Sitting in a tree stand with her rifle early Saturday morning, Kimberly Crommett, 23, of China took her eyes off the ground below her only briefly, figuring she’d take advantage of a quiet moment to take a quick “selfie” on her cellphone and post it to Snapchat.

As she finished typing a message with her photo she looked down to see exactly what she, her dad, Mike Crommett, and her cousin, Josh Crommett, were out in the woods looking for, a large, nine-point buck that had walked to within a mere 30 feet of her. She shot and bagged the deer, less than an hour into the first day Mainers could hunt deer with firearms.

“I looked down and there it was, 30 feet away,” she said outside Tobey’s Grocery, where the tagging station scale pegged her gutted deer at 160 pounds.

She hunts every year, usually with family members.

“It gets you outdoors, for quality time with your family,” she said of what she enjoys most about hunting. “It’s nice to be able to harvest (a deer) for the family. We’ll butcher it ourselves, on the kitchen table. My dad and I do it together.”

She posed for a photo with her dad and the deer on the scales at Tobey’s, with her cousin joking, “THIS is the time to take a selfie.”

Jacob Miller of Albion also had his deer tagged at Tobey’s on Saturday morning. Miller shot a 125-pound three-point buck on a parcel of land his friend and hunting buddy, Jeffrey Dyer, owns in Palermo. The pair took two deer there last year.

Miller said he was in a tree stand when he saw the deer about 75 yards away, through trees. He wanted to wait for a clearer shot but the deer started to leave so he shot through the trees, hitting it in the heart.

“It was probably a lucky shot,” he said.

Both the men work for Central Maine Power Co. and were happy to get in some early hunting. With rain and winds expected to pick up later Saturday, each expected to have to work during the storm.

Dyer said he was happy for his friend, saying hunting on that land in Palermo “is a tradition. I hope to do it for the next 40 years.”

Dominic Rodrigue, who stocks shelves at Tobey’s, helped hunters tag and weigh deer Saturday morning. He anticipated the rain could make this opening day slower than most for tagging. The first hunter to bring a deer in was there around 7:30 a.m., shortly after the start of legal hunting at sunrise.

In Albion, Dow’s General Store has been busy since opening at 8 a.m., said owner Andy Dow.

They’d had a few medium-sized deer brought in by hunters, with the largest being an eight-point, 228 pound buck.

Dow’s General Store opened in 2019 and this is its second year as a tagging station. Dow said last year on opening day they saw 64 deer come in. He was curious if they might top that number this year, if the rain would lighten up.

“Everyone seems to be happy, nobody’s crying about the rain, they’re just happy to be out there,” Dow said.

Berry’s General Store in West Forks had not seen any deer early Saturday morning, but third generation family owner Brandon Berry said that was not uncommon for such a large area. He assumes by the end of the day they would have at least a few deer come in.

Despite no deer coming in, he said the store was busy and that the 80 or so bears they have seen tagged this year are the most they have ever had.

Berry’s General Store opened in 1963 and has been a tagging station since the early 1970s. They used to tag over 200 deer a season, even with another tagging station across the street, but in recent years that number has fallen to 50-70.

“We’re lucky to still be here,” said Berry.

The parking lot at Hussey’s General Store in Windsor, home of the famous sign advertising “Guns, wedding gowns, cold beer,” was nearly full Saturday, with a couple of hunters having their deer tagged and several shoppers upstairs in the sporting goods section checking out blaze orange hunting clothes, guns, scopes, hunting scents and blinds.

Jasen Pelletier, sporting goods manager who has worked at Hussey’s for 26 years, said hunting season is good for business there. This year, because of the pandemic and ongoing problems with the supply chain, the store is very short on ammunition and sports some empty shelves. Some days, he said, they get more than 100 phone calls from people looking for ammo.

Pelletier said some people are likely hoarding ammo, just as some hoarded toilet paper when that was in short supply early in the pandemic.

Business there still seemed pretty brisk, though, and every few minutes a call went out over Hussey’s PA system seeking an employee to tag another deer.

David Larrabee of South China tagged a doe at Hussey’s, one of two deer he encountered in the woods that morning. He said he hunts every year, but enjoyed it more when relatives he used to hunt with were still alive to join him. A few other hunters, spotting the deer in the back of his truck, ambled over to check it out.

Jason Drake of Damariscotta hunted Saturday morning but didn’t get a deer. Instead, he got wet. Soaked. So he left the woods, put his clothes in the dryer and went to Hussey’s where he planned to purchase a tent-like hunting blind, so he could return to hunt in the rain without getting so wet.

In Oakland, at D & L Country Store, employee Loretta Fortin said the parking lot was getting full, but she did not know how many deer had been brought in. They were trying to keep people moving.

“We’re getting pretty busy right now,” said Fortin.

Annie’s Variety in Sidney had seen five or six deer come in Saturday morning. Moosehead Trail Trading Post in Palmyra had only been open a half an hour by 9:30 a.m., but they said they were busy.

Kevin McKinney of China was hunting with his 14-year-old son and a good friend in a small hunting camp in China on land owned by his boss. When he saw a deer from the window of the camp around 7:30 a.m., he went outside and shot it.

“I was just in the right place,” he said of getting the 128-pound deer just an hour or so into the start of hunting season. He said his favorite part about hunting is getting to eat the meat, which he processes himself.

Mike Tesseo of Sidney was in a tree stand in Somerville when five deer approached him. He shot the biggest of them. He was hunting with his girlfriend’s daughter, Lexani Peaslee, who has been hunting for three or four years but has yet to get a deer. She said she liked the excitement of the hunt, and planned to go back out hunting some more Saturday, as long as it didn’t get too windy.

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