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Outdoor Life
September 1996
The 12 Best Deer Hunts in America
MAINE
North Maine Woods: This is probably the best overall value in East Coast deer hunting today. The timber company lands north and west of Bangor are vast, rugged and beautiful. But for $100, you can get a seven-day permit to hunt and camp in the North Maine Woods and use maintained logging roads to gain access to the cedar swamps, clear-cuts and hardwood ridges that characterize the more than 15,000 square miles of terrain. You might go a week without seeing a deer in this wilderness where Teddy Roosevelt first hunted. In places it gets so thick you'll swear you're in a frozen Laos.
But you wanted it tough and you wanted to learn something new. So wait for snow, look for a big track and follow it into the wind. At any moment, one of the 200-plus-pound whitetails the North Maine Woods is famous for could leap out in front of you.
There are designated campsites throughout the area, but the commercial lodges in and around the woods are so reasonable - $350 to $700 per week including meals - that most hunters don't bother with the tent scene. A week of big-buck hunting at Bradford Camps on Munsungan Lake - which is where T.R. liked to stay - will run $650 (room and board are included).
Preferred hunting strategies: tracking, still hunting, stands.