Matt Edwards took the week off from working on trees to spend his Monday morning in one and boy did it pay off.
The owner of Edwards Tree Service in Wendell was among the many hunters in the state who were out in the woods on Monday to celebrate opening day of the 2016 Massachusetts shotgun deer hunting season.
Edwards went up in his tree stand early and while he didn’t know that he would have the kind of fortune he did, perhaps he should have based it on the recent success he has had at this particular stand. I won’t divulge the location because no hunter would want that in print, but it’s on public property. He said the area is no secret to hunters, but for Edwards, it has been as good a spot as anyone will ever find. Two years ago, Edwards shot a 150-pound, 8-point buck from his stand, and last year he bagged a 165-pound, 9-pointer. You can see where a little confidence in his spot might be in order.
So it really should not have been any surprise to Edwards when early in the morning he hit the jackpot. That came in the form of five bucks, which approached his spot all together. He took aim with his 12-gauge shotgun and shot the biggest of the bunch, then turned and shot another, stopping both in their tracks. The result was a 161-pound, 9-point buck that was aged at 3½ years old, and a 117-pound, 4-pointer that was 1½ years old.
The information on all the deer was collected Monday morning at Grrr Gear on Rt. 2A in Orange, where husband-wife owners Al and Chris Noyes have hosted a checking station for years. This marked my second year stopping by the store — which sells everything from guns and bows, to apparel, hunting accessories and fishing gear — for opening day, the biggest draw being the lift bought by the owners to easily weigh the deer.
Also back this season was Walt Tynan, a wildlife technician who works for Mass. Fish and Wildlife. Tynan’s job is to gather information on the deer. He takes the weight, points (number of prongs on the antlers of bucks), as well as age of the deer, which is done by examining the teeth. He can get a rough estimate of the age by looking at the premolars of the deer and checking them for wear, as well as something called dentine. Imagine if you never brushed your teeth; the older you are, the grosser they would look.
All deer killed during shotgun season have to be checked into one of the stations, and our neck of the woods has five — Overwatch Outpost in Charlemont, Gould’s Sugarhouse in Shelburne (first week only), Bitzer Hatchery in Montague, Sunderland Hatchery and Grrr Gear. Any deer harvested during bow season were checked online this season, but the state sends wildlife technicians out for the two weeks of shotgun season because all past data was collected at this time so it gives the organization the chance to accurately measure data against the past.
The Monday after Thanksgiving always marks the first day of the shotgun season and many hunters treat it like a holiday, taking vacation time from work to head out into the woods. I arrived at Grrr Gear around 11 a.m. and there had already been a few people in to check early-morning kills.
One of those folks was my father-in-law, John Maguire, who was one of the few people who checked in before 11 a.m. In the past, I’ve found that most checks don’t come in until late morning/early afternoon, especially if you consider that hunters need to not only hunt the deer, but also gut them, get them out of the woods, and get to the checking station. Some, like my father-in-law, have luck on their side, and when a 124-pound buck moseyed by his tree stand at 7:20 a.m., he took it.
The first person I met on Monday was Denison Hunt of Warwick, who was checking his 122-pound doe. Hunt was one of the few hunters I met who was not in a tree stand when he got his deer. He said he was walking along and came upon the doe. What made Hunt unique was that as Tynan collected the information on the deer, Hunt chimed in, and for good reason. Hunt graduated from Unity College in Maine where he studied conservation law enforcement, and even though life took him on another path, he still had a pretty good memory of checking deer. This included aging the deer, which Tynan playfully quizzed him on, and Hunt passed with flying colors when he inspected the deer’s molars and aged it at 3½.
Shortly after Hunt left, Rich Gauvin from North Orange pulled into the yard with his 104-pound, 6-pointer. Gauvin was with friend Ben Purington and they said it was a quiet morning. Even if he hadn’t shot anything, Gauvin probably wouldn’t have been too disappointed. Hunting is something he learned from his father Benny, who passed away in 1985, but his passion for hunting lives on in Rich.
Next up were brothers Doug Wooding and Stephen Wooding from Wrentham and Doug was stopping by to check his 128-pound, 7-point buck. Both men were in tree stands and Stephen said he never saw the deer his brother shot.
“They keep telling me not to fall asleep in that stand,” Stephen said with a laugh.
Doug said he initially heard the deer moving in the “thick stuff,” but thought it was a squirrel. He said that he continued to hear the deer move around for 45 minutes but still didn’t know if it was a deer or something else. Eventually, the deer emerged and Doug got a clear shot.
Another tandem pulled in after the Wooding brothers, that being father-son pairing Joe and Ben Goody. I remembered Ben from a few years back when he was the quarterback at Mahar Regional School. Joe was checking in his 108-point, 5-point buck he shot on Monday, but his day was nothing compared to the day he had on Nov. 1.
On that day, he and Ben went out early in the morning with their dog, Dexter, and hunted pheasants until they had their fill. Then, at noon, the two went back out and each shot a turkey. Later that afternoon, Joe went out to his tree stand and used his bow to shoot an 8-point buck. Call it the hunter’s trifecta.
Brian Desreuisseau was smiling ear to ear when he pulled in with his 113-pound doe. The Orange resident has been hunting for 30 years and on Monday he got his first deer.
“It feels pretty good,” Desreuisseau said. “It’s been a lot miles in the woods.”
He said he was sitting on a dead stump when the doe came to him.
Dan Smith was in his stand when he harvested his 121-pound, 4-point buck. He said he looked to his right while sitting in the stand and saw the back of the deer. He couldn’t see the rack at first, because the deer was partially behind a tree.
“I was pretty happy when it walked out from behind it and saw the rack,” Smith said.
He had to wait to get the shot he was looking for, and the deer actually turned around and started heading away from Smith, but he managed to bag it.
The final check during my time at the station belonged to Chet Hall from Royalston. Hall actually works at Bitzer Hatchery, but was hunting in the area. When he showed up, Tynan asked him why he didn’t take it to Bitzer to check.
“I didn’t want to go to work,” Hall joked.
He had a 114-pound spike in his truck that he said he heard coming from a distance.
And with that, my hunt for hunting stories was over. Until next year.
It had been a long time since the 2012 Mahar Regional School boys’ basketball team lost a game.
You might remember that the 2012 Senators won the MIAA Division II state championship, so they are one of the few teams in the state that made the playoffs but did not end its season with a loss. The last time that the 2012 Senators lost was on Feb. 6, 2012, when they suffered a 50-39 loss to Turners Falls High School.
So it has been almost five years since that team lost. Until now.
On Saturday night, the Senators’ winning streak came to an end when they suffered a 93-90 overtime loss to the Orange All-Stars in a charity fundraiser.
“It was great, the gym was packed,” Mahar coach Chad Softic said. “It could not have gone better.”
Sofitc said the charity game raised nearly $1,400 for the Orange Travel Basketball Program.
Jason Butynski is a Greenfield native and Recorder sportswriter. His email address is jbutynski@recorder.com. Like him on Facebook and leave your feedback at www.facebook.com/jaybutynski.