Maine's first Youth Deer Day means trophy buck for teen

Sunday, November 24, 2002

OUTDOORS: Deirdre Fleming

A month ago, Ashley Wakefield was preparing to help her Dexter High School field hockey team start their run toward their third straight state title. But, on the morning of their Eastern Maine semifinal game, Wakefield was hung up in a tree.

Eager as the freshman was to focus on the school's field hockey frenzy, Ashley was dealing with another type of feverish excitement somewhere back in the woods on her relatives' 240 acres southwest of Dover-Foxcroft.

Sometime after daybreak Ashley was shaking with the anticipation of taking a trophy deer. Her father, Chip, seated beside her, was no more calm.

"I knew it was big. I was looking through the scope and I saw its head. I started shaking. I kept telling my Dad how big it was," Ashley said. "I kept looking at his head. Dad told me to take deep breaths and don't look at his head. Dad touched me on the shoulder and he was shaking. I felt him shake because he held my shoulder."

This year, for the first time in Maine, there was a day during deer season when fathers like Chip Wakefield could only sit and watch their children hunt. Ashley is one of the young hunters, ages 10 to 15, who participated in the state's first Youth Deer Day on Oct. 26. And she's one of at least several dozen who got their deer.

While the state does not have participation figures and no results as yet for the deer taken by the young hunters that day, a snapshot look shows dozens of young hunters had success on Youth Deer Day.

In the hunting district to the east of Augusta (Wildlife Management District 23) - an area of the state with more than 30 deer per square mile - at least 64 young hunters got a deer on their day, according to 24 tagging stations that reported.

By contrast, the same 24 tagging stations reported 436 adults tagged a deer a week later on the opening day of firearm season for Maine residents. In previous years, the young hunters would have had to compete with those very good adult hunters.

Youth Deer Day was started here as a way to encourage Maine's youth to carry on the state's hunting tradition. Sales of junior hunting licenses in Maine have been declining since they dropped to 16,500 in the mid-'80s.

New Hampshire has had a youth hunting day since 1999. There are no participation figures there, but New Hampshire officials say the day has been embraced because it encourages adult hunters to pass on the tradition as much as it encourages young hunters to carry it on.

Ashley Wakefield noticed the difference on the 240 acres where she and her family hunt in eastern Maine.

"People wanted us to do better. It kind of felt like people cared more that we got our deer before others," she said when asked what the day meant.

On opening day most years, she shares that 240-acre area with six adult hunters. This year she was the sole hunter.

No novice to hunting, the 14-year-old has hunted deer since she was 10, and gotten a deer on three of the previous four years. But after shooting a doe and two spiked-horn bucks, this year Ashley had a trophy-sized experience, tagging a 7-point, 170-pound buck shortly after daybreak with her dad, Chip, seated beside her.

After winning a $150 taxidermy gift certificate for being the first of three youths to tag her deer that day at the Mooeshead Trading Post in Palmyra, Ashley is having the rack mounted.

However, after she fired a shot, she and her father went searching for the buck, not knowing if she killed it.

"Dad has a 10-minute rule: Before you look for a deer, you have to wait 10 minutes," Wakefield said. "We sat for five and he said, 'OK, let's go find it.' "

The Wakefields didn't find the wounded and dying buck before it was time for Ashley to head to her 10 a.m. field hockey game in Dexter. So she gave her hunting partner his instructions.

"I told him drop me off at the game, and not to come back until he got my deer," Ashley said.

While Ashley was the only Dexter player to start the day in a tree, she was as proud of her buck as she was of the team's Eastern Maine semifinal victory.

"He drove up to the game with 15 minutes left with it in the back," she said. "When the game was over, they all came up to see my deer."

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at:

dfleming@pressherald.com

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