AUGUSTA (AP) – Cooler weather and showers were on tap for the opening of Maine’s deer-hunting season Monday to out-of-staters in addition to Maine residents who got their first crack at whitetails over the weekend.

Compared to Saturday, when the mercury soared to 74 in Portland, temperatures were expected to be more seasonable this week, with scattered showers, said Butch Roberts of the National Weather Service.

State officials predicted a big harvest for the season that runs through Nov. 29. There is no hunting on Sundays.

Officially, the deer season began at 5:43 a.m. Saturday for Mainers. As the woods filled with hunters clad in bright orange, gunshots could be heard echoing through the woods in many communities.

Despite a decline in hunting licenses issued in Maine and nationally, the deer hunt remains a strong tradition in Maine.

Matt Seamon, 15, was among those out on the first day in Oxford. He peered through his scope and bagged a deer.

“He was standing in some trees 50 yards away,” Seamon said afterward. “I just waited for him to step out.”

Opening day was not without a mishap. Dustin Freeman of Gardiner was grazed in the hip when his 18-year-old brother fired at a deer that jumped from the brush. Freeman was treated and released from a hospital.

While hunting is exhilarating, many hunters like getting out in the woods and enjoying the outdoors as much as bagging a deer.

“Getting a deer is unimportant,” said Everett Flaherty of Norway. “It’s being out in the woods to relax that’s important.”

Gerry Lavigne, a deer biologist for the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said more than 170,000 deer hunters should find that deer are almost as abundant as last year.

Last year, hunters killed 38,153 deer, the highest total since 1968 and the 10th-best season on record. This year, the statewide deer harvest should be in the vicinity of 35,800, Lavigne said.

This year, due to a change in state law, hunters will get a half hour after sunset to hunt deer.

Emphasizing safety, officials remind hunters they must wear two articles of hunter orange clothing. Promoting courtesy, officials urge hunters to obtain landowner permission for hunting.