I had a pretty good 2001 deer season. With deer numbers way down from a severe winter kill, hunters around here didn't see many deer. My uncle hunted both Vermont and Maine and never saw as much as a flag all season. There were others like that in our camp. I started off bow season seeing a few deer, but nothing special. I did end up shooting this 115 lb doe on the last day of the season.
I started my rifle season at the end of October into the first week of November in the Allagash, ME. Weather was terrible, in the 60's and no snow, I only saw one doe. I returned home just in time for the opening weekend of the Vermont rifle season. The first day I saw nothing, but heard a lot of shots around me. The second day seemed totally different. I was the only one on the mountain and first thing that morning I had this 6 pt 119 lb buck walk by me at 40 yards.
I headed up to our Maine camp the Thursday before Thanksgiving week to stay through to the end of the rifle season. I hunted hard every day, but came up short. It was cold most days, but no snow which made it almost impossible to track and impossible to sneak up on deer in the crunchy leaves. Like I said earlier, some of the guys in camp never even saw a deer all season. That week I saw atleast a deer every day. I did catch a glimps of a real good buck, but couldn't get any kind of shot at him. Even though it was a tough year for hunting in Maine we did have a special event happen in our camp this year. The oldest guy in our camp who doesn't get out in the woods very much any more shot his first deer in 13 years. If you want to hear this amazing story click here.
The deer on the left is Dens buck which is a 6 pt 187 lbs and the deer on the right is Larrys buck which is a 8 pt 220 lbs.