and a strong cup of coffee

"All I saw was blue smoke" dad said smiling. One week after I shot my deer and rifle season ended, Dad was still hard at it trying to get one of those big bucks we still had pictures of. But, instead, he squeezed the trigger and got his first deer with a muzzleloader. According to Dad: two doe came crossed three different shooting lanes before starting to talk at him. When he decided to fire at the biggest doe, he lined up the sites and just saw the blue smoke and no deer.  "I got down and walked to where I saw her last.  The second doe was still standing nearby, so I knew she was down.  When that second doe ran off by itself, I knew the deer was somewhere near by"  Dad picked up the blood trail and tracked his doe... right into a nice puddle of cold water,"She was completely in the water and dead."  Dad pulled her out and got her back onto higher ground, then got his skidder to pull her out the rest of the way.  When you lose two fellow hunters who...

The snow was melting and dropping off the branches and leaves.  I had been in the stand for only a few minutes when I heard a deer walking off to my right.  It was one deer and too dark to know if it was a doe or buck.  Maybe it was the crotch horn.  I closed my eyes and listened to the deer walking away from me.  At least it didn't seem spooked; maybe it didn't know that I was there. The sky began to get brighter, indicating that the rain predicted was not coming.  I dug into my pocket for handwarmers. I tried to keep the crinkling plastic as quiet as I could as I ripped the first side open.  I waited before I opened the second warmer to keep my noise at a minimum. When I made the second tear, just the corner came off exposing a hole just big enough to get my pinky into. The second warmer was heating up, but I couldn't get to it.  I wiggled my pinky inside the hole and tried stretching it out. I kept watch from the Sky Condo as I pulled to get ...

There was a storm coming in on Thanksgiving night, so Dad and I started and ended our day in the woods.  It was silent when we walked into our stands in a turkey induced semi-stupor. The silence didn't last long.  For almost two hours, we listened to someone target practicing or just shooting different guns.  It was ridiculous and I still can not understand why, during hunting season, someone would do this when they could have waited until Sunday (when we can't hunt.) When we went to bed Thanksgiving night, the cold rain had turned to snow and on Friday morning, there was enough on the ground to track. Snow turns me into a kid! It could be an early snow in Oct, a Christmas show or the type that you dread in March but for me, I get giddy.  I was the first one up and dressed on Friday morning. The woods were totally silent. The animals had not woken up yet and I loved how bright the world seemed under a coating of white. The silence was broken by steps. It was st...

There were signs of deer everywhere! Tracks, rubs and fresh scrapes but for some reason, I was not seeing them.  Dad, on the other hand, was seeing deer everywhere he looked. One morning, he watched a spike horn chase a doe and fawn through the woods.  He walked out of the woods behind a doe and fawn another night.  He was seeing multiple does every time he sat or walked through the woods but instead of using that doe tag, he wanted that big, illusive buck that we knew was still hanging around. I hung out in my stands and watched a lot of squirrels.  How could we be spending so much time in the woods and not come across a deer yet? It helped that Hubs had filled the freezer but we knew that there were deer all around us. Still, being in the woods was fantastic.

On Veteran's Day, the wind was so bad that I climbed down from the Sky Condo to sit in the ground blind that we had not removed since turkey season.  I am usually all for rocking in the trees but there was just enough extra creeks happening that I felt better on the ground. It sleeted, the wind blew and nothing moved. Saturday was different.  I started off the same way as the weekend before; Sky Condo to tree seat.  I left the Sky Condo a little earlier than I had the week before hoping to see more deer than just the two does.  There were fresh rubs that were a little bigger than the ones the week before, but it wasn't from a large buck. The leaves were somewhat crunchy and I took my time getting to the stand.  I was almost there when I saw two white flags flickering in the woods.  The does!  They were at my stand, eating. I was in the middle of the trail and totally exposed.  I slowly crept backward until I was up against a tree....

