November 1995 Opening Day. Picked up a friend at his house in Allagash about 4:30 AM . Drove to the North Maine Woods gate and waited for them to open at 5. As we checked in, it began to snow and I remember that we looked at each other and grinned. We kept thinking about unpressured deer, opening day, biggest body weight, and snow. It doesn’t get any better. We drove the 11 miles in hard snow to the turnoff. Then it was a 5-6 mile 4 wheel drive trip from hell followed by a mile walk down an old trail. Man was this place loaded with deer. By now there was maybe 2-3 inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down.

One of my favorite spots in there was called the hemlock. For some reason, the deer always crossed the ridge at this one hemlock tree on top of a beech ridge. It was a great spot and had produced a lot of deer over the years. I stillhunted into my stand and sat down. By this time the snow had ended and the wind was beginning to pick up. About 9 AM I caught some movement and saw that a deer was working its way towards the tree. Uncanny. As he got closer, I saw that it was a decent buck and had a pretty nice set of antlers. As I looked him over, I decided to pass as I didn’t believe it would dress at 200 plus pounds. Oh boy, passing a full racked buck on opening day. This was going to be good.

November 1995 Last Day. I’m sitting at the hemlock, mentally kicking myself for not shooting that buck on opening day. We had hunted hard and pounded a bunch of spots. Saw some does and one more spike or fork horned buck but nothing overly impressive. Everyone had tagged out but my father and myself. This is not good. There was maybe 8-10 inches of snow on the ground and a light flurry was falling with absolutely no wind. We hadn’t hunted this spot in a week and figured this was our best bet. Dad said that he wanted to hunt until noon and call it a season. About 9:30, I heard Dad shoot off in the distance.

Wasn’t sure what to do, so like a good son, I stayed put. Figured I never find him anyway so I might as well hunt. At 11:30 I was getting fidgety and trying to figure out a good story as to why I passed a nice buck when I caught some movement and saw a deer working his way towards the hemlock. As he got closer, I saw that it was a decent buck that had a pretty nice set of antler. I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and squeezed. He dropped right there and my season was over. A 179 pound 9 pointer that was I believe the same deer I passed on opening day. (Sort of wonder what he would have weighted earlier). As I dragged him to the truck I met up with dad who had killed a 150 pound 6 pointer. All in all a good end to a rather frustrating season