Deer Season Winding Down

As I write this, the last day of muzzleloader season dawned crisp and cold.  Last night, our temperatures bottomed out below the 0 degree Fahrenheit mark for the first time this fall.  Very fitting to mark December's entry.  I haven't posted in a while and wanted to catch people up on what has been happening here in Northern Maine as deer season progressed.  The deer sightings and harvests seem to be up dramatically from what we have seen for the previous two years, but are still far from what I consider a good population level.  There were a lot of young deer shot this year which I would have expected from our mild winter, but I also talked to lots of people that passed on some of these younger deer to let them grow.  When it comes to the topic of which deer should you shoot and which ones should you pass, I feel that there is no one answer to that and the decision should be made at the individual level.  Essentially, I feel if a deer excites you when you see it, that is a deer you should shoot.  That excitement level may or may not change for people as time progresses.  For me personally, a spike horn used to evoke a lot of excitement and therefore I was very happy to shoot a spike horn, but now I am happier to let that deer walk and target an older age class.  It will be very interesting to see what transpires this winter and if we can sneak by with another mild winter.  If that is the case, I would be hopeful for next years season.  Well, I will get off my little soap box and tell you about some deer!

First off, Josh Caron was hunting a piece of ground that he had discovered a pocket of deer in a couple of years ago.  Not having a chance to get back into that area until this year, he was pleasantly surprised when he had just started to poke into the woods and doe appeared.  Josh watched her for a moment, then decided that her behavior was slightly untypical and his eyes started probing the brush behind her.  To his amazement, he could see a mature buck in the raspberry bushes.  The buck had his head down as if to hide behind the bushes, but the buck's gaze was fixed on Josh and he knew he had little time to waste.  Smoothly easing the rifle to his shoulder, he settled the crosshairs and squeezed the trigger.  The deer bucked, giving clear evidence of the shot finding it's mark and ran up the hill only to collapse after going about 30 yards.  Josh was elated, as he approached the buck and could see the thickness in the deer's body.  After dragging the deer to the road, Josh had quite a task ahead of him as his tailgate wouldn't open.  Josh has loaded a few deer in his hunting career, but this one was just not possible to get over the broken tailgate.  After many attempts and a finally a strap cut from his cooler, he was able to get it loaded.  His battle eluded to the fact that this was a large bodied deer.  Just how big? ... 247lbs. field dressed!  This was the heaviest deer tagged in our area and was truly impressive.

One buck wasn't enough for the Caron family though and later that week Josh's brother and his brother's wife were both able to tag nice bucks on the same day.  That is the way hunting should be, with 3 family members getting deer over 200 pounds!  Unfortunately, this probably won't happen again for quite a while, but it is a nice picture!  Way to go Caron family!

Matt Collin also filled his tag and his freezer with a 202 pound 8 pointer.  He glimpsed this buck running through the woods as he was driving by.  He managed to stop and get a running shot on the buck, anchoring it with a solid shoulder hit.  He didn't make it too far, before he was able to catch up and deliver the final shot.  Congratulations Matt!

Bud Soucy pulled off some long range freehand shooting for his buck.  Spotting the buck about 250 yards up a skid trail in a block that had been harvested, he couldn't tell how large the antlers were, but could tell it wasn't a spike horn and made the split second decision before the buck bolted.  His shot was true despite the distance, and the buck dropped in his tracks.  Nice shooting Bud!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more upcoming stories!  I haven't forgotten about some of the stories I promised and I will get to them, and I'll be writing some trapline stories soon too!