My son’s baseball game ended at 1:30pm. As soon as we got into the car, I clicked the link to watch names being read for the 2021 Maine moose lottery. I had 21 points going into the lottery. I watched Nate Webb, Director of Wildlife, read my brother in laws’s name. I recognized more names of people that I knew. Then, just a few pages into Deputy Commissioner Tim Peabody’s list of names, I saw mine. At the bottom of the page and before he read it, I saw my name. I was headed to Zone 2 in September to find a bull moose! It's not time to celebrate Celebratory text messages and social media messages started flooding in. I wasn’t celebrating though, I went into planning mode. We needed an outfitter. The last time that...
I sprayed my clothes with permethrin and packed my bag. Staci and I planned a day in the fields hoping to get a shot at a tom or two. We hadn't been out on an adventures in a while and we needed it. I had turkeys on my trail cameras coming through a certain trail every morning. Staci's husband had seen a flock of them in a field near her home. We made a plan to start there and then head over to the Sky Condo. For May, it was hot and buggy. Temps were going to be in the upper 70s. I had to think about what was worst; sweating while walking, scouting and wearing all of my hunting clothes or black fly bites, ticks and any other crawly critter. I drank a lot of water and looked like a camo-clad Marshmallow Man. In the woods...
Sunday hunting in Maine is probably the single most debated topic for hunters and nonhunters. During the Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Committee meeting last week, there was a lot of discussion around why Maine needs to join the growing number of states reversing these old blue laws. It was clear that Sunday hunting (in the Committee's minds) is really deer hunting in November and that is what they focused on as they discussed the proposed bills. The Proposed Bills There are three Sunday hunting bills; LD1212, LD1054 and LD1033 currently being discussed in Committee. LD1212 sets geographical boundaries for where Sunday hunting can occur (north of Route 2/Route 9) while LD1054 and LD1033 set the requirement for written...
There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation, captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population.
Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us...
I missed seeing what was happening in the woods so I decided to put a couple of cameras back out to see what was roaming around. I am not a fan of this. I have had pictures of this coyote for a while now and he (I assume it's a he) is always solo. He's healthy and makes his rounds in the same area that we do during the season. And I assume that he is the coyote that I saw while I was sitting in my stand last fall. Coyotes are a part of the woods and I get that but what I don't want to find are dead deer. This is the first time that I have had pictures of the two animals so close together (timewise and location-wise) Usually, I will get deer on the cameras, then he shows up and it takes 2-3 days before the deer return. We have not...
I just hit a deer, do you want it? My neighbor sent me this text during her morning commute to work. Had there been room in my freezer, I might have taken her up on it. I had done it before when I watched another driver hit another doe within 50 feet of where my neighbor was. It was the third deer hit that week in the same stretch of road. Why? A landowner is feeding them. A few years ago, I spoke with Maine IF&W’s then deer biologist about the impacts of feeding deer. We talked about the risk of diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease getting into the herd and spreading so rapidly, because of the unnaturally large population being pulled into a small area. We talked about the biological make-up of a deer’s stomach and how the...
As we plan for 2021, we know that we will not be attending sportsman’s shows. We won’t be able to catch up with fellow hunters, trappers and anglers and we won’t be spending money on all of those raffle tickets. And that is hurting hunting organizations – a lot. Many outfitters and conservation organizations rely on the foot traffic that these shows provide to help get reach more people which helps to draw more donations. Businesses rely on shoppers to buy the cast iron, jackets, wooden carvings, jerky and more but we will not there to make those purchases next year. And while everyone is still feeling the pinch of the pandemic and a changing world, we need to make sure that these organizations have what they need to continue with...
The emotions that go along with this are hard for any nonhunter to understand. There is a literal weight of an organ that earlier in the day, beat inside an animal and the figurative weight of choosing to kill an animal to fill your freezer. There is a dedication of always wanting to be better, to be ready for the right shot at the right moment. It’s spending money on gear, clothing and licenses every year. It’s packing up and heading into the woods, when it’s dark and coming out when it’s dark, day after day, hoping to get your chance. It’s appreciating the animal’s sacrifice and having a moment to give thanks before the work begins. Knowing that this animal will feed your family and friends for the year ahead. It’s not something a...
