and a strong cup of coffee

You could ask any deer hunter how the herd is in their area and get a different answer every time.  We all want the best habitat, doe to buck ratio and a very limited number of predators in our area. What I didn’t know, is that like moose here in Maine, we have deer that are collared and monitored in order to help biologists understand the true health of the deer herd. I sat down with Maine’s deer biologist Kyle Ravana to ask him about the collaring program and what he (and IFW) hope to learn from it.    Where are the deer that are being collared? And why those WMDs? Right now, we have deer collared in WMD 17 and 6 and want to expand into either WMD 8 or 1.  17 is good because there is usually a good mix of snow pack levels and human population numbers.  6 is almost split into two regions; the west that has the big woods and the east that has farms and urban areas. We really want to get a slice of every possible habitat the deer live in so that we c...

It's that time of year when deer are yarded up and surviving the harsh winter weather.  I've been fortunate enough to see lots of healthy looking deer while walking through the woods.  In talking with friends about the deer herd in their area, they have mentioned that they want to start feeding the deer to help them make it through the winter.  I quickly respond with NO! Don't feed the deer! It is fun to see deer come out of the woods and munch on grain or corn, but what a lot of people don't realize is that feeding deer these foods during the winter months could have dire consequences and could actually kill the deer that they are trying to help.  Here are the primary reason why you should not feed deer during the winter: Biological Impact : Every animal has bacteria in their gut that helps to break down food. In the case of white-tails, the bacteria changes depending on the season and what their primary food source will be.  In the spring, summer and early...

I wrote the following for the Northwoods Sporting Journal. What are your thoughts on eating wild game and teaching kids about where their food really comes from? On the Monday after rifle season began, my three year old’s preschool asked him what he had done over the weekend. Straight faced, he looked at her and said, “Daddy shot a deer and I ate the heart” and walked off to play with his friends. She looked at me in disbelief and all I could do was smile and nod. The excitement of getting a deer was at its peak for him when we drove into the driveway with my husband’s deer. That same three year old rubbed his hands down the back of the deer, held onto its antlers and when we hung it in the barn, he stuck his head almost inside the chest cavity and asked, “Is this all steak?” At three he knows that an animal, in animal form, will end up as pieces of meat on our plates. I don’t think that we are doing anything special to teach him where his food comes from. We are hunters ...

"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...

United, we win. The more involved you get with something, the more frustrated you can become when priorities shift, you see behind that iron curtain and you lose sight of what’s important and made you get involved in the first place. It’s hard to get reenergized and motivated sometimes, especially when there are so many divides. I have been partly amused and partly disheartened to read articles that my fellow outdoor writers have written about how they miss the ‘good ole days’ of hunting when women were home with the kids and not out in the woods.   I hate to break it to you, but women are the only way that the next generation of hunters are going to take to the woods.   WE are teaching our children why it is so important to hunt, know where your meat comes from and respect the entire field-to-table process.   I don’t remember the ‘good ole days’ because I am too young, but I can guarantee you that I will do everything I can to make sure that my children are c...