Reporting stations big problem for big game

“If a hunter shoots a deer in Morrisville, they have to drive 15 miles to go report the thing,” Nick Fortin, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s deer project leader, said.

Fortin said the closure last year of Morrisville’s Old Fishing Hole and the decision by the owners of the Jericho General Store to shutter their reporting station operation ahead of the past hunting season “definitely threw a lot of extra people” to other reporting stations, especially those stations in Cambridge and Fletcher.

Susan French at the Cambridge Village Market — Lamoille County’s only big game reporting station — said she saw a decided uptick in reporting activity last season: the 203 deer logged there was more than double that in 2021. For comparison’s sake, the statewide deer harvest last year was estimated to be up about 5 percent, the fish and wildlife department announced last week.

French said the store pockets about a dollar a deer — a buck a buck — but sees some ancillary business from hunters who come to weigh their deer. She said the owners have largely kept the tradition going because it’s a quintessential fall pastime for so many people.

“By the time we go out and weigh them up and then come back in and put it in the computer, it does take away some work time, but it’s a good service for the community,” French said. “They’ll get a deli sandwich or drink, and they’ll tell their deer stories and reminisce.”

Eight years ago, there were six reporting stations in six Lamoille County towns — in Cambridge, Eden, Morrisville, Stowe and Wolcott — and others in the bordering towns of Hardwick, Waterbury and Jericho.

Fortin said the department has not historically needed to recruit new stations because there were always businesses interested in doing it.

“In the last few years, we just started losing a lot of stations, and it’s starting to create some big holes, like in Lamoille County,” he said. “We’re seeing it across the state, although I think that Lamoille County would probably be the worst place we currently have.”

He said the biggest issues his department hears about from reporting stations are related to staffing.

“A lot of them are mom and pop weigh stations and they can’t go out and weigh a deer if there’s a customer inside,” he said.

An example of that forced hunter migration is borne out of 2022 hunting statistics Fortin provided for a half-dozen reporting stations in the greater Lamoille County area: of the 42 deer killed in Morristown this past fall, five different places handled the reporting. Craftsbury Village Store and Rite Way Sports in Hardwick reported about three-quarters of the deer shot in Morristown, with Cambridge Village Market, Fletcher General Store and Parro’s Gun Shop in Waterbury also reporting Morristown big game kills.

Typically, he said, most of those kills would have been reported right in town, at The Old Fishing Hole.

Fortin said Vermont hunting laws require someone to report big game within 48 hours of killing it. He said that’s not as big a deal in rifle season — when many hunters take a week or two off from work and the weather is cold enough to prevent spoiling.

“It becomes an issue in, say, archery season, when a lot of folks will hunt in the evening after work. Then if they get a deer, and they’ve got to go to work the next day, they don’t get a chance to report it,” he said.

Despite the dearth of reporting stations, Fortin said Vermont still does much better with its reporting than other states. He said many other states estimate they only see 60 percent of their deer kills reported, while in Vermont boasts of 95-98 percent reporting.

“We have a very established history of people having to report their deer,” he said.

Deer diary

The final number of deer taken in Vermont’s 2022 hunting seasons will not be available for at least a month — the figures will be on the Fish and Wildlife Department’s website in early March — but the department says the total tally will be a little over 17,400 deer.

According to a press release from the department last week, the buck harvest will be close to 9,600, which will be up from 2021 (9,133) and near the previous three-year average of 9,482. The final antlerless deer harvest will be around 7,800, also similar to the previous three-year average (7,651). The archery season harvest, which accounts for much of the total antlerless deer harvest, will be the second highest on record, behind only the 2020 season.

“Hunting conditions were generally good in 2022,” Fortin said. “Limited fall foods caused deer to move more and spend more time feeding in fields, which made it easier for hunters to locate them. Snow during much of the regular season in November also helped hunters locate and see deer.”

While final statewide kill numbers for 2022’s deer hunting seasons won’t be fully tallied up for at least another month, Fortin was able to release Lamoille County numbers, and they’re up.

All told, 789 deer were reported killed in Lamoille County during the past hunting season. That was the second-highest number in the past six years — there were 830 deer taken in 2020.

The six reporting stations most likely to see big game from Lamoille County saw a total of 964 deer. Fletcher General Store reported the most deer in the 2022 hunting season, with 366, with hunters coming from 28 different towns to note their quarries.

Also reporting big numbers were Craftsbury Village Store with 227 and Cambridge with 203.