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Maine Fishing Women Who Hunt

Maine’s youngest fisherwoman

By Erin M | Oct 18, 2017 | 0 Comments | 1 min read

How do you create outdoor kids? You have them grow up experiencing outdoor adventures like it is a normal part of life. Over the summer, as I was on maternity leave, I was determined not to let the nice weather slip away without getting some fun, outdoor adventures in. Staci from MyMainelyGirlAdventures took me to one of her favorite fishing spots. I loaded up the baby, my waders (which I fit back into!) and into the water we went. We didn't catch any fish, but we did have a few bites. I had the most action on my fly line that I have ever had! Could have been the flies we put on or, maybe, this baby will be...

Wildlife Conservation

An increase in trespassing

By Erin M | Sep 1, 2017 | 0 Comments | 3 min read

Trail cameras are addicting. You buy one, get some pictures then decide that you should have another one at a certain intersection and the next thing you know, you are like us and have almost 10 out in the woods, trying to pattern your deer. That excitement of pulling those memory cards quickly vanishes when you see things that don’t belong on your property. In the past couple of months, we have had lots of activity on the trail cameras; a car driving around in the newly planted clover and a man walking through a highly traveled deer intersection. Both men had to make an effort to get where they were; this was not just...

Maine Black Bear

The most exciting hunt, you’re not going on

By Erin M | Aug 25, 2017 | 1 Comment | 3 min read

I blame my friend Steve. I cautiously agreed to go with him and learn how to hunt them so that I could have some first-hand experience when I write. I would have never guessed that in agreeing to go with him, I would now look at August in a whole new way; it’s bear season! There are roughly 10,000 of us who buy our bear permits every year. Compared to the 180,000+ deer hunters and we basically have the woods to ourselves to hunt bear. Guess what non-bear hunters? You are missing out on one of the most exciting hunts you could possibly go on! And that should change. Why would you want to hunt bears?...

Are you my father?

By Erin M | Aug 11, 2017 | 0 Comments | 1 min read

I am not sure if the target in the backyard has made the deer around here more relaxed or not, but for this fawn, it wasn't sure what to make of this thing that looks like a deer but doesn't move. If this target can fool these deer, I am wondering if we could use it as a decoy during hunting season... that is something that I will need to research! Either way, the doe and the fawn both look incredibly healthy! Always a good sign for the deer...

Scat and Tracks Wildlife Conservation

Why kids don’t know their animals

By Erin M | Jul 28, 2017 | 0 Comments | 3 min read

A few weeks ago, my kiddo was handed a piece of paper from his teacher. I was standing next to him as she told him that when he and his family go for walks in the woods, we could look for some of these animal tracks. My first thought was that it was odd to see "cow" listed there since you don't typically find cows in the woods. As I skimmed down through the sheet, I was mortified. When I got home, I made an "x" next to all of the animals/tracks that do NOT live in Maine. To me, this is just laziness. There is no moose or white tailed deer listed on here. No black bear or turkey. Even if you had no idea about the...

Hunting in Maine Women Who Hunt

When your hunting pants don’t fit

By Erin M | May 23, 2017 | 0 Comments | 3 min read

This past fall, my routine became almost comical. I would leave my backpack on the ground, climb into my treestand, get settled and unbutton my wool pants. Four years ago, I wore base layers with monkey-thumbs to hide the Queeze-Away bands that I wore around my wrists. I never got sick, but those early morning breakfasts and treks to the Sky Condo were a little more challenging when I was trying to hide a pregnancy. Dad makes sure that I am always secure and comfortable when I am sitting 10-16 feet up in my treestands but if he knew I was pregnant, I was not sure how far off the ground he would allow me to be. So, I...

