More rain than luck
Toolbox
By PATRICK McARDLE STAFF WRITER - Published: November 15, 2009
Rifle season in Vermont definitely was off to a wet start Saturday, and whether that meant a good or bad first day seemed to depend on where you were — and, of course, your luck in spotting a buck.
Bob Svitak, of Bennington, said he got his biggest deer ever on Saturday — a 165-pound eight-pointer.
"I just got fortunate. It wasn't too far off the road. I got lucky, but I'll take being lucky over being good any day," Svitak said.
Svitak said he thought the season was off to a good start, although he admitted that his circumstances made it hard to complain. He was one of many who weren't intimidated by a cold, dreary day.
Not everyone got lucky. Eugene Booska, owner of the Snowsville General Store on Route 12 in East Braintree, said only five deer had been brought in to his check station Saturday.
"The hunters have been coming in and everybody's soaked. It's not a good day to start the season," he said.
Booska, who has owned the store for 25 years, said a game warden had told him the deer herd in Vermont was actually bigger than in Maine, which gave him some hope for a good season.
At the Riverbend Country Store on Route 14 in North Montpelier, store manager Charlie Cerutti said he hadn't seen good conditions in his store or in the woods. The store had seen five deer by late afternoon, with one more just coming in at close to 6 p.m., and Cerutti said one of those deer had been hit by a car rather than shot.
Last year, the Riverbend had 15 deer brought in to the check station on opening day of rifle season.
While hunting himself, Cerutti, 42, said he saw "one squirrel and one hunter."
"Early in the morning, we had a lot of hunters in here buying their supplies. Then they came in after being out in the rain to get coffee and not a lot of them went back. I think a lot of them went home," Cerutti said.
Persistence paid off for two young hunters in Shaftsbury. Brett Conklin, of Arlington, and Sawyer Whitney, both 18-year-old Burr and Burton Academy graduates, said they got started around 5:30 a.m. and although it was "windy, rainy and cold" they kept going until Conklin bagged a five-point, 115-pound buck.
"We just went for it. It's the first day of the season," said Whitney.
The pair took Conklin's deer to Marty's Sporting Goods on Route 7A in Bennington, where they were greeted by three generations of hunters.
Owner Marty Harrington said many of the hunters he had talked to Saturday said deer were a little sparse, although he didn't know whether it was because of this year's herd or Saturday's weather.
"Talk to 15 people and you'll get 15 different answers," said Harrington's father, Martin L. Harrington.
The younger Harrington said he hadn't hunted on Saturday but had taken his son, Jared Harrington, 11, out where they had seen at least one doe and a fawn before, as Jared put it, he "got cold and left."
Charles Wells Guns, on Northside Drive in Bennington, was busy Saturday afternoon. Wells said people had been "coming in steady since 8:30 a.m."
One successful hunter there, Ryan Thurber, of Woodford, said he had started out around 5:15 a.m. in Pownal with his father, Rob Thurber.
"It took about an hour and 15 minutes to get out where I knew I wanted to be, and I shoot him around 7:30 a.m. The drag took much longer than the hunt," he said.
Thurber was the only one in his party to get a deer Saturday, but he pointed out that his father had the disadvantage of having to help him drag back his eight-point, 177-pound buck.
Only in business two years, Tifft's Trading Post on Route 9 in Readsboro had seen only one deer and one bear by early Saturday afternoon, but co-owner Kathy Tifft said she didn't think that was because it was a relatively new check station.
People had been looking for a station they could use that wouldn't require them to go down the mountain, Tifft said, and her husband, a hunter himself, had spread the word.
"I think people were saying, 'I'm giving up. I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm done,'" Tifft said.
Rob Alexander, of Mount Washington, Mass., and about a half dozen friends hanging out on the side of Route 9 in Woodford in early afternoon weren't done yet. Alexander said they would stay out until it was dark, even though they had seen only two deer that day.
"The rain's hurting us. We need snow," he said. "But maybe it would help if we get off of Route 9 and into the woods."
patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com
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