When George Smith took his deer this year, it was the old-fashioned way.
Smith, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, shot a deer on Thanksgiving on his wood lot in Mount Vernon. He had staked out a piece of land that was littered with a bumper crop of acorns. The nuts are a natural draw to whitetail, and Smith knew that with patience he’d probably tag some venison for a Christmas roast.
Smith’s approach – fair chase in the traditional Maine manner – is still practiced by most of the state’s hunters.
But more people are crossing the legal line, becoming poachers, knowingly or not.
Game wardens say the increase they’re seeing in illegal deer baiting is reaching unprecedented levels in some areas, including Lewiston-Auburn and Bangor.
It’s tough to catch people using deer bait, Game Warden Rick Stone said. “But we’re seeing it a lot.”
Particularly so in Lewiston and Auburn, he said, where local bylaws restrict rifle hunting and where Stone spends much of the hunting season looking for poachers.
The extended archery season in the Twin Cities has prompted some people to do two things that can land them in trouble, he said.
One is a growing use of permanent and portable deer stands. The other is the use of illegal bait intended to draw deer into bow range. A Lisbon man was fined more than $500 for doing both last year, Stone said.
“Deer stands have to be clearly labeled with the owner’s name and address,” Stone said.
And ladders and platforms can only be placed on the stand owner’s land. To put one on someone else’s land requires the owner’s advance permission.
Adding enticement to the hunting grounds also is illegal.
Apples have long been a favorite of poachers putting out bait for deer, Warden Sgt. Doug Tibbetts said.
Tibbetts enforces the state’s fish and wildlife laws in the Bangor region. He said baiting deer in that area has been happening for years and is increasing.
As more land is posted against hunting, baiting becomes more popular, Tibbetts said.
Both wardens said an increase in commercially sold deer bait could be somewhat to blame for the illegal activity.
Bait such as “Deer Cocaine,” “Deer Cain,” “Deer Cain Black Magic,” “Deer goInsane,” “Stump Likker” and others are available on the Internet as well as through stores such as Wal-Mart, Agway and the Paris Farmers Union. They can be sold legally, but it’s illegal to use them during the hunting season.
Most include supplements such as calcium, phosphorus and sodium that deer crave. Others feature molasses, peanut butter and apple extracts, again, flavors that deer find tasty.
Suppliers such as Cabela’s offer page after page of devices designed to distribute the baits. They’re legal in some places, but not in Maine.
Edible? Illegal
“Anything that a deer can ingest is illegal,” said Mark Latti, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
That includes both natural foods – apples, pumpkins, broccoli, peanut butter and salt licks – as well as the commercial attractants.
“A hunter can climb up into an apple tree to take a stand,” Smith pointed out, “and that’s perfectly legal.
“If the same hunter kicked a few of those apples out from under the tree to improve his shot, he’d be breaking the law.”
Decoys are legal. A hunter could set up an elaborate deer decoy, complete with flagging tail and doused in the scent of a doe in heat and that would be all right. Put an apple down in front of that decoy, though, and be ready to pay a fine that could top $250 with surcharges.
Unethical hunters
Additionally, he noted, deer can literally eat themselves to death.
It takes about two weeks for the digestive bacteria in a whitetail deer’s gut to adjust to a change in diet, Kemper said. Deer who suddenly find piles of cracked corn or other feed can gorge to the point that their stomachs expand to the point of death.
“Deer will always find something to eat,” Kemper said, “even during the worst winters.”
Those that starve to death often have other problems that make them weak and unable to forage successfully, he said.
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