If, while reading this, you’re dressed in camouflage cargo pants and a blaze orange vest, and think it’s about time to put down the paper and search for that spare box of shells and orange fur-lined hat from the Cabela’s catalog, then you just might be a deer hunter.

Today marks the end of Maine’s season for hunting deer with firearms. (The season for muzzle-loading black powder rifles starts tomorrow, and runs through Dec. 9). More than 200,000 licensed hunters trek into the wilderness each season, and in 2005 more than 28,000 deer were harvested. Warm and wet weather this year, however, has reportedly made the hunt less successful.

It’s been a safe season as well, and if you’re heading out today, please keep it that way.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Maine averaged more than 10 hunting-related deaths per year. Since 1996, there have been a total of six. Compared to the dozens that have died enjoying other outdoor recreations – like all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and boats – hunting’s safety record is remarkable.

The hunt is tradition, as well. It’s why New York Times writer Nathaniel Vinton spent the day recently in Woodman’s Sporting Goods on Main Street in Norway. “There are few better vantage points from which to view Maine’s age-old deer hunting culture than the rocking chair in Woodman,” he wrote, in an article published Nov. 19.

His sentiments echoed the Sun Journal’s from Sept. 17, 1948, a clipping of which Vinton said hangs in Woodman’s back room. Our writer said then, “If you’re in Norway sometime and want to know where to go for the best hunting or fishing, drop into Woodman’s. All you have to do is ask.”

Places like Woodman’s, and the annual hunting season, tie Maine’s future to its past. It’s part of our heritage, shared by natives and flatlanders alike, and a bonding experience enjoyed by generations of parents and children.

So if you’re going out today, hunt with your eyes open and your mind sharp. Don’t take any unnecessary risks, take every precaution, and – most of all – watch where you’re shooting. Police in Wilton are still looking for the hunter who sent an errant round into a private home.

And if the day ends, don’t fret if you haven’t bagged that trophy buck. For conscientious deer hunters in Maine, there will always be a next year.