Come November, many hunters take time off from work and spend every possible hour in the woods hoping to bag a deer. Some hunt for a week. Some hunt for two. Others take the entire month off.

Of course, there are plenty of otherwise avid hunters who don’t have that option.

For those hunters who don’t get to spend as much time in the woods as they’d like, every minute, every hour, every day takes on added importance.

Stephanie McIntyre is one of those people.

McIntyre, a personable 19-year-old sophomore at Husson College, is pretty busy attending classes and studying.

Add basketball practices and games – the 6-foot-1 McIntyre is a center for the Eagles – and you’ve got a schedule that’s pretty packed at this time of year.

McIntyre says she figured out that she had only a few available days to hunt this year. Saturdays were more or less free (until next weekend, when she and her teammates begin traveling to games on weekends).

Thanksgiving week would be an option.

And opening day was a given.

According to the McIntyre family Web site, Stephanie made a bold prediction when she headed back to Hope on Oct. 30.

A photo caption reads: “The story goes – Steph says ‘I’m gonna come home from college for the day, shoot a buck and go back to school on Sunday.’ And so she did!”

McIntyre appears on the Web site sporting a broad grin, and posing next to a six-pointer that weighed 127 pounds, field-dressed.

“I was out for an hour and 45 minutes,” she said with a chuckle.

Her father, Scott McIntyre, mother, Susan, and brother, 21-year-old Zac, are all avid hunters.

Scott McIntyre pointed out in an e-mail that over the past six years, his daughter has bagged five deer on five shots.

Stephanie McIntyre credits her success to the fact that when it comes to hunting, she’s determined to succeed.

“Maybe it’s because I’m female and I want to prove people wrong,” she said. “It’s just something that I like to do that’s different. None of my other girlfriends do it. But my family is really big on it. When we go out, everyone goes out. We all go to different spots, but then we come back together and talk about it.”

Of course, having hunting access to a nearly perfect piece of deer habitat doesn’t hurt, either.

Stephanie shot this year’s buck in the same place she shot all of her other deer.

“I like my spot. I have it set up. It’s a lucky spot,” she said. “It faces a field head-on, with a ‘killing field’ to the left, cut out perfectly with an apple tree, and then a huge blueberry field to the right.”

Depending on the direction of the wind, she sits on one end or the other of the field. And many times, she ends up seeing deer.

Back in 2002, she sat in her “lucky spot” and bagged a 185-pound buck with a monstrous 11-point rack that scored 140? according to Maine Antler and Skull Trophy Club scorers.

McIntyre says that most of her friends don’t hunt. Her roommate, for example, doesn’t even want to see pictures of deer McIntyre has shot, nor hear stories about the hunts.

Basketball teammates Michelle Murray and Holly Gracie, however, understand her passion a bit better.

Both are hunters.

“They couldn’t believe it that I tagged out on my first day,” McIntyre said.

McIntyre said the time she does get to spend hunting is special to her.

“[I love] being in the outdoors,” she said. “When I’m with my friends, they’re all girls, so it’s like, I love shopping, but at the same time I love hunting because it’s different.

“I just feel like I’m self-reliant when I do it, I guess. And it gives me something to talk about, because [friends] say, ‘Wow, you’re a hunter and you’re female? Why did you start that?'”

The answer, she said, is simple.

“It’s a tradition in my family,” she said. “It’s something we do together.”

And it’s something they do successfully.

At least one year, Stephanie pointed out, all four McIntyres ended up getting their deer.

That, of course, led to a lot of venison steaks … and Stephanie McIntyre can deal with that.

“I love it,” she said. “My dad’s in charge of cooking all the deer meat, and my mom does all the other stuff.”

Hunting traditions begin in a variety of ways, I figure. Some times, youngsters grow up in a household where hunting is a preferred recreational activity and simply grow into the sport.

Other times, it’s not until much later in life that adults tag along on a pal’s hunting trip, find out they’re having fun, and realize that they should have started sooner.

The other day, I returned home from work and was met at the door by my fiancee’s 10-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Among Sarah’s varied interests are music, art, and animals of all shapes and sizes.

Sarah wanted to know my plans for the next few days but wouldn’t say why. Finally, she admitted that she had a couple days off from school, and thought it might be fun if we went hunting together.

She might get cold, I warned her. She’d have to get up early. She might not see any deer. And if she did see a deer, I might end up shooting it.

None of those eventualities fazed her a bit, and I couldn’t suppress my wide grin.

On Thursday morning, we got up at 5, loaded up my truck, and headed into the woods.

Sarah looked pretty sharp in her blaze-orange winter cap and oversized orange vest, and we talked about “our” hunt in detail.

Where we’d go. Where we’d sit. And what we might (or might not) see.

Shortly after 6, we crept silently to the edge of a clearcut, perched ourselves on a large rock, and did what hunters do for inordinate lengths of time: We waited.

For a while, we chomped (silently, of course) on the peanuts and raisins that Sarah’s mom had packed.

After a bit, we began calling. I was the grunter. Sarah handled the can that emits a simulated doe bleat.

And the deer, while not verbally answering, did choose to participate in our hunt.

At least that’s our story.

We each heard the stealthy footsteps. We each believed the cracking of twigs was being done by deer … and not by the more plentiful chipmunks and squirrels that entertained us all morning.

No deer ever stepped into sight. But they were there. We knew it.

After a few hours, we decided that it was time to head back home, and we decided we’d had fun.

Deer or no deer.

And we knew that we’d be returning to the woods again … soon.

Most of the hunting traditions that we cherish don’t begin when we shoot a deer, or even when we see one, you see.

Those traditions can begin, I figure, the first time we walk out the door on a crisp November morning with a tiny partner in tow.

And they can continue when we realize how much fun we had sharing our enjoyment of the outdoors with someone new.

Have fun this weekend. Be safe … and consider taking a youngster with you. You’ll be glad you did.

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