As much-needed rain finally fell on much of the state Wednesday, and more was predicted for Thursday, an obvious question likely began to dawn on Maine’s deer hunters: What will this mean to us come Saturday, the residents-only opening day of firearms season?
Also of interest? What are the deer doing now? Will they hunker down and refuse to move while some areas receive two to four inches of rain?
Nathan Bieber, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s new deer biologist, said deer are pretty resilient creatures, and a good dose of rain won’t affect them much.
“Unless it’s a torrential downpour, it’s not really going to impact deer activity,” Bieber said. “So I expect deer will be acting as they normally would.”
Bieber said that even during a rainstorm, deer will be going about their normal activities, which include looking for a mate, food or water.
But the substantial rainfall will change conditions on the ground, and hunters ought to take advantage of that new reality.
“What it means for hunters is that the ground is going to be really quiet, for one thing, so they’re going to rely on their eyes maybe more than they historically have, when they might have been listening for the snap of a twig or the rustle of leaves to find their deer,” Bieber said.
But those soft, silent conditions can tip the scales in favor of skilled hunters, he said.
“If you’re comfortable hunting on the ground, especially with the wind we’re going to have — we’re going to have noise cover as well — you might want to take advantage of that … to do some stalking and some tracking,” Bieber said.
Another benefit: After weeks of dry weather around the state, a bit of mud will be a welcome addition to alert hunters.
“You should also have some great mud to find fresh tracks,” Bieber said. “And since it’s been so dry lately, you can be pretty confident that those tracks [you find] are fresh.”
While the rain won’t really affect much, the warm temperatures might, Bieber said.
“I think most hunters don’t think of 60 degrees and think, ‘It’s a hot day,’ but for deer, 60 degrees with that coat is a very warm day,” he said. “So I think their activity may be a little more focused toward twilight hours. I would focus on playing more to the warmth of the day than the wind or the rain that we’ve had.”
Bieber, who grew up in Wisconsin and got into the biology field in part because of his love of deer hunting, said he has long viewed the opening of deer season as a special event.
“It just became a holiday to put on my calendar, even before I was old enough to hunt,” he said. “Just to hear [my father’s] phone calls home, to hear if they were seeing deer, to hear if they’d shot any deer [was special]. And when I was 12 I actually got to go hunting and it was a blast.”
Bieber said there are a lot of similarities between places like Wisconsin and Maine, where deer hunting plays such an important traditional role.
“I think anywhere where people are passionate about deer hunting, there are people who treat this time of year with a lot of ritual and a lot of preparation, a lot of sleepless nights,” Bieber said. “I think that’s the same in Maine as it is in Wisconsin.”
