VASSALBORO — Before heading out on the first day of deer-hunting season to sit in a cold stand or blind for hours on end or stealthily stalk through the chilly Maine woods, a hearty breakfast is nearly as important as a rifle to most New England hunters.

At least that’s the way more than a hundred hunters saw it Saturday as they woke in the pre-dawn hours to attend the annual hunters’ breakfast at the Vassalboro Fire Department’s station on Riverside Drive.

Dating back more than 30 years at the Vassalboro Fire Department, the hunters’ breakfast is a time-honored, high-calorie tradition that brings hunters together on the first day of the season and helps keep them warm as they head out to their favorite hunting spots at first light.

Usually benefiting a charity or nonprofit, they occur annually across the state on the first day of deer-hunting season.

“Hunters’ breakfast is a good thing where everyone gets together for the first day of hunting season,” hunter Walker Thompson said. “It brings all the guys together. They can talk about what they’re going to be doing that day.”

Walker, 18, is a firefighter for the all-volunteer department and has been hunting and attending the annual hunters’ breakfast at the department since he was 10.

Seated with friends Saturday morning, Thompson said he planned to do his hunting in Vassalboro. Exact locations of hunting spots are usually closely guarded secrets, he admitted, though some are willing to share helpful tips on the first day.

“Everyone will come. Some people will share their secrets; some people won’t,” he said.

With firefighters arriving at midnight to prepare food, the first hungry hunters showed up for breakfast as early as 4 a.m., according to Capt. Benji Rowe, who served sausage and bacon to more than a hundred.

At $5 a plate, hunters got their choice of eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, home fries, beans and toast. The most popular though, said Russell Peasley, president of the department, is “the works,” which includes all of the above.

On average, the department serves 125 breakfasts on the first day of hunting season, firefighter Don Breton said.

For hunters such as Sage Blaschke, who grew up in Vassalboro and has been attending the department’s hunters’ breakfast since he started hunting at age 5, it’s about tradition.

“You meet up with your friends that you haven’t seen in years, and everybody is there,” he said.

Whether the breakfast helps hunters tag a deer on the first day of the season depends on whom you ask.

“I would like to think so,” Blaschke said, noting that at the very least, it helps keep hunters a little warmer.

Proceeds from the Vassalboro’s hunters’ breakfast normally go to the Vassalboro Food Bank.

This year, though, the department is using the funds to help pay for an extra truck bay at its 14-year-old station on Riverside Drive.

The new bay will enable the department store its rescue boat, which normally is kept at the station on Main Street, inside the Riverside Drive station in the winter.

It also will provide a meeting space for the firefighters and ensure that equipment stored at the station does not damage delicate truck exhaust ports that cost $9,000 to replace, firefighters said.

With the concrete pad already poured for the expansion, Lt. Mike Vashon said the total project is expected to cost $23,000 to $24,000. Revenue raised from the hunter’s breakfast won’t be enough cover that cost.

Vashon said the department probably won’t make more than $500 on the breakfast. The department plans to host a fishing tournament next year, though, Vashon said, and that usually provides $4,000 to $5,000.

All food for the breakfast was donated by a host of local vendors and businesses. The Vassalboro Fire Department is a registered nonprofit, meaning donations to its benefit are tax-deductible.

Because the hunters’ breakfast revenue will be used for the station project, firefighters collected donations Saturday to benefit the Vassalboro Food Pantry.

Evan Belanger — 861-9239

ebelanger@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @ebelanger

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