I can whistle the theme to “The Andy Griffith Show” even though it ended its run on CBS long before I was born. Thanks to reruns on cable, I watched that along with “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres.” In my mind, they represented small-town life where everyone knew one another and everyone supported one another.
When I started deer hunting, it was fun to go to the fire station in town to tag the deer. You could talk to the crew and fellow hunters. Everyone would share highlights from the hunt with complete strangers who were just as excited.
Two years ago I shot a fantastic 8-point buck and stopped by the local bakery to show the owner, who was just getting into hunting himself. As he peered into the bed of the truck, the one and only Amy Calder (a Morning Sentinel reporter and columnist) walked by with her sister. They congratulated me and listened to the highlights of my hunt. They talked with my dad about how common it was to see deer in the back of a truck when they were growing up and that many kids went to school with rifles and shotguns because they were hunting before and after school. A huge change from today.
The community support around hunting is dwindling. Tagging stations are disappearing. If I need to tag a deer this year, I have to go to a different town. Some tagging stations refuse to tag deer until a certain time. The station closest to where I hunt will not tag a deer until 9 a.m. In early November, legal light is 5:46 a.m. If a hunter is lucky and gets a deer the first thing in the morning, they might have to wait a few hours or drive at least 30 minutes with their deer. Fewer and fewer stations are using certified scales, which makes it even harder to find a place if you are aiming for that 200-pound club.
A lack of employees to manage the tagging, locations unwilling to take on the workload, and a decline in the nostalgia of gathering to celebrate a successful hunt are among the reasons fewer business are registered stations. Technology is not helping. We no longer have to tag turkeys and I am sure that soon we will follow other states and have an online tagging form we can fill out.
It is sad but I miss the novelty of it. I love seeing other people at the tagging station and having that idle chit chat while we wait. In those moments, nothing else matters besides celebrating a successful hunt and putting meat in the freezer for the winter. A piece of the community comes together to support one another. Maybe that is what this world needs: more tagging stations, a little more Mayberry and a cup of hot coffee after a cool morning hunt.
Erin Merrill, an award-winning writer based in central Maine, writes “Hunt & Harvest” monthly. She welcomes emails at: [email protected].