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Mild Weather Limits Harvest as Deer-Hunt Season Starts

November 02, 2009 - MANCHESTER -- The deer got lucky.

Mild temperatures for the opening day of firearm season for deer hunting held down the number of deer taken by Maine residents, because deer are less active the warmer the weather.

Tagging stations reported seeing only a few deer arriving to be weighed and tagged Saturday morning.

But the mild weather also meant the meat cutters were busier. Chris Firlotte, at Ballard Meats & Seafood in Manchester, said that's because the hunters who did get deer were bringing in their take Saturday rather than hanging them overnight.

The Ballard crew had begun processing 11 deer by about noon. The animals were weighed on a hanging scale outside a garage, and cutter Bret Sullivan wrote down the deer weight and all the particulars from the hunters – how they wanted their meat cut, whether it be steaks, chops, hamburger, flavored sausage or other.

The real processing began inside the garage after the deer were placed on a wooden rack that resembled a heavy sawhorse.

Steam rose from the field-dressed animals as Sullivan and Brandon Fike expertly pared off the hide.

Then the carcass was hung on a rack, washed, drained, left to dry and then rolled via overhead rail into the walk-in cooler. The cutting and freezing would be done the next day.

Adam Hachey of Winthrop was at Ballard's, celebrating his first successful hunt. The 12-year-old grinned widely as the scale registered his deer at 86 pounds. That made it 16 pounds heavier than the one shot by his grandfather Wayne Hachey, also of Winthrop.

The Hacheys, including Adam's dad Steve Hachey, were hunting from a ground blind in Wayne, and Adam was the first to spy a deer.

"He didn't see it till right when I shot it," Adam said. "Mine went down right away; it barely took a step."

Fifteen minutes later, Wayne Hachey got his deer. They had them tagged at Audette's Hardware and Sporting Goods in Winthrop.

"I probably don't have to go out any more," Steve Hachey said, as the family members detailed the cuts of meat they wanted.

Charles Bervier of Mount Vernon rolled up with his deer sheltered under a pickup truck cap.

He wanted to keep the points on the buck, and told Sullivan he wanted to donate a quarter of it to Hunters for the Hungry, a program run by the state.

Joe Fessenden of Bath brought in an eight-point buck he shot in Hallowell. He had been hunting with his son and they had to get an ATV to haul the deer uphill and out of the woods.

He said he and his son, also named Joe Fessenden, would savor the breakfast sausage this winter on Moosehead Lake. "We're serious ice fishermen," he said.

Sullivan's son, Todd Sullivan of Manchester, held the record for the heaviest deer Saturday morning, with a 151-pound field-dressed doe. He shot it in West Gardiner.

Cubes of ice remained in Ballard's driveway, evidence that hunters had kept the deer cool while driving to the cutters. "If you don't pack it with ice, it could fail," Firlotte said.

The cutters skinned the deer, deboned it and cut it to order. Racks of antlers were set aside for pickup.

The charge is 65 cents a pound, hanging weight; a 120-pound deer would cost $83 cut, wrapped and frozen, including a $5 disposal fee for the bones and hide.

By BETTY ADAMS, Kennebec Journal November 1, 2009


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