If you do it yourself, a Maine moose hunt is markedly different from a deer hunt, at least for me.
This year’s permit was only the second moose tag I have drawn since the lottery began many years ago. Maine moose permits are few and far between, which makes them all the more precious. You want to do it right, prepare, plan and persist, and maximize your odds any way you can.
You are excited and full of anticipation and, if you are like me, carrying some anxiety and pressure not to screw up.
The hunt did not start well. Somewhere between Ellsworth and the Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville, my double batch of homemade venison stew slithered out of its glass container when it broke in my YETI cooler. What a mess and what a setback for anyone who enjoys eating as much as I do. Lesson learned: always transport camp stews in plastic, not glass.
But we didn’t go hungry. Most of our hunt crew are exceptional camp chefs, especially Winterport outdoorsman Greg Goodman, who made up for my lost stew with a knock-your-socks-off beef stew of his own creation
My cow permit was for an adaptive unit hunt in wildlife management district 4A, a post-rut hunt that is known to be lower odds because mating is over and the animals are dispersing deeper into the hardwoods for pre-winter foraging. Experts advised getting into the woods off the roads and still hunting, much like a deer hunt, which we did for the first three days.
Our other hunt crew, Josh Cottrell and Joel Smith, killed a cow in a clearcut the first day. Also on day one, my sub-permittee, son Scott, and I spotted a cow in hardwoods at about 70 yards. We had a clear shot but one problem: a yellow sign on a large beech tree between us and the moose read, “Access with Permission Only.” We did not take a shot.
We left the area exasperated, asking ourselves, “How can this be?” No hunting signs in the Great North Woods? Our OnX app indicated private land. The owner had every right to post it. Bad break. We moved on.
By Wednesday night, after three days walking twitch roads and clearcuts with nothing to show except a few deer sightings, we were beginning to worry, to furrow our brows with the tired moose hunter’s “Thursday sweats.”
New strategy: heater hunt. We would drive backcountry side roads and hope for a break. I had an ace in the hole. An area I had scouted earlier in the fall was a bit of a drive but had decent sign. We got up extra early and, at first light, drove the back roads slowly, methodically searching for Waldo’s jet-black profile among the hardwoods, dark stumps and tangled thickets.
Suddenly at 7 a.m., a moose appeared. A large cow bolted from the brush from right to left and disappeared into rust-colored ferns and beech whippets. My son Scott, with better eyes and faster reflexes than I, bailed out of the truck and got his .270 to his shoulder before I was even free of the truck.
The cow stopped about 50 yards into the woods. According to Scott, only the animal’s head was visible in his scope. I could not see it.
Pow.
As agreed beforehand, whoever had the shot took it. Scott did — a clean head shot that dropped the cow within 50 yards of the road. It was nearly the largest cow moose I had ever seen.
After celebratory hugs and happy small talk, we set about drying, dressing and quartering the moose. The most difficult part of field dressing was locating the ovaries, as requested by state biologists, which proved trickier than it looked in the training video. At the tagging station, we learned that most hunters were unable to fulfill the request.
One of the crew observed that we had paid our dues, hunting hard before getting a break. Earlier in the fall, a moose guide I know had said, “Oh, you have a tag for the adaptive unit hunt, huh? You might as well just go ahead and buy a beef critter.”
Thankfully, we proved his cynicism wrong. Lady luck was riding with us. Successful moose hunts, I am convinced, are like deer hunts: they require a blessed mix of sheer luck and good strategy to close the deal.
What a memory. Maine is a special place for anyone who loves the outdoors, and our iconic moose remains an integral part of its natural tapestry.
