year, I may not end up with a freezer full of venison. I may not bag a buck.

But I might. And the power of that little word is one of the things that keeps sportsmen heading back in the woods, and onto the waters, year after year.

This season wasn’t so good for me. But next year? It will be better.

At least, it might.

Each weekend (much to the amusement of those who don’t share our passion for the outdoors), plenty of us flip on our TV sets and watch as others hunt or fish in locales we’ve never visited in person.

Many times, we watch a buck wander, lovesick, in front of a camera lens (and usually, in front of a rifle) and end up saying the same thing: That’s not the way it happens around here.

That’s what one reader, James “Jim” Powell used to say. But not any more.

Powell’s e-mail to me said, essentially, that sometimes, outdoor events do happen just like they do on TV. Parts of his e-mail follow:

“I have been around 77 long, hard years, and started in hunting with my dad at 11 years of age,” Powell wrote. “I am conservatively guessing that I have downed somewhere between 35 and 45 deer in my lifetime and never have I ever bagged one like they do on TV until this one this year!

“It was a classic scene. The doe actually came to within 15 feet of me and tip-toed around,” he wrote.

“Finally the buck showed after a few anxious minutes, because if the doe got any closer, she was going to find out I didn’t have horns and probably take off. Anyway, [the buck] strode boldly out in the open with eyes only for his girlfriend and I dumped him with one shot.

“I’m not Paul Harvey, but the rest of the story is that I’m too darned old to be doing that stuff and pretty near had a stroke before I finally realized that I was too old and needed help.

“I was able to blaze a bit of a trail to my four-wheeler and I left him half-gutted out. I shamefully went back to my camp and rousted out a much younger facsimile of myself and we finally came back to camp triumphantly, the three of us on that little machine that will forever be in close attendance for my use on the next safari.”

The buck was a nice one, Powell reported: It weighed in at more than 200 pounds, and sported an eight-point rack.

Just like on TV.

Maine outdoorsmen lost one of their own over the weekend when Dr. Frank Gilley of Surry died at the age of 81.

I had the good fortune to meet Gilley earlier this year, after writing a short review of his book, “Reflections of Salmon Flies and Gunpowder.”

Shortly after that review appeared in print, Gilley sent me a short note inviting me to stop by for breakfast the next time I was in the Surry area.

Unfortunately, I never got to make that trip, though we did get the chance to swap stories at an event in Orrington a few months later.

To me, Gilley’s book (one of several he wrote) was special because of what it was … and what it wasn’t.

“Reflections” wasn’t glitzy, nor overly polished. It was simply a book of outdoors reminiscences from a man who’d spent thousands of hours enjoying pastimes I was still busy discovering.

Gilley, a dentist, was an avid sportsman who earned his Maine Guide license in 1948. He was a member of the Penobscot County Conservation Association and the Penobscot, Veazie and Eddington Salmon clubs.

According to the obituary that ran in Monday’s paper, Gilley “was happiest when toting a fishing rod, a shotgun, riding his tractor and four-wheeler and working his tree farms.”

He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Mary Ellen, and five daughters.

A celebration of Dr. Gilley’s life will be held today at 11 a.m. at Brookings-Smith in Bangor.

A quick correction to an item that ran on Saturday: I said that David “Cappy” Wardwell, the Hancock County representative on the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Advisory Committee, was from Bucksport.

Wardwell actually hails from the town of Penobscot.

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