Maine Deer Sheds Whitetail Deer

We may never find a shed

By Erin M | Apr 29, 2017 | 0 Comments | 3 min read

At this point, Staci and I just say that we are doing shed hunting but in reality, we just walk through the woods and see what we can find. Our latest trip was quite the adventure. I took Staci to T3 and showed her where Dad had shot his doe. The trick was getting there without getting hurt. There was enough crust on the snow to be able to walk on it in the morning. We debated bringing our snowshoes, but ruled that we could handle the crust with the occasional inch break through. The amount of deer tracks right from the start were nice to see. They had been checking the old apple trees and following a...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer

Monitoring Maine’s deer

By Erin M | Feb 26, 2017 | 1 Comment | 4 min read

You could ask any deer hunter how the herd is in their area and get a different answer every time. We all want the best habitat, doe to buck ratio and a very limited number of predators in our area. What I didn’t know, is that like moose here in Maine, we have deer that are collared and monitored in order to help biologists understand the true health of the deer herd. I sat down with Maine’s deer biologist Kyle Ravana to ask him about the collaring program and what he (and IFW) hope to learn from it. Where are the deer that are being collared? And why those WMDs? Right now, we have deer collared in WMD 17 and 6 and...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer Wildlife Conservation

Really! Stop feeding the deer

By Erin M | Feb 6, 2017 | 1 Comment | 4 min read

It's that time of year when deer are yarded up and surviving the harsh winter weather. I've been fortunate enough to see lots of healthy looking deer while walking through the woods. In talking with friends about the deer herd in their area, they have mentioned that they want to start feeding the deer to help them make it through the winter. I quickly respond with NO! Don't feed the deer! It is fun to see deer come out of the woods and munch on grain or corn, but what a lot of people don't realize is that feeding deer these foods during the winter months could have dire consequences and could actually kill the deer that they are...

Stop feeding deer in Maine

Eating Wild Game

Learning to eat wild game

By Erin M | Jan 25, 2017 | 3 Comments | 3 min read

I wrote the following for the Northwoods Sporting Journal. What are your thoughts on eating wild game and teaching kids about where their food really comes from? On the Monday after rifle season began, my three year old’s preschool asked him what he had done over the weekend. Straight faced, he looked at her and said, “Daddy shot a deer and I ate the heart” and walked off to play with his friends. She looked at me in disbelief and all I could do was smile and nod. The excitement of getting a deer was at its peak for him when we drove into the driveway with my husband’s deer. That same three year old rubbed his hands down the back of the...

Wait! It’s not over yet

By Erin M | Dec 29, 2016 | 0 Comments | 2 min read

"All I saw was blue smoke" dad said smiling. One week after I shot my deer and rifle season ended, Dad was still hard at it trying to get one of those big bucks we still had pictures of. But, instead, he squeezed the trigger and got his first deer with a muzzleloader. According to Dad: two doe came crossed three different shooting lanes before starting to talk at him. When he decided to fire at the biggest doe, he lined up the sites and just saw the blue smoke and no deer. "I got down and walked to where I saw her last. The second doe was still standing nearby, so I knew she was down. When that second doe ran off by...

In less than a minute

By Erin M | Dec 26, 2016 | 0 Comments | 4 min read

The snow was melting and dropping off the branches and leaves. I had been in the stand for only a few minutes when I heard a deer walking off to my right. It was one deer and too dark to know if it was a doe or buck. Maybe it was the crotch horn. I closed my eyes and listened to the deer walking away from me. At least it didn't seem spooked; maybe it didn't know that I was there. The sky began to get brighter, indicating that the rain predicted was not coming. I dug into my pocket for handwarmers. I tried to keep the crinkling plastic as quiet as I could as I ripped the first side open. I waited...

Whitetail Deer Winters in Maine

It doesn’t get better than hunting on snow

By Erin M | Dec 22, 2016 | 0 Comments | 4 min read

There was a storm coming in on Thanksgiving night, so Dad and I started and ended our day in the woods. It was silent when we walked into our stands in a turkey induced semi-stupor. The silence didn't last long. For almost two hours, we listened to someone target practicing or just shooting different guns. It was ridiculous and I still can not understand why, during hunting season, someone would do this when they could have waited until Sunday (when we can't hunt.) When we went to bed Thanksgiving night, the cold rain had turned to snow and on Friday morning, there was enough on the ground to track. Snow turns me into a...

Wildlife Conservation

United, we win.

