Nov. 3, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
6 95 
The Maine Game Season. 
Bangor, Me., Oct. 27. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The big game season in Maine, up to 
the present writing, may be regarded as a good 
deal of a puzzle, while to a great many indi¬ 
viduals it appeals as a perfect failure. More un¬ 
successful hunters are g'oing through this city 
on their way home, proportionately, than have 
done so in any recent season, and the reasons 
therefor are not readily established. 
While the travel to the hunting grounds of 
northern and eastern Maine, which are largely 
and almost exclusively reached by way of the 
railroads running out of Bangor, is decidedly 
split up by the many using the early morning ex¬ 
press, which affords through Pullman service to 
the very edge of the forests, and by the after¬ 
noon express over the Bangor & Aroostook, by 
which passengers transfer to that road at Northern 
Maine Junction, four miles west of this city, so 
that one cannot determine how heavy the sports¬ 
man travel to the woods is from any one point. 
Yet from the evidences at those trains which are 
available, it would appear that, there are not as 
many hunters as in past seasons, going into the 
woods for the early hunting. This falling off 
is very likely due in large measure to the intensely 
active character of the political campaigns being 
waged this month in both New York and Mass¬ 
achusetts. If the appearances may be relied upon, 
this falling off in sportsmen who will very likely 
be here later, would account in considerable 
measure for the fact that there is a tremendous 
falling off in the big game shipments for the 
season to date, as compared with last year, when 
the close of the 26th day of open season saw the 
record reach a total of 1,230 deer, 65 moose and 
17 bears. 
Of course, the matter of bears in the fall is 
most uncertain, the number being brought in de¬ 
pending in large measure upon luck, and the 
principal shipment of bruin’s family comes in the 
month of October, as after that date they are 
usually well hidden away in their winter dens. 
But with a decrease in the shipments of deer to 
722 for less than a month of open time, a direct 
drop of 50S pieces of venison, it is evident that 
unusual conditions must prevail to cause a decided 
change. Inasmuch as prominent sportsmen upon 
whose word it was possible to rely fully, told 
your correspondent last year of the great plenti¬ 
fulness of deer throughout the woods, and as 
there has been no extraordinary mortality among 
the deer during the past winter, it can scarcely 
be a possibility that the game has been either 
killed off or driven out of the state, as certain 
of the guides and hunters claim is the case. The 
tremendous increase in deer has caused a dearth 
of desirable feed for the winter months in many 
sections which were popular deer lands, but the 
deaths by starvation—as reported by a number of 
guides and timber cruisers—have not been so gen¬ 
eral nor so extensive as to make serious inroads 
upon their numbers. 
The writer has talked personally with a great 
many returning hunters, and while some offer one 
theory and some another, they are agreed with 
remarkable unanimity that the deer are not only 
hard to find this fall, but when found are aston¬ 
ishingly shy, and see them so much sooner than 
they discover the deer, that a disappearing^flag is 
about all that is offered in the way of a target. 
Of course, October has been an exceptionally 
mild month for Maine, and much game has 
spoiled before the owners thereof could get it 
home, or to a place where it could be kept with¬ 
out spoiling. Muggy wet days have soured some, 
while hot days and confinement in express cars 
have rendered other "nfit for anything but the 
phosphate factory, and at least two whole moose 
have been delivered in Bangor, unfit for any use 
other than that mentioned. And there has been 
grave questioning if the express messengers 
could stand the presence of some game in their 
cars till its destination was reached, so- far gone 
did it appear at the time of transfer in this city. 
All of these things have had their influence on 
the season, and now the hopes of the hunters 
are based on an early snowfall, after which the 
bucks will come out, the tracking will be silent 
and easy, and the day after “the first snowfall’’ 
hundreds of the best deer of the Maine woods 
will fall before the rifles of the hunters. 
One hunter, a native of Maine, and a very keen 
observer of conditions, who was hunting at least 
twice this seasoh, and who found game very 
scarce on his first visit, told your correspondent 
that there were not anything like the deer that 
punched up the ground about his camp a year 
ago. Asked it the deer had left, he said no, that 
the swamps had kept full of water all summer, 
and that while in parts of Maine it was dry in 
the woods, the deer had been able to find water 
enough so that they had no call, when open sea¬ 
son came, to seek the water as they did a year 
ago when, after a prolonged and most exhaustive 
drouth, they were to be found throughout October 
along the streams at morning and night, if not 
oftener, quite as if it were midsummer. Con¬ 
ditions thus being almost reversed, enabled the 
timid deer to seek the absolute seclusion in the 
haunts and recesses of the forest, known not 
even to the most experienced guides, and where 
if a deer were killed, it would be next to im¬ 
possible to get it out after shooting. This is a 
far more reasonable explanation than that offered 
by certain guides, who contend that deer have 
become as numerous in New Brunswick and other 
Canadian provinces, as they were in Maine a 
year ago, and that they have been crossing the 
international boundary in droves. In its search 
for food, the deer is seldom driven to take such 
great distances in migration as the caribou, which 
in a single season disappeared as completely from 
the face of the state of Maine as though the 
great slides of Katahdin had opened and swal¬ 
lowed them utterly. Nor have they, as yet, come 
back in the numbers that Maine once knew them, 
although history will doubtless repeat itself, and 
some day will see them, suddenly and without ap¬ 
parent cause, cross back again and come under 
the protection of the laws of this commonwealth. 
