The Maine Hunter By Steve Beckwith
Lessons in the Woods of the Maine Hunter
The lessons in the woods in my life prepared me for the future Maine Hunter I have become. I remember back when I was in my early twenties and hunting deer in southern Maine was quite a challenge. Deer were not as plentiful and working Monday through Friday with only weekends and holidays to hunt was the case for many hunters! With about 5-7 days off per deer season, I used to be a weekend warrior just like most folks forced to work the 9-5 job. This added to the challenge of being successful at putting venison in the freezer. Prescouting was the key for opening day success. It always gave me better odds at harvesting my deer during the opening days of the season. Years that I could not scout pre-season, I hoped and prayed for snow, often times I was not successful until I had tracking snow on the ground. But, because I was a weekend warrior if I had a tag that allowed “any deer”, that’s just what I shot each year; any deer! Of course I would shoot the biggest buck when I raised my rifle, but if a fat doe was all there was in the bunch down she went, I never found a good recipe for antlers and I love to cook and eat big game In Maine the rifle season typically ends Thanksgiving weekend and on this year the first snow came for Thanksgiving day and I had Thursday – Saturday off from work! I knew I had to get on a track until either a deer was on the ground or I died trying! The Saturday before my gun had fallen off the truck seat next to me onto the floor banging down through the stick shifts, I saw no physical damage to the gun and shrugged it off.
My rifle this year was a .308 Winchester model 100 it was sporting a Bushnell 1.5 x 4.5 variable scope, I simply picked it up off the floor and put it back on the seat
The Maine Hunter with one more for the freezer!
next to me and headed for home that day. I hunted hard all Thursday and Friday on the track of many a good buck, each giving me the slip. But after two days of tracking deer across swamps, thickets and mountains, it was all being recorded into the back of my mind and ready for the last days hunt. It was the last day and I had a good idea where to find the group of deer that the big buck had been chasing during the previous nights. I was setting out now to take any deer, it was the last day! Of course I got on a fresh buck track first thing in the morning and he danced me around the piece of woods all day long, weaving me in and out of the tracks of the two prior days in this area. This made staying on this particular big buck quite difficult. At noon I went back to the truck and had lunch on the tailgate, the sun
was out hot and the melting snow was falling off the trees and down my neck, but the noise from falling snow was now working to my advantage. My walking was now masked and the snow was softening making my walking undetectable to even the ears of the oldest buck in the woods. I knew that this afternoon was creating the perfect conditions for walking up on an unsuspecting deer. After lunch I headed back into the area where I knew the deer would head. It wasn’t long before the new fallen snow from the trees was showing me fresh tracks leading me to a known oak ridge feeding area. The deer were using the wind to navigate the wispy sapling edges and I knew that there was about a two-acre hemlock bog the deer will hang out in before entering the open hardwood ridge in the late afternoon. The wind was blowing perfect and I needed to beat them there. So I circled the oak stand on the opposite side using the hemlocks and swamp edges to move to the hemlock stand. Just as I had expected there was no sign of recent deer activity at all in the hemlocks. This was my cue and I knew I would be seeing deer before dark. I hadn’t been standing in the hemlocks long, when I saw the antlers of a real nice 10 point buck cresting a small knoll at about 60 yards away, the rifle snapped to my shoulder. This buck came to the top of the knoll and turned broadside presenting me the perfect shot at 3:30 PM on the last day of the season! I fired and the deer just stood there, I assumed he was hit and going to fall over but something triggered me to fire another round into him, when I did, I then noticed my .308 bullet clipping off hemlock branches two feet over the back of the deer and the big buck took off. As I was standing there in total disbelief that I had missed a huge buck broadside, twice, and with only about thirty minutes of hunting left for the season, I was to say the least discouraged! I had just popped out my clip to reload, when I heard a shot in the direction the buck had taken off toward, my
heart sank once again. But I again was on alert from a close by gunshot. Just about that time, on the same knoll the buck was on, a large doe appeared, but she was coming down over the knoll straight at me in a trot, I raised my gun aimed at her brisket and fired, she went down in a heap. She was kicking around more then usual so I quickly made my way over to her to see that she had been hit two feet high, dead center down her back with the bullet lodged below her tail bone. The bullet had traveled down her spine taking out about 10 inches of her backbone. This deer was very much alive and I quickly dispatched her with a final shot at point blank range. Still in disbelief that I had missed and shot so high I headed for the range the next day to find my guns scope was knocked off two feet high at 100 yards. The fall off my truck seat evidently caused my scope to get out of whack. It was dead on, left and right, but shooting two feet high! This explained the miss of the big buck that got away from me and fell to the sights of another hunter. I met the lucky hunter at the tagging station and we joked how we shot and pushed deer to each other that day, the buck weighed 190 lbs with a very nice 10 point rack and the doe I shot weighed 138 lbs, these two deer made for a great end to both these Maine hunter’s seasons and although I was disappointed the buck was not wearing my tag, I was thankful I was The Maine Hunter; one that appreciates meat in the freezer that feeds my family! Steve Beckwith is a Registered Maine Guide, ThermaCELL Pro Staff, and owns these owns these websites: • MaineGuideCourse.com • MaineHunters.com • CoyoteCrosshairs.com • MoosePermit.com • MaineGuidedHunts.com He is a life member, editor and webmaster of the North Berwick Rod and Gun Club. A videographer, website designer and internet entrepreneur with his online portfolio located at MultitaskWebsites.com, Steve can be reached through any of his websites.
Advertising Like Deer Hunting
Page 38
July 2012
With over 30,000 readers and growing the Outdoor Gazette is the best shot for your advertising BUCK! For more Information, give us a call us at 603-989-3093
The Outdoor Gazette