Maine 2011 Deer Season !

[kevin in nh]

Well the 2011 season came to a close yesterday and it was a great time with good friends.....a few deer were taken but the best part was that the youngest (16) hunter in camp took the best Buck, a 150 lb 8 pointer!!! This was Jamie (James) 3rd year in camp and his first Deer! He was some excited..as was his uncle Frank and I......me? I passed on 2 Does, but took a 4 point in NH....the best part for me was being able to hunt at all after spine surgery in July....life is good even if its one step at a time!!!

[Mainehunter]

Well it looks like you had better luck then I did. Got skunked again this year and it's been like this for a few years now. Where I hunt, deer are harder to find and no doe tags in that area for the past 5 years! I love the area but this is getting really old....quick! Muzzle loading starts tomorrow for two weeks here I have been tempted on trying it, maybe next year. But things are looking good though, few of us spotted more does this year than ever and two guys at the camp came close of shooting some nice bucks so there's some hope for next year

Mainehunter

[rbertalotto]

Last few years in northern ME has been terrible for deer hunters. I hunt in the Dover Foxcroft area and years pass 50% of the hunters would get their deer. (Four weeks of hunting with four folks in camp per week = 16 hunters) The last three years it was rare to even see a deer. Zero doe tags the last couple years, although even does were not seen much.

As a contrast I just got back from Stover MO. Saw at least 10 "Shootable" deer a day and got my two does for the freezer and a nice 10 pointer on the last day. I passed up many 8 pointers. All of this activity was withing 300 yards of the camp, and not even getting into the woods until 7am! Deer everywhere.........



Where I live down here in SE Massachusetts we have deer like rabbits. I've hit three with my car over the past few years! OUCH!

But the MO deer taste so much better than anything I've shot around here and WAY better than ME deer that I don't bother with deer in my back yard. The MO deer are eating turnips, alfalfa, apples, grains etc.........The ME and MA deer are eating acorns, tree bark and whatever else they can put in their stomachs to get through the harsh winters.

Godd deal for the young felow. This will start a hunting fire in his belly he won't be able to extinguish!

[Leverdude]

I got skunked up in Stratford NH, bout 35 or so miles west of the ME border, didn't see a single deer though I saw alot of sign. But I get deer here in CT pretty regular so its no biggie, I love the experience.

rbertalotto,
I'm surprised to hear someone compare a northern ME winter to a CT or MA one, especially near the Atlantic. Our deer dont eat much crops but sure have plenty of forage for the winter, unlike up north where theres several feet of snow from Dec till March. Thats why theyre thick here. Never hunted CO & that may be a good thing if they make our deer taste bad I took 3 here so far & the tenderloins from Fridays deer were awesome last night! How do you get three deer back from CO without spending a fortune? I hunted pigs in Oklahoma back in march & getting the meat home was a PITA & not inexpensive.

[kevin in nh]

Maine hunter...will pm you later.....we broke camp early.....

Roy B....I gave up on Northern Me and NH.....and Mid west Deer do taste better....all corn and soy bean to eat....I hunted Wisconsin and we would go 4 parts venison to 1 part pork....NE Deer 3 to 1.....and boy do they have Deer.....when we hunted Wisconsin the deer kill was 400K to 621K one year!!!

Lever....the last 3 years have wiped the deer here even on the coast.....for 10 years I would see 50/60 deer every year....then 30....last season I shot the 13th deer I saw....this year after 5 hunts (3 hour sits) I shot the first one I saw a 4 pointer.....all on the same property and its posted with only 3 of us hunting it.

I only saw two Does....and even with an anydeer Maine permit I can't bring myself to shoot a breeder Doe, and the second one was a beauty 120 easy....out West I would have drilled her....its just my thing....if our herd ever rebounds yes I will take a Doe, only then......

I was just really glad to have recovered enough to hunt at all after my surgery.....made me really thankful for a having a wonderful woman in my life again, being able to walk again....and guns to shoot and hunt with

kevin

[Pete44ru]

My son got a nice buck (again) in Dover-Foxcroft, the first week of Nov. - He has two bucks tearing up the brush & each other, about 25yds from him, but it was still too dark to even see them, nevermind shoot !

A half-hour after 1st light, the buck he shot came by..................

I saw three does during the week, but (alas) no tag.

My hunting partner, however, ran into a biologist from the U of M, servicing a string of trail cams set up by the state on private land to monitor the deer herd.
The perfessor said that. so fsr, it appeard Maine had lost another 50% of the herd last Winter.

A D-F local I'm friendly with, told me he was heartbroken last Winter, when he cruised a deer yarding area, only to count 75 deer dead of starvation, in only that one area !

However, I've only ever gone to Maine, deer hunting, as a vacaton - not necessarily for meat.
I live about 25 miles West of Roy, and RI allows 8+ deer/year by various areas/methods (BP, Shotgun, Bow, mainland, islands, etc), Oct 2-Jan 15.

.

[86er]

Congrats to you all!

[Mainehunter]

My son got a nice buck (again) in Dover-Foxcroft, the first week of Nov. - He has two bucks tearing up the brush & each other, about 25yds from him, but it was still too dark to even see them, nevermind shoot !

A half-hour after 1st light, the buck he shot came by..................

I saw three does during the week, but (alas) no tag.

My hunting partner, however, ran into a biologist from the U of M, servicing a string of trail cams set up by the state on private land to monitor the deer herd.
The perfessor said that. so fsr, it appeard Maine had lost another 50% of the herd last Winter.


A D-F local I'm friendly with, told me he was heartbroken last Winter, when he cruised a deer yarding area, only to count 75 deer dead of starvation, in only that one area !

However, I've only ever gone to Maine, deer hunting, as a vacaton - not necessarily for meat.
I live about 25 miles West of Roy, and RI allows 8+ deer/year by various areas/methods (BP, Shotgun, Bow, mainland, islands, etc), Oct 2-Jan 15.

.

I'm kind of surprised with that because last winter wasn't that bad up there. It was two winters back-to-back 2007 & 2008 that nearly killed off the herd up there. I have been doing service calls up to Ft. Kent for nearly 20 years now. Back then I could remember going up to Ft. Kent late spring driving through Ashland on Rt.11, there would be herds and I do me herds, hundreds of them out in the potato or hay fields now in those same areas you be lucky to see one BUT in the past year or two they are rebounding.....slowwwwly

Mainehunter

[rbertalotto]

The deer meat was transported from MO (Missouri), not CO (Colorado)....It took us a day and a half of travel to go the 1300 miles.....But I always age the meat for 7-10 days at 38-38 degrees before using or freezing. Aged red meat is simply the only way to go. Best steak houses in the land age their beef. Some to the point of green mold growing on it which is scrapped off before cooking.

A simple cooler with ice will keep meat at 38-39 degrees.

[Leverdude]

The deer meat was transported from MO (Missouri), not CO (Colorado)....It took us a day and a half of travel to go the 1300 miles.....But I always age the meat for 7-10 days at 38-38 degrees before using or freezing. Aged red meat is simply the only way to go. Best steak houses in the land age their beef. Some to the point of green mold growing on it which is scrapped off before cooking.

A simple cooler with ice will keep meat at 38-39 degrees.

You drove. I was thinking you flew, my bad. I do the same thing & have a deer I shot Friday in a cooler with ice right now.