Story and photos by Daryn Slover

It was a good day for hunting.

For the first time in nearly a month, no rain was falling on a Saturday. The woods would be quiet and free of blaze orange for one more week, when deer hunting season would begin. Joyce Day had been awake since 4 a.m., cooking blueberry pancakes for a hunter’s breakfast. And there were lots of acorns on the ground.

Acorns are the last good food source deer eat before winter, said Russ Day. The grandfather, 64, noticed acorns in the woods on the days leading up to Maine’s fourth Youth Deer Day on Oct. 22, when hunters ages 10 to 15 were allowed to hunt for a buck or doe.

A parent or guardian with a valid Maine hunter’s license or one who had completed a hunter’s safety course was required to accompany each youth.

With the day off from his barbershop in Mechanic Falls, Day took his 14-year-old grandson, Steve Gordon, hunting on Pine Hill in Casco. Rather than aiming for the end zone from the backfield of the Lake Region Junior High School football team, Gordon sat on a stump, trying not to move for an hour at a time with a 12-guage shotgun in hand.

One problem.

Too many leaves were still hanging from the trees. “It’s hard hunting,” said Day. “You can’t see in the woods.” A late foliage season made it tough to look for a passing whitetail. Day did spot a buck and a doe.

Day was raised in Porter and started hunting with his older brother William when he was 7. He learned the lay of the land and started carrying a gun by age 9. He shot his first deer at 10. “I would hunt from sunup to sundown,” said Day.

Day hopes to pass on his knowledge of the woods, but is finding it increasingly difficult.

“Kids have so much to do these days,” said Day. “They don’t hunt for the meat. I was not allowed to come home until I had a deer.”

Day’s family depended on hunting for food. That is why Day thinks Youth Deer Day is so important – to promote the sport to today’s youth, “because the old-timers are dying off.” he said.

Gordon has yet to shoot his first deer. But another teen, Travis Pearl, 15, shot a four-point buck at 8 a.m., a little more than an hour after his hunt started in Auburn. Pearl, a sophomore at Edward Little, has been hunting with his father, Gene, since he was 8. This is Pearl’s third deer but the first one that he has shot on Youth Deer Day.

Deer season for Maine residents started Saturday, and Russ Day was one of the first in the woods. He sat on his 5-gallon bucket, waiting for legal hunting time. And waiting for that same buck he saw while hunting with his grandson one week earlier.