We had to revamp our hunting plan since we were now one hunter down, but Dad and I stuck with what he knew would work and where we thought the deer were. I started the morning in the Sky Condo and when it was clear that nothing was moving through, I headed to a tree seat not far away.  There were fresh rubs along the path that I used and although they were made by small deer, it gave me hope that the deer would be moving through. I left my pack at the bottom of the tree and climbed the 16 feet up to the seat.  I think I am more comfortable in treeseats than the bigger stands.  I can't move when I am up there because every part of me is exposed to unseen deer but there is something about being so much more present with nature than when you are hidden in a big box.  I rested my gun on the arm rests and kept watch for movement or footsteps. I hadn't been there long when two brown bodies emerged from the thick hardwoods.  I twisted slightly and got my gu...

We've waited all year for this!  Deer season was back.  Hubs, Dad and I had a rough idea of where we were going to sit to start the morning, when and where we would move to next and the basic game plan for the morning hunt. But then, I looked at the trail camera pictures. The 10 pointer that we had had on the camera last year had shown himself for the first time two days before at T3. Up until that point, we had only smaller bucks on the cameras.  But this one... we've been watching him for at least 4 years and he was beautiful.  I declared that I would start the season sitting in T3. Hubs was bumped to the Sky Condo and Dad would still hunt. It was a perfect morning - quiet and calm.  I got into T3 and settled in.  I had a set of rattling antlers, a grunt call and a bleat.  The season officially started at 6:40am.  I was ready.  From my seat, I could watch 7 different shooting lanes. I picked up the antlers and as I prepared to rattle, a...

Hunting in Maine is unique.  Our landscape is different than most states, our predators are a lot more abundant (hello 36,000 black bear roaming the woods) and we have a shorter season that most.  Recently, I highlighted these challenges for the National Deer Alliance and wrote about why they makes Maine such a great place to hunt. Click here to read my article for the National Deer Alliance.

As I walked into the woods with Dad, I noticed many more posted signs than in previous years.  And more than what had been there even two weeks before.  No one had signed them but they were clearly on the property next to ours.  We walked along the property line towards my treeseat.  It was raining hard enough so that I could see the drops flash in front of my headlight but I was in my wool pants and coat so I knew that I should be OK for the five hour sit that I had planned. Dad waited until I had climbed up, got situated and clicked off my headlamp (it was a new purchase that I had made when I decided to go bear hunting and it was very useful now as we walked into the dark woods.)  I settled in and waited for day light to break on opening day of deer season! I wasn't going to sit in this spot.  I had planned to be in the Sky Condo but after viewing the latest trail cam photos and seeing that 8-pointer make his first daylight appearance on Thursday mo...

This could be the best season ever when it comes to trail cam photos of the deer around the Sky Condo.  Hunter or not, how can you not love and respect these great animals?!  I can not wait until deer season starts.

I was so excited when I looked at the trail camera pictures from the past week.  I finally was able to figure out that the deer I had been studying was (and is) the same deer.  Here is my proof.  Note the time and position of the deer.  YEAH!  Mystery solved.  I am looking for one deer, who is probably 3.5 or 4.5 years old.  I have pictures of him from last year and this year. He is smart, stays nocturnal for most of the season but likes to come back to the same areas.  I know that no matter who sees him (us or the nearby neighbors) he will be shot at.  I just need to formulate my plan of attack and be smart about it.  Finally, some peace of mind... ... And then, there were two. The deer above is not this deer . I am not going to get a wink of sleep the night before opening day!

The following pictures are driving me out of my hunting mind!  We are getting these great pictures on a weekly basis but for the life of me (and Dad and a couple other hunters who I have asked) I can not figure out if this is one deer or two! I was sure after this last set of pictures that I had two big deer around.  I still think I might based solely on their G3 tine but when I sent these pictures to two hunters, they both wrote back saying that they could not tell for sure, if it was one or two deer. I was watching hunting shows over the weekend and on two different shows they had deer that looked like the deer in this last picture and when that deer turned, it looked exactly like the first picture (above).  Or visa versa.  Even the pros can not help me determine what sort of deer I am dealing with.  I am losing my mind trying to figure out what type of bucks and how many I am dealing with. One thing is for sure, there is a lot of antler out the...

I have been going back and forth between these photos from last hunting season and the ones below.  Is it the same deer?  The photos are off my two months (Sept vs Nov) but are we looking at the same deer?  It looks like the same antler frame and maybe the same antlers, but I think G3 is longer in the 2013 pictures - or it could be the angle, light and position of the deer. What do you think?  Same deer?