Losing a favorite hunting spot is never easy, but some are more difficult to part with than others. Each represents memories of success and failure, of lessons learned and time spent doing what you love. The more time you spend with them the more valuable they become.

I’ve been saying it for several seasons, but this year really looks like the last season for one of my most cherished hunting grounds. Perhaps it’s a relationship I should have ended sooner but just couldn’t out of stubborness and fidelity. Some go rather abruptly but this one has died slowly of attrition.

For the first five or six years, my hunting partner and I had it to ourselves, this island wilderness surrounded by civilization. We never saw another hunter except the ones we brought in with us. “If only this could last,” we mused, but change is inevitable.

First came the expanded archery season, which proved both a blessing and a curse. It allowed more time to spend in the oasis but brought with it more hunters with varying levels of ethics. Their presence in my tiny patch of woods increased until I eventually began finding other hunters or evidence of them in my stands – hunting’s equivalent of adultery and a serious breech of ethics.

Next came development. The shallow slope where huge oaks overshadowed wild apple trees and the bucks annually pawed a broad scrape was cut, cleared and now serves as a home for idle construction equipment. The inviolate strip of dense alder and honeysuckle where the deer once bedded is now covered with structures. With each incursion the deer shifted into thicker cover and I moved with them.

Then came succession. The big pasture pine where I’ve sat for the last 18 seasons has finally died. Weevil-bitten at an early age, its gnarly, twisted form doomed it to a premature demise. Now its bare limbs let streams of sunlight through to the understory, which has grown up in a dense thicket of buckthorn. The bark is peeling off and one day soon I expect to find the tree lying prone like the skeleton of a fallen dinosaur.

There have been so many changes over the last two decades. The once scant foot path used to access the area is now a heavily trodden trail pocked with human, dog and bicycle tracks. There’s even a sign inviting people to use it.

The final straw appeared in the form of a large “For Sale” sign on the frontage, suggesting it will be under new ownership before next season. I harbor a thin thread of hope, but common sense tells me that no one would make the substantial investment required for such a parcel only to let it lie fallow. More likely it will end up as commercial property, hosting a row of ill-fated businesses that will turn over every three or four years when the lessees can’t make a go of it. Meanwhile the deer and I will just have to adapt to new environs.

Bob Humphrey is a freelance writer and registered Maine guide who lives in Pownal. He can be contacted at:

bhunt@maine.rr.com

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