Maryland hunters usher in deer firearm season

MOUNT SAVAGE — Clouds in the pitch-black sky can be seen only with the help of a brilliantly lit moon.

At 2:15 a.m., Main Street in the historic town of Mount Savage in central Allegany County is dark and silent. The only light turned on in this former industrial center is at Dunagan’s Bar & Grill. Hard at work is the kitchen staff, supervised by Joyce Wolfe, who’d arrived more than one hour earlier.

Bacon, sausage, sausage gravy and cream chipped beef were among the items on the menu for about three dozen hunters expected on this, the first day of firearm season for deer. Hunters ushered in as early as 4 a.m. wearing sweats and jeans, not yet attired for the cold temperatures and gusty winds that had moved in over the previous 12 hours.

If statistics from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Deer Project remain true, nearly half these hunters will take at least one deer over the next two weeks.

“They don’t dress until after they (leave here),” Wolfe said of the hunters, many of whom arrive shortly before 5 a.m., about two hours and 30 minutes before sunrise when the first shot can be fired. “They don’t want to smell like food. They’re not real talkative. They’ll sit there and have conversation with one another, but not like normal.”

Instead, thoughts are focused on ensuring their rifles are clean and functional, that their trucks can get them to their preferred hunting locations and that their four-wheeled vehicles lodged in the pickup beds will start up when it’s time to haul out a kill from the mountainous terrain of Mountain Maryland.

Wolfe has supervised the annual pre-hunt breakfast on the opening Saturday for many of the past 11 years at Dunagan’s, locally known as “Mo’s” in honor of owner John Pratt’s nickname.

Last year, Maryland hunters harvested a record 100,437 antlered and antlerless white-tailed and exotic sika deer during firearm, muzzleloader and crossbow seasons. The figure is 9 percent higher than the number of deer killed during the 2008-09 season (92,208).

In the winter past, a total of 2,272 deer were harvested during the two-week firearm season in Allegany County — sixth among 24 jurisdictions across the state behind Washington, Frederick, Carroll, Worcester and Garrett counties. More than 68,000 Marylanders are expected to participate in deer hunting this season, according to DNR projections.

Sgt. Arthur Windemuth, public information officer with the Maryland Natural Resources Police, called Saturday’s events across the state a “typical opening morning.”

Windemuth said officers statewide responded to a usual number of general complaints of trespassing, hunting without written permission on private land and improper use of offroad vehicles. There are generally a few illegal harvesting complaints on opening day and throughout the two-week season, Windemuth said, and officers respond accordingly.

“As far as harvest, we probably won’t know that until the beginning of next week,” he said.

Maryland’s system of checking in a deer is by telephone and Internet. Hunters have 24 hours after a kill to check in an animal.

Kevin Spradlin can be reached at Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.