The 2007 deer season for hunters using firearms ends this weekend in Maine and Vermont, but New Hampshire hunters get at least another week to pursue white tails. The hunt drew to an end following a 2006 season in which all three states saw increased harvests and New Hampshire’s was near a record level.

Maine’s season, which began Oct. 29 amid predictions that 30,000 deer would be harvested, was over at dusk Saturday. There were no immediate tallies Saturday for the 2007 season, but a spokesman for the state Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department said Saturday that all signs pointed to a large harvest.

After the season started with heavy rain, the weather dried out, meaning the deer were moving. Later, there was snow in northern Maine, which is good for tracking, Mark Latti of Maine’s game department said.

“The last two weeks have been very good for hunters,” Latti said. In Maine, which issues more than 200,000 deer hunting licenses, the 2006 season ended with more kills than biologists had predicted and above the 20-year average.

Vermont’s deer season ends Sunday, a year after a dramatic 48 percent increase in the harvest was recorded. The 2006 increase followed a sweeping series of changes in the state’s deer hunting regulations.

Vermont’s season also ends just days after the state saw its first hunting fatality of the year. There were no fatalities in Maine or New Hampshire.

David Jenkins, 43, of Milton, Vt., died late Friday afternoon after being shot while hunting with two friends in woods about four miles north of the Milton town center, police Detective Paul Locke said.

In New Hampshire, the firearms season runs from Nov. 14 to Dec. 9, except for the northern tip of the state were it ends Dec. 2. The archery season runs Sept. 15 to Dec. 15, except in the far northern tip of the state, where it ends Dec. 8.

Through Oct. 21, the deer harvest from archers was the highest in at least nine years, with most counties showing significant increases, according to Kent Gustafson, Deer Project Leader for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Archers had taken 2,406 up to that point.

“Deer hunting this fall is definitely providing some excellent opportunities,” said Gustafson.

In Maine, hunting continues for muzzleloaders through Dec. 1 statewide and archers through Dec. 8 in designated areas.

Northern New England saw a significant decline in overall harvest numbers between 2002 and 2003, but it rebounded in the past three seasons, according to the New England Game and Fish Web site.

New England Game and Fish said that relatively mild wintering conditions throughout most of the region combined with expanded hunting opportunities in some areas created a potential for a banner year for New England’s deer hunters in 2007.

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