On Friday, Mark Ostermann of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will push a magic button on his computer keyboard. A couple hours later, the list of this year’s any-deer permit winners will be complete.
And after a couple more hours of tinkering with the data to make it searchable for readers, we’ll have complete results up at bangordailynews.com. State officials say they hope to have their list available by 5 p.m. We’re aiming to get things up and running on our site even earlier than that — maybe as early as 2 or 3 p.m.
This year the state will issue 34,160 any-deer permits to hunters. Those any-deer permits (commonly called “doe permits”) will allow the holder to shoot a deer of either gender during hunting season.
Those without any-deer permits will, generally, be limited to targeting deer with antlers.
This year’s regular firearms season on deer kicks off with Youth Deer Day on Saturday, Oct. 20. The following Saturday, Oct. 27, is the opener for Maine residents only. Non-residents will join Mainers in the woods on Oct. 29 — and the regular firearms season concludes on Nov. 24.