I posted this picture and caption on my Facebook page the Sunday after I got back from our 2025 Maine moose hunt. The post has reached more than 170,000 people and garnered 400 comments. I am currently talking with the Maine Warden Service and the Maine Professional Guides about what next steps I can take. I will name the guide and his guide service in order to make sure no other hunter has the experience that we had. A Maine moose hunt should be a celebrated event and for some, a once in a lifetime hunt. This is me after 3.5 days of moose hunting. It was one of the worst hunts that I have experienced. The guide we hired showed up hung over/still drunk from the night before. He admitted he didn’t scout. He slept in the backseat...
I had a pit in my stomach when I first saw the photo. I was ok with the bobcat behind my house. I loved having the fox around. But that coyote was an unwelcomed sight. To make matters worse, it was walking past my camera every night and every morning. Sometimes even during daylight hours. What is it about coyotes that causes us to have such polarizing gut reactions? I have hunted coyotes and I have seen them in the woods while I have been deer hunting. There are few things more unnerving than walking into your stand in the dark and hearing a coyote howl close by. The coyote on my trail camera was just too close to my house and looked too comfortable coming and going. I am not the only one who feels like this. The fur bearer management...
When George Smith died three years ago, I lost one of my biggest cheerleaders. He was always trying to figure out how I could advance my outdoor writing career. He connected me with the editor at Downeast Magazine when they produced an issue all about hunting. My article was featured on the cover, and I was the center article. George published his book, "Maine Sporting Camps," one year before he was diagnosed. He asked me to write a chapter so that I could say that I was a published author. He was forever promoting me and encouraging me. When George died, the voice of the Maine's outdoors became quieter. Until now. It is with some emotion and excitement that I announce the launch of Hunt & Harvest. My monthly column will appear...
In October 2023, I met Jim Shockey during his stop at Cabela’s on his book tour. We talked writing, the outdoors and hunting. He invited me to come up to Pacific Rim Outfitters on Vancouver Island and hunt spring black bears. I couldn’t say no. When I stepped off the small plane at the Port Hardy airport, the weather had turned gray and rainy. I rented a car and made my way to camp. Dave met me when I arrived, showed me to my cabin, and told me that I could drop my bags and change before my guide R.J and cameraman Ryan, would whisked me off to sight in the rifle that I would be using. It was Jim’s father’s Remington 700 300 Win Mag with a Leopold scope. We arrived at a gravel pit that was frequently visited. Empty shells littered...
As the 2024 hunting season kicks off, I can not believe that it has been a decade of hunting bears in Maine! I remember planning the initial meeting at Cabela’s and inviting every hunter I knew in the greater Portland area. I wanted to prove that there were plenty of people who were passionate about bear hunting in Southern Maine. If I remember correctly, the room was close to packed when James Cote started talking about the bear referendum and what the plan was to win at the ballot box. I look back now and cannot believe it was 10 years ago! I had never hunted a bear. I knew how to talk about the various methods but I had not experienced a hunt. When that meeting ended, a bear hunter named Steve offered to teach me how to bear...
Last August, I had the opportunity to get a fawn that had been hit by a car. I called the warden, got a tag and it was off to the taxidermist. Maybe a little morbid, but unless you are willing to use a tag to shoot a fawn, there are few ways to aquire the young deer. This week, I brought it home to my office. The woman who did the taxiermy work did an incredible job on the fine details. The fawn's eyes, lashes, ear hair and whiskers are exact. It is amazing to look at the small body and the characteristis and then look at the buck above it and the changes and simularlities. The fawn was about two months old and his pedicals were just beginning to form. The skull is close to the same size as my coyote's skull but a bit more rounded on...
In December 2021, my grandfather passed away. Weeks before, I jumped him when I came bursting into his house to tell him and my Grammie that I had shot a buck and had completed my Grand Slam. He laughed at my overzealousness but hugged me and told me how proud he was of me. We made a deal hours before he passed away that he was going to deliver me an 8 point buck since I have yet to shoot one. I held on to that belief all through the year. Dad and I obsessed over trail cam photos throughout the summer and fall, we had three really nice bucks showing up. They all seemed to be nocturnal, but they were around. Fast forward to the start of the season and my morning kicked off pretty well by taking a nice doe in the first hour. I had...
I am a big supporter of teaching the 'why' behind hunting, especially to the youth in my Maine community. So I offered to bring a bear rug and skulls into my daughter's kindergarten class, and it was the highlight of the week for both them, and me.
It was an emotional rollercoaster of a season. All I wanted was an eight point buck. I will save the story for another time, but it didn’t happen. But what did happen changed my whole perspective on deer hunting. After twenty years of hunting, I am done shooting small bucks. I shot my doe in the first hour of rifle season, so having the ability to shoot a doe AND a buck gave me the opportunity to keep hunting and looking for that big buck. I could sit and watch more of the does and fawns at different spots on the property. One morning, I watched a fisher running around my stand. I enjoyed being in the woods, knowing that I had a specific buck that I was after and that I had already put meat in the freezer. This season was more of...
