Can We Blame It On Global Warming?

By A. Sayward Lamb

I believe that everyone who hunts in Maine knows that November is the month when the bucks are in the rut and chasing does all over the countryside. This is also the month when most hunters pray for snow, in order to be able to track deer. The problem is that in recent years, snow during hunting season, is a rare commodity. Back in the 1950s and 1960s it wasn’t unusual to have snow early during hunting season.

If I remember correctly, hunting season in Maine started during the middle of October and ran through the end of November. I recall seeing snowfalls when foliage season was still in full swing - this was around the second and third weeks of October. Generally, we received only an inch or two of what we called “dustings of snow” and I remember how beautiful the white snow was as it fell upon the multi-colored leaves of the hardwood trees.

Usually the snow melted in a day or two, so this didn’t help appreciably, when tracking deer. One thing for certain, we could plan on plenty of snow and cold weather when November rolled around.

Hunting deer meant having to dress for cold weather and it also meant we had to trudge through several inches of snow, especially in the mountains. If the temperatures were cold during snowstorms, snow would be light and fluffy, but if a heavy, wet snow arrived, it was hard to travel through and even worse if the weather was cold enough to cause the snow to crust over. Fortunately, crusty conditions didn’t occur frequently, but under the best of conditions, a foot or more of new snow on the ground is still hard to walk through. Most hunters will tell you that these are ideal conditions for hunting big bucks and were willing to travel through the snow on a buck’s track, hoping to catch up to it.

When I was younger, several hunters told me that it was not difficult to wear a deer down in deep snow. One day, I hiked up to the top of Mollyockett Mountain and took a fresh deer track. I followed it in the foot-deep snow, as fast as my short legs would take me. After following the buck’s tracks for about three hours, I came upon my own footprints, only to find that the buck was now following in my tracks! I gave that chase up for a poor job and have never tried to wear down a deer in deep snow since that attempt, many years ago.

I haven’t researched the success ratios between hunting on bare ground and snow, so all I can say is the difference is very noticeable at most tagging stations after snow arrives.

I think it was around the latter part of the 1960’s, when we had a major snowstorm that came up the coast of Maine, in what we natives call a “nor’-easter.” The counter clockwise flow of air currents brings in moisture from the ocean. If conditions are right and the storm stalls for several hours or even days, huge quantities of snow can fall.

The storm I recall left us with at least three feet of heavy snow on the ground. This storm arrived on the first of November, opening day of deer hunting. My sons and I attempted to hunt that day and tried to drive my 4WD Jeep pick-up truck over a discontinued dirt road. So much snow fell that we couldn’t tell where the old roadway was, so we had to walk out ahead and scout the area before driving ahead, plowing snow right up over the hood of the truck. We walked only a few yards from the truck before we got sick of wading through all the snow, so we gave up hunting and went home.
That same storm arrived well before deer had moved to their “deer yards”, leaving most of them stranded in open woods, instead of having the protection of cedar swamps, where they are able to subsist on cedar browse. Many hunters used snowmobiles to get to their hunting grounds. Others like myself for instance, wore snowshoes to enable us to travel over the top of the snow. Even then, walking on the freshly fallen snow was tough going.

Deer were relatively easy prey for hunters, due to the fact that they could not travel though all that snow. I guess the best way to describe it would be to use the term: “Wallowing” through the snow. Many people don’t realize that it takes a large deer to stand with their backs over three feet above the ground, so this meant that snowstorm left them in snow as deep as they were tall.

Consequently, with very limited ability to move, many more deer were harvested than would have occurred under normal conditions. Because of this fact, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife closed deer season one week early. After hunting season ended, deer still had no way to travel, so they became victims to predators, such as bobcats, lynx, and dogs. (At that time, there were very few, if any, coyotes in Maine.) Many deaths were caused by starvation. This caused the deer herd to be severely depleted and it took several years to bring the herd back to anywhere near the numbers that existed prior to that storm.

I vividly remember hunting with one of my brothers and a friend in Greenwood, on property, which at that time, was owned by my father. We all were using snowshoes to get around over that deep snow. One evening we discussed plans for a deer hunt the following morning. I was the one most acquainted with the area that we planned to hunt, so I advised my brother and his friend to take stands and I would take a loop around a small swamp before eventually returning to where they were located.

The going was tough, and I remember thinking about how crazy we were to even think about hunting deer under such adverse conditions. Nevertheless, I continued to snowshoe over the rough and mountainous terrain as best I could. I went around fallen trees, bushes, and other obstacles, that snowshoes weren’t made to traverse.

Consequently, it took me quite a lot longer than usual to make the circle that I planned to hunt. Amazingly, I jumped some deer and saw the beds where they had been laying and the tracks where they bounded away. I followed the tracks around the swamp and eventually the tracks passed by exactly where my brother and his friend were supposed to be waiting. I noticed that the snowshoe tracks headed back down an old roadway leading back to camp.

When I arrived back to camp, I asked why they had left before I got back to them? They both told me that they really didn’t believe I would find any deer under those conditions so they decided to come back to camp. Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly happy to have made all that effort, only to have the hunt turn out to be a “no hunt at all” situation. But as they say, “There are no guarantees when hunting.”

Since those years of forty to fifty years ago, myself, as well as thousands of other hunters, have noticed the changes in weather conditions here in the Northeast. The frosts come later, the cold weather comes later and the snowstorms seem to come later. We always were able to go ice skating by the time late November rolled around. Most of the bogs and other small water holes were frozen by the time school vacation arrived, over Thanksgiving time. I remember that it was usually during the time of the Oxford County Fair, mid-September, that the first frost arrived at our house.

This year (2007), at our cottage, we didn’t have a frost until mid-November. I also noticed the fall foliage season was at least a week later than usual. All these signs seem to indicate to many people that Global Warming is here.

At my home in Maine, we have had only a “dusting of snow” and that didn’t occur until after the middle of November. As I write this, November is almost over and still there is no snow on the ground in southwestern Maine. Some of the smaller bodies of water have frozen over, but some of the larger bodies of water, such as Kezar Lake, Moosehead Lake, as well as Sebago Lake, are still open water.

Ice fishing on lakes in Maine usually opens on January first, but in recent years, several bodies of water are not safe to walk on until later in the season. Several snowmobilers had the misfortune to break through thin ice while traveling over ponds last winter.

I was talking with my son this week and he told me that he and his wife saw a flock of about ten wild turkeys, adjacent to Route 26, in Oxford, Maine, about a mile south of his home. Here it was, the third week of November and they watched several of those Toms in full strut, as they paraded in front of two hen turkeys. He emphasized that they were not simply displaying, but all their feathers were puffed out, their wings down, and were strutting in front of the hens! Normally, this type of behavior occurs during springtime, in April and May.

These things all lead me to wonder, “Can Global Warming be to blame?” One thing for sure, times have changed!

Copyright 2007
A. Sayward Lamb