Another week in deer camp. The fabled deer camps can be found in Maine and other parts of the country where deer hunters gather. A poet, whose name I cannot recall, compared these remote, sometimes tar-papered shacks to “palaces in the popple.”
For the 55th time, a deer hunting crew known as “The Skulkers of Seboeis” made an annual pilgrimage to deer camp a few weeks ago.
These camps are all unique, with their own primitive architecture and history. What they all have in common is deer hunting, outhouses, plenty of food and drink, card games, and a fellowship that grows stronger with each passing deer season.
A few have female members, but despite this age of gender equality, deer camps are still populated solely by bearded bipeds.
The Skulkers of Seboeis deer camp originated one autumn in the late 1960s. Most of the founders of this diverse group of characters have either moved on to the Ultimate Hunting Camp or are too old to travel or walk through the deer woods.
Again this year, I was the sole founder at deer camp, feeling like the last of the Mohicans, but thankfully able to attend and participate in the annual hunt.
Despite our crew’s diligent hunting efforts, the game pole remained deer-free by the end of the week. Oh, we saw deer and lots of signs, scrapes, and rubs, but no shot was taken.
The combination of extremely dry, noisy conditions and a week of unrelenting high winds, with gusts up to 25 mph, made stalking difficult.
Typically, we saw the south ends of deer fleeing into the north wind, or we saw them crossing the logging road in front of our pickup trucks as we drove back to camp at dusk.
It doesn’t matter. A week with wonderful friends and relatives at our deer camp is always the highlight of the year for most of us, whether there are deer or not.
We hunt in Big Woods, which has unrestricted access, no “No Hunting” signs, few hunters, and the possibility of encountering moose, coyotes, and other wild animals.
If you hunt the same wilderness haunt for more than a half-century, you will see the cycles that characterize Maine woodlands, the majority of which are determined by logging practices.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the area we hunted was densely populated with deer. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, loggers arrived and nearly leveled the hardwood ridges with massive clear cuts.
The most appalling were massive cuts of old-growth cedar that ended up in rotting piles in logging yards when the cedar market and prices unexpectedly fell.
With no forage base or wintering area left, the deer population declined dramatically. A quarter of a century later, deer are making a significant comeback in this country.
This is undoubtedly due to milder winters and outright protection, or at least limited, responsible logging practices on large tracts of woodland owned and managed by the Maine Bureau of Public Lands. The public lands parcels are adjacent to larger areas of privately owned woodlands and were purchased about a decade ago.
What does the future hold for deer populations on the land where we hunt?
It is difficult to say. Where we hunt, the cutting cycle is clearly in high gear again. In just one year, our area has seen renewed cuts in the regrowth of what were clear cuts in the early 1970s, as well as a new network of major logging roads where the Skulkers of Seboeis once stood.
The beat goes on.
An afterthought: According to a national survey of American deer-hunting camps, the average lifespan is 20 years, or one generation. The Skulkers of Seboeis, celebrating 55 years of existence, are welcoming third-generation members.
May this group continue to overcome adversity and preserve the Maine deer-hunting legacy for future generations.