For the past dozen years, Maine’s youth hunters have kicked off deer season by heading into the woods on a special day set aside for them. This year, the state’s lead deer biologist says those youths may benefit from three days of rainy weather before Youth Deer Day is held Saturday.
“Torrential rain can indeed impact deer behavior and cause them to move less,” biologist Kyle Ravana of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said in an email. “It may indeed result in an increased chance of successfully harvesting a deer following the storms as the animals once again become more active.”
Hunters taking part in Youth Deer Day must be between the ages of 10 and 15 years old. All participants must hold a valid junior hunting license and must be under the direct supervision of a parent, guardian or qualified adult. The adult mentor is not permitted to carry a firearm during the hunt.
The rest of the state’s deer hunters who plan on using firearms will need to wait at least another week to begin their season: Residents-only day is set for Nov. 1, and the official opening day for non-residents is Monday, Nov. 3.
Ravana said rain — or the end of a rainy week — isn’t the only factor at play this weekend.
“What really gets deer moving, in terms of weather patterns, is cooler weather,” Ravana wrote. “Generally speaking, deer have been shown to increase movements around 50 degrees, give or take a bit. According to [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] weather, the temperatures should be right within that range [on Saturday].”
And the combination of cool weather and the previous rainfall could pay dividends.
“Coming off of a storm that may cause [deer] to remain bedded more than usual, in addition to hopefully cooler temperatures, I am hoping that the deer will be out and moving around for Maine’s young hunters this coming Saturday.”
Ravana said harvest trends have favored the youth hunters: Last year, the Youth Deer Day harvest of 781 animals was 30 percent higher than the 2012 total. And over the previous five years, annual harvests on Youth Deer Day have been increasing by about 25 percent per year.
Ravana said the state’s Youth Deer Day tradition began in 2002, and he pointed out the state has been managing its deer herd in one form or another for more than 200 years.
“Youth day has become one of our state’s highlight hunts,” Ravana wrote. “It quickly becomes a tradition that provides opportunity for youth hunters to enter the woods with their family or friends and pursue deer without having to compete for time and space with Maine’s more than 170,000 firearms hunters.”
Ravana said the success of Youth Deer Day has helped introduce more new hunters to the activity after years of sliding “recruitment” of new hunters.
“To continue to reverse this trend, we hunters need to continue to introduce our youth to the time-honored tradition of deer hunting,” Ravana said. “[The DIF&W] hopes that a day in which only the state’s young people can hunt will help make that day more special for our young hunters.”
But Ravana said shooting a deer is a small part of Youth Deer Day. Just as important, he said, are the lessons youngsters can learn while spending time afield with responsible adults.
“This program is a success because hunting provides another vehicle, outside of the electronic world, for people to spend time as a family and to pursue and develop bonds and maintain traditions,” Ravana wrote. “It is a time for people to reminisce about past adventures and share those stories with their children.
“What is more important, however, is that it is a time for the younger generation to begin amassing their own stories about their own pursuits that hopefully they will one day pass along to their own children when they take that child on his or her first hunt,” he wrote.