The best and the biegest deer are almost in¬ 
variably brought out after the first of November, 
and perhaps a little later, say the middle, and 
this year will be no exception to the rule. Those 
hunters whose political fences are demanding 
their undivided attention, will have a grand 
chance, after the election, to slip aw'ay to a cabin 
in the Maine woods, and between rests from all 
night rides and many speeches a day, take an 
occasional shot at a big buck within easy walking 
distance from camp. Then the big fellows, 200, 
250 and 300-pounders will fill the express cars. of 
the Maine railroads, and the messengers. will sigh 
for the days when the “baggage man” had to 
handle all the dead game. 
One feature of the fall season must not be 
overlooked, although all wish it might not be a 
feature, the shooting of others by over-zealous 
or poor-sighted hunters. While it i ( S poor com¬ 
fort for the bereaved members of‘the stricken 
households that have been emptied of husband, 
brother or son, yet it is worth noting that not 
for a long time has any serious hunting accident 
occurred in Maine by which a non-resident hun¬ 
ter has lost his life. About all the accidents of 
mistaken-for-a-deer in the last several seasons 
have been among residents, and the solution of 
the problem is yet to be worked out. So long 
as people- who are easily excited will go into 
the woods with firearms, so long as people who 
go into the woods with firearms will persist in 
thinking they can’t enjoy a hunting trip without 
a supply of liquor, so long will these shootings 
continue to color drab the joyous days of the 
hunting season. An unusual number of fatalities 
have taken place, and they are divided about as 
usual among those who thought they saw a deer, 
a bear or some other wild animal, and those who 
knew no better than to handle a loaded weapon 
as if it were an inoffensive stick. For two' weeks, 
scarcely a local paper was published that did not 
add to the gruesome record, and nearly all the 
penalty of carelessness. In almost every case in 
the last three years such accidents have occurred 
between members of the same party, and very 
rarely has the report, when investigated, shown 
that a number of one party came upon a member 
of a party unknown to him. With the develop¬ 
ment of the hunters’ license plan, it would almost 
seem as if the irresponsible hunters had some¬ 
how been very largely weeded out, or else the 
awful fatalities of earlier years have at last 
awakened among the visitors a better regard for 
the target which is expected to receive their 
bullet. Herbert W. Rowe. 
New York Deer Season. 
Hudson, N. Y., Oct. 29 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have been much interested in the 
communications which have appeared in your 
paper in relation to the open season for deer in 
this state. There is no question but that a very 
much larger number of people would prefer an 
open season beginning on Sept. 1, to one dating 
from Oct. 1. It would be vastly better for the 
vacation seeking public and for the hotel keepers 
and guides. 
But, to have the season open on Sept. 1, would 
mean that 95 per cent, of the deer killed in that 
month would be shot by jack light, and this of 
course means that a large number would be 
wounded and go off into- the woods and die. 
Anyone at all familiar with the southeastern 
Adirondack region knows this to have been the 
practice under the old law, as in many places no 
attempt was made to cover up the fact that illegal 
hunting was going on. 
At Blue Mountain lake, it was the usual thing 
for hunters to start out with a guide and “jack” 
after dinner in the evening, and return late in 
the night, with or without game. Such deer as 
were brought in, invariably bore the marks of 
buckshot, never those of the rifle. Exactly the 
same thing was going on at Indian lake, Piseco 
lake and Lake Pleasant. At none of those places, 
was there any attempt at concealment. 
I am told that the same practice prevailed 
throughout pretty much all of the Adirondack 
preserve; but I am familiar with the above sec¬ 
tions and know what I am talking about. I have 
never heard of any attempt being made to pre¬ 
vent jacking in the places named, and so com¬ 
mon was the practice that I have no doubt that 
many tenderfeet did not know that jacking was 
illegal. 
If any doubt the truth of these assertions, they 
have only to ask any friend or acquaintance who 
visited any of the places above named in the 
years 1903-4-5. 
If the law could be arranged so as to allow 
the hunter to kill but one deer a year, and the 
possession of a jack light be made presumptive 
evidence of a violation of the law, and the chief 
game protector could find wardens who would en¬ 
force the law, it would be well to have the sea¬ 
son begin on Sept. 1. Columbia. 
North Creek, N. Y., Oct. 27.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: While all the indications would 
show that deer are very plentiful in the Adiron- 
dacks this fall, very few comparatively have been 
killed so far. There are in my opinion two rea¬ 
sons for this. One is that there have been few 
rains till recently and as a result in the dry sea- 