By Erin M | Dec 19, 2016 | 2 Comments | 4 min read

United, we win. The more involved you get with something, the more frustrated you can become when priorities shift, you see behind that iron curtain and you lose sight of what’s important and made you get involved in the first place. It’s hard to get reenergized and motivated sometimes, especially when there are so many divides. I have been partly amused and partly disheartened to read articles that my fellow outdoor writers have written about how they miss the ‘good ole days’ of hunting when women were home with the kids and not out in the woods. I hate to break it to you, but women are the only way that the next generation of...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer

Just shoot a doe

By Erin M | Dec 15, 2016 | 1 Comment | 1 min read

There were signs of deer everywhere! Tracks, rubs and fresh scrapes but for some reason, I was not seeing them. Dad, on the other hand, was seeing deer everywhere he looked. One morning, he watched a spike horn chase a doe and fawn through the woods. He walked out of the woods behind a doe and fawn another night. He was seeing multiple does every time he sat or walked through the woods but instead of using that doe tag, he wanted that big, illusive buck that we knew was still hanging around. I hung out in my stands and watched a lot of squirrels. How could we be spending so much time in the woods and not come...

Hunting in Maine Hunting Tips and Tricks Whitetail Deer

Sitting is safer

By Erin M | Dec 12, 2016 | 0 Comments | 2 min read

On Veteran's Day, the wind was so bad that I climbed down from the Sky Condo to sit in the ground blind that we had not removed since turkey season. I am usually all for rocking in the trees but there was just enough extra creeks happening that I felt better on the ground. It sleeted, the wind blew and nothing moved. Saturday was different. I started off the same way as the weekend before; Sky Condo to tree seat. I left the Sky Condo a little earlier than I had the week before hoping to see more deer than just the two does. There were fresh rubs that were a little bigger than the ones the week before, but it...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer

Back into the woods

By Erin M | Dec 8, 2016 | 1 Comment | 3 min read

We had to revamp our hunting plan since we were now one hunter down, but Dad and I stuck with what he knew would work and where we thought the deer were. I started the morning in the Sky Condo and when it was clear that nothing was moving through, I headed to a tree seat not far away. There were fresh rubs along the path that I used and although they were made by small deer, it gave me hope that the deer would be moving through. I left my pack at the bottom of the tree and climbed the 16 feet up to the seat. I think I am more comfortable in treeseats than the bigger stands. I can't move when I am up there because every...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer

It’s finally deer season!

By Erin M | Dec 5, 2016 | 0 Comments | 3 min read

We've waited all year for this! Deer season was back. Hubs, Dad and I had a rough idea of where we were going to sit to start the morning, when and where we would move to next and the basic game plan for the morning hunt. But then, I looked at the trail camera pictures. The 10 pointer that we had had on the camera last year had shown himself for the first time two days before at T3. Up until that point, we had only smaller bucks on the cameras. But this one... we've been watching him for at least 4 years and he was beautiful. I declared that I would start the season sitting in T3. Hubs was bumped to the Sky Condo...

Hunting in Maine Whitetail Deer

What makes hunting in Maine so great

By Erin M | Oct 11, 2016 | 0 Comments | 1 min read

Hunting in Maine is unique. Our landscape is different than most states, our predators are a lot more abundant (hello 36,000 black bear roaming the woods) and we have a shorter season that most. Recently, I highlighted these challenges for the National Deer Alliance and wrote about why they makes Maine such a great place to hunt. Click here to read my article for the National Deer...

Erin Merrill Hunting Blogger

Hunting Tips and Tricks Women Who Hunt

Must have clothing for outdoor women

By Erin M | Sep 16, 2016 | 1 Comment | 3 min read

I did a radio interview recently and was asked about women's hunting apparel and if it is getting better. I ecstatically answered Yes! Thanks to my involvement with EvoOutdoors, I have been fortunate enough to learn what you really need to be wearing when you are in the woods during bear season, deer season, coyote etc. With the holidays coming up, here are my MUST HAVEs for any outdoorwoman or man.First Lite: I sit while I hunt and I was always getting sweaty on my way in or out of the woods. I layer so that I can stay warmer longer but it would also take me a while to regulate my body temperature after I got warm walking into my...

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