Tom Roth poses with a healthy buck he took recently in Cumberland at his new favorite sitting spot. Tom Roth / For Lakes Region Weekly

If you deer hunt, you likely have a favorite spot to sit. Or maybe several. It could be a tree stand, old or new, a rock wall or just a tree trunk that you lean against. It is likely that you saw or took a deer from that spot or know someone who did. That’s what draws you back. Some of us are fortunate to have spots that consistently draw deer. Probably they feature a piece of topography that funnels deer from bedding to feeding areas, so they are traditionally used by deer through the years. These are sacred pieces of ground that are guarded and only shared with the closest of friends or relatives.

Tom Roth is a freelance outdoor writer who lives in Raymond on the shore of Sebago Lake. He has been fishing and hunting in this region for more than 30 years and is a Registered Maine Guide.

I had the pleasure of hunting with a true Maine woodsman for more than three decades. I was also fortunate that we had access to some great hunting grounds. Over the years we named many of our spots. We had one huge rock that overlooked a runway where deer would escape from a thicket if pushed correctly. I keep a journal of all the deer I have taken, and I harvested three deer from that rock. My hunting partner took many more and we saw even more deer from that vantage point when we didn’t hold doe permits. We nicknamed it “Machine Gun Rock.” I took my girlfriend’s son along to this spot last year and we pushed a small doe to him (he had no antlerless deer permit) that we watched completely undetected. It was good for him to see a deer and how it acts up close. Later that day he took his first deer, a nice little buck. We named that location “Little Buck Spot.”

This year my girlfriend was brush hogging an old road on our farm that we just discovered. It will give us access to an old field and you can clearly see where the road winds, once the brush was cleared. When she proudly showed me her work, I was amazed at what a view the edge of road provided. I could see a large gully that offered great visibility overlooking a lot of deer signs. I found a big pine tree and scraped away some leaves and planned to sit there the next time I hunted.

Monday found me against the tree at about 2:45, sitting until dark. At 3 p.m., I heard rustling in leaves that had to be a deer. The tree blocked my view to the right, but it also hid me. Sure enough, a buck I had been seeing on one of our game cameras since September came into view, oblivious to my presence. He was a nice buck with a broken antler on his right side. We called him Ol’ One Horn. As he made his way through the trees, he was scratching at the ground and marking his territory. One shot behind the shoulder took him and we had venison!

I called my girlfriend to come down to see my prize, telling her to come to “her” road. That spot is now called “Jody’s Road,” and always will be. She watched me field dress and then process the deer that we have been enjoying all month. Another memory was made and another sacred spot was named. Good luck to all the muzzleloader hunters out this month as they get one last chance to fill the winter larder.