WEST PARIS — Less than an hour after entering the Paris woods on Saturday morning, hunter Ernie Fitts of South Paris bagged the largest buck of his life as it unwittingly approached him.

Judging by its large neck, Fitts said the 8-point, 196-pound deer was in full rut, despite the fact that mating season for deer doesn’t peak until the second or third week of November.

“This was only the second time that I’ve ever seen a deer with its neck swelled up like that,” Fitts said on the opening day of the deer firearms season. Saturday was for Maine residents only; the season opens for all hunters on Monday.

“This is awful early for the rut, but it can start anytime,” said J and K Sporting Goods owner Kevin Billings, who helped Fitts weigh the buck at his tagging station. “Around here, it’s usually the second week in November when the rut really peaks and the bucks get stupid, and will walk right in front of a freight train, if a doe walked by there hours earlier.”

Fitts, who figured his buck would weigh 180 pounds, reacted with surprise when the scale needle reached nearly 200 pounds for the gutted deer.

“This is maybe the second or third time that I’ve got a buck on opening day,” Fitts said. “I’ve gotten five bucks in the last seven years and I usually hunt in Oxford County.”

Fitts said he entered the woods at 7 a.m.

“I was just walking along and the wind was blowing and I heard something that sounded a little unusual, and then I heard a couple of clicks in the woods and I stood still,” Fitts said.

“Then, that deer stepped out, and I was a hundred feet away at most, and he looked right at me and never even knew I was there,” he said.

Fitts said Friday night’s rain soaked the leaves, which prevented them from crunching noisily underfoot, giving hunters an edge.

“There was no sun, it was cloudy, and wet leaves — you couldn’t ask for anything better,” Fitts said. “After I got it, I called my boy who was hunting in Greenwood and said, ‘I just shot a huge buck!’ and he said, ‘You’re kidding me!'”

About an hour before Fitts arrived, first-time deer hunter Lynn Larson of South Paris was equally pleased with her success. She bagged what’s called a button-horn buck, which is a young deer with nubs for antlers.

“Everyone in my family does this, so I thought I’d try it,” Larson said.

She said she’d taken a hunter safety course a few years ago with her two sons, then tagged along with one son on a hunt last fall and enjoyed the experience.

Larson and Fitts were the sixth and seventh successful hunters of the day to register their deer at Billings’ station.

“I figured we’d tag 20 deer today, but here it is 1 o’clock and we’ve only had six,” Billings said prior to the arrival of Fitts.

Earlier, at Doug Webster’s Bear River Trading Post and game tagging station 20 miles away in Newry, only two hunters had stopped by to register deer by noon.

Clerk Bud Kulick said that of the two bucks, which were taken in Mason Township and Grafton Notch, one was a small spike-horn and the other, a 4-pointer.

Unsuccessful hunters stopping by said it was too warm for deer, meaning they wouldn’t be up and moving around.

By fall, deer have shed their summer coats for winter coats, so unseasonable warmth makes them uncomfortable, and they usually hunker down.

That’s why some hunters said they would head out again later in the afternoon, expecting temperatures to drop due to an incoming cold front.

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Ernie Fitts of South Paris displays his 8-point, 196-pound buck early Saturday afternoon in West Paris. Fitts posed with his kill so J and K Sporting Goods owner Kevin Billings could photograph it for an in-store electronic picture frame that continuously shows photographs of hunters with their deer.

J and K Sporting Goods owner Kevin Billings, left, of West Paris, and hunter Ernie Fitts of South Paris react with surprise early Saturday afternoon to see 196 pounds on the scale as they weigh the 8-point buck Fitts shot in Paris on the opening day of the firearms deer season.

First-time deer hunter Lynn Larson of South Paris shows off the button-horn buck that she got Saturday morning in the Paris area on opening day of the firearms deer season. She registered the deer at J and K Sporting Goods on Route 26 in West Paris.

Kevin Billings, left, owner of J and K Sporting Goods and game tagging station, pulls a chain to lift and weigh the 8-point buck that hunter Ernie Fitts of South Paris got on Saturday’s start of the firearms deer season for Maine residents. The nice buck weighed 196 pounds. Fitts is talking to Billings about the deer’s swollen neck, which indicates it was in rut.