Helen Rice, 15, of Walpole, holds the antlers of the eight-point buck she shot on Wednesday, Dec. 3 during the muzzleloader season. The buck completed her Maine big game grand slam. (Courtesy photo)
Fifteen-year-old Helen Rice, a Walpole resident and Lincoln Academy sophomore, registered a big game grand slam, completing the feat on Wednesday, Dec. 3 with the tagging of an eight-point buck.
A big game grand slam is a lifelong goal for many seasoned hunters but is achieved by only a small percentage of sportsmen. To accomplish the feat, a hunter must tag four different species of big game in a calendar year, including a moose, bear, turkey, and white-tailed deer.
Helen Rice’s quest began after she was drawn for a moose lottery permit in June. She and her father Adam Rice both were lucky winners of the lottery. Adam Rice learned he received a permit for a bull moose in the first hour of the drawing. Toward the end of the drawing, they decided to pack up and go home when Helen heard the announcer say “Walpole, Rice, Helen.” She received a cow permit for Zone 4 the last week of moose hunting season in October.
“I knew if I put enough effort in, I could achieve it, but it was not fully my goal until I got my bear in September,” Helen Rice said.
She got her black bear the second day of her hunt in Ebeemee Township in Piscataquis County, where her father, a Maine Guide, has a bear-hunting guide operation. She used her grandfather’s 7mm-08 on the 45-yard shot while she was sitting in a tree stand over bait when the bear came into sight near dusk.
“It worked out pretty nicely,” Helen Rice said. “He came into the shooting lane, I fired, and down he went. It honestly, just went so smoothly. Went as perfect as it could be.”
Next up on her quest was a turkey, which she shot with a 20 gauge on Oct. 13 in Walpole on the first day of the fall season.
“The fall turkey season is kind of a challenge, as they do not come in on a call. You have to spot them, stalk them and creep up on them. You hope they don’t spot you first,” Helen Rice said.
The turkeys “popped out in front of us,” Helen Rice said, making for an easy target from about 22 yards. The tom, her second ever, weighed 17-18 pounds and had an 8 1/2-inch beard.
Helen Rice, 15, of Walpole, kneels next to the 585-pound cow moose she shot in October. (Courtesy photo)
With the bear and turkey checked off her list, the Rices headed north to Zone 4 and the Chamberlain Lake area in search of a cow moose in the final week of the season. They drove around on dirt roads scouting and spotted one about 100 yards off the road in a clearing on Oct. 28, the second day of their hunt.
Helen Rice once again went with her grandfather’s 7mm-08 for her first-ever moose.
“She never heard us or saw us,” Helen Rice said of laying the 585-pound cow down on an 80-yard shot at 7:45 a.m.
State biologists harvested the moose’s ovaries and examined it for winter ticks to study the overall health of the moose and the herd. The moose had worn marks on its hide from rubbing up against trees to sooth the itch from ticks.
Helen Rice poses with the 17- to 18-pound tom turkey shot she shot on Oct. 13 in her quest of a big game grand slam. (Courtesy photo)
Helen Rice’s quest for a bear, turkey, and moose went smoothly, but bagging the illusive white-tail deer proved a challenge. She got off a shot at a buck during the regular firearm season, but missed. Upon examining the gun, Adam Rice discovered the scope needed to be adjusted, as it apparently got jostled out of alignment on the bumping truck ride home after their moose hunt.
For four long weeks, Helen Rice sat in tree stands for parts of 20 days and spent hours walking through the woods searching for a buck. After coming up empty during the firearm season, her last chance at the big game grand slam came in the muzzleloader season.
She had shot a muzzleloader before in target practice but had never shot anything with it. She was a little worried about not having a scope, but she trudged on in hopes of completing her quest.
On Tuesday, Dec. 2, when there was no school due to freezing rain and snow, Helen Rice sat out in the inclement weather most of the day. With a week to go in the muzzleloader season, she was feeling discouraged.
“It just felt like we were putting all this time in and I started feeling it was not going to happen. It was the hardest thing. I still knew it was a big thing even without the grand slam,” Helen Rice said.
“She sat out in freezing rain the other day and was getting discouraged. You have to spend 1,000 of hours for only a handful of minutes. It is all about putting in the time and having patience, and hers paid off this season,” Adam Rice said.
With a fresh coat of snow on the ground, the Rices went out searching for tracks early in the morning before school. After school, Adam Rice told his daughter they were going to sit somewhere else that night, Helen Rice said.
They set up in a brush blind on the ground and waited. They did not have to wait long.
“We were there about eight minutes. We had just sat down and I kind of leaned over and saw something in the brush,” Helen Rice said. “I nudged Dad and whispered ‘There is a deer over there.’ We watched it for four or five minutes, and at one point I saw antlers scraping the ground. We watched him awhile and he came out in the shooting lane about 40 yards away and came straight at us.”
Helen Rice, 15, of Walpole, began her quest for the Maine big game grand slam with a bear, which she shot on Sept. 14 in Ebeemee Township in Piscataquis County. (Courtesy photo)
Helen Rice took aim and fired and her single shot muzzleloader filled the woods with smoke.
“It was almost like a magic trick, when the smoke cleared he was gone. We did not see him run or fall,” she said.
While wondering where he went, they followed his tracks for about 35 yards and found him lying there. Helen Rice said she was “completely overwhelmed” by the size of deer’s rack.
“I knew it was probably the biggest deer I will ever shoot,” she said.
The eight-point buck weighed 168 pounds, had a 22 1/2-inch spread, and was the perfect ending of her big game grand slam.
“I am so proud of her accomplishment,” Adam Rice said.
Helen Rice, the ultimate outdoorswoman, also loves fishing and tying flies, her mother Susan Bartlett Rice said.
The deer head is off to the taxidermist. With his “big antlers and chocolate brown coat, he is going on the wall,” Helen Rice said.
