On the hot seat in my deer seat.

White Tales November 24, 2012

 3:30 pm, thirty-three degrees, a strong wind whipping the trees all around me, and I am toasty warm, in love with my new LavaSeat.

Made by Arctic Zone, the LavaSeat is a $20 product that has made my deer season oh so much more comfortable. I pop the Microcore pack in the microwave, 2 ½ minutes on a side, place it inside the fabric cover, fold it up, and it’s ready to stuff in my backpack for the half hour trip to my deer stand alongside Hopkins Stream.

Amazingly, the seat remains hot for the two hours I’m in the deer stand, and even now, an hour after I returned home, it’s still hot!

The LavaSeat is ideal for all sorts of outings, from football games to spring fishing in the boat, but I’m afraid Linda is going to take possession of it this winter for her short commutes to school in her Altimer. She’s always been envious of the hot seats in the front of my Subaru Forester, so I’ll be hard pressed to keep the LavaSeat to myself.

 At 3:45 pm, I heard a snap, turned to the left, and saw a deer coming my way. I got the scope on the deer, decided it was a doe, and lifted my head to watch it walk my way. When it got about 20 yards from me, just to the left of my stand, it turned slightly and I saw the spikes.

They were shorter than the ears, about 6 inches long. It was probably the same spike horn that Linda had seen in the yard last Saturday morning about 8 am while I was hunting over in Fayette.

I thought about shooting, briefly, and decided to let this one go. But I sent him a silent message to meet me in two years, same time, same place.

The November firearms season on deer was great, many deer sighted, lots of small deer promising good hunting ahead, plenty of opportunities to shoot, good times with good friends, and best of all, the very real privilege of hunting with my 89-year-old Dad. We’ve been hunting together for 52 years.

Tomorrow I’ll get out the muzzleloader, make plans to hunt in what has become my favorite Maine deer season, and hope for tracking snow. And try to hold onto the LavaSeat for two more weeks!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.