Celebrating a different kind of opening day, from afar

Nov. 1—Since I began deer hunting about 20 years ago, the residents-only opening day of the season has become a special day that I try not to miss out on.

Forgive me for being among those apparently few Mainers who think we're being selfish by denying out-of-staters the right to join us on opening day; I once asked readers for their opinions on the matter and was quite surprised to learn that a vast majority of my fellow resident hunters are downright possessive of that one-day privilege.

All of that aside, one thing remains clear: Come opening day — Oct. 30, this year — it quickly becomes obvious that hunting season is upon us.

This year, unfortunately, I was on the sidelines again. I was unable to meet up with my hunting buddies because I had another commitment, helping time the state high school cross country championships.

Nevertheless, on Saturday, I got up bright and early, as I typically do on this special day. The reason: My dogs were quite eager to take care of their business, whether I was heading into the woods or not.

And it didn't take long for me to realize what I was missing: Spaced about 15 minutes apart, I heard two gunshots coming from different distant directions, signaling that just after legal shooting time had arrived, at least a couple of hunters had experienced some opening-day action.

Good for them.

Alas, my day was destined to be filled with runners slogging through the mud, over the finish line and into a corral filled with other mud-caked competitors. If that doesn't sound like fun, then you've never watched the state's best distance runners put months of training to the test on this end-of-the-year proving ground.

But just because I spent my day on a course in Belfast, that doesn't mean I wasn't having a bit of outdoor excitement of my own.

Heck, on the drive down, down near Prospect, I nearly picked off a low-flying wild turkey, which took wing as it saw me approaching. I slowed down to let the bird fly past; if I'd been more foolhardy, I might have been able to roll down my window and muckle onto one of its legs as it flew by. It was that close.

And once at the meet, I got to commiserate with a few other would-be hunters who'd also sat out the opener in exchange for a day at the races.

My hunting blood really got boiling midway through one of those races, as a handheld radio crackled to life nearby our finish line station. It was the person who operates the "sweep" vehicle, which rides behind each race's final runner so that the finish line crew knows when everyone's been accounted for.

"Just jumped a deer," the man on the radio said. "It looked like a small doe."

The man did not say if the runners saw the deer, or what their reaction might have been.

Of course, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I wasn't really that isolated from my hunting buddies, or the hunt itself. Although they were hunting together some 50 miles away, I received plenty of messages on our group text channel. Some, I read between races — like the ones about people taking target practice with handguns at a nearby gravel pit, breaking what should have been the perfect silence on opening day in the woods, and the ones that let me know the guys were all gathering up to grab some lunch.

Others, unfortunately, had to wait until I arrived back at home.

And that's when I learned exactly what I'd missed.

No, none of my buddies shot a deer. Nobody filled a tag, and I didn't have a late-afternoon drag to join in on. But yes, there had been a fair bit of excitement, nonetheless.

Somebody might have seen a bear. Or two.

Another somebody might have seen one of those bears, a few minutes later, a quarter of a mile away. Or a totally different bear.

But that's all fodder for another day. It's not really my story to tell, you see.

I wasn't even there.