The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Ready For the Big Game

November 19, 2008 - CASCO — As Trevor and Zach Tidd bushwhacked their way quietly through a southern Maine forest on Tuesday, they frequently stopped and listened while standing in tiny streams and spongy bogs.

Moose signs were everywhere – 7-inch-long tracks and piles of big, round droppings – but sights of moose were not.

This was not a leisurely hike. It involved creeping over logs, sloshing through water and treading softly to minimize the sound of crusty leaves. The slow work made it difficult to scan the woods, which was already dark and uncertain in areas.

"It's so thick in here, it's hard to see," said 13-year-old Zach.

A new moose season that opened earlier this month in southern Maine for the first time since 1920 will give new meaning to this traditional New England hunt.

Instead of sportsmen driving for miles on northern Maine logging roads, watching from truck beds to find giant moose racks and the thrill of calling in rutting bulls, this more southerly season is different.

This one's a real, old-fashioned hunt. And that means those who were lucky enough to get one of the limited number of permits will need to find the animals the hard way – by stalking them.

Sure, those large, dark, gangly critters are unmistakable. But how often is one seen in York or Cumberland counties, where the new hunt is concentrated?

Or, as Maine state moose biologist Lee Kanter said: When's the last time you saw a moose in Auburn?

Those who won one of 135 permits to hunt moose in the southern area that stretches south from Bethel down to just west of Standish will have to walk through woods, brush and wetlands just to find a moose.

The father-and-son team of Trevor and Zach Tidd knew the signs to look for, and found them easily when they hunted Tuesday. After an hour of walking quietly through the woods, as many as nine piles of moose droppings were found.

But when Trevor, 41, made a cow call, no answer came back.

November is not mating season for moose, so they're not as gregarious, boisterous and on the go as they are in northern Maine in September, when the state's regular moose hunt begins.

Still, there are advantages for those hunting moose in southern Maine during the new season, which ends Nov. 29.

For the Tidds, who live in sleepy downtown Casco, the cost is minimal. They drive a few miles to woods that they know from walking the forest while deer hunting. And sources and scouts are plenty here – friends and locals tip them to wooded knolls where moose have been seen.

So for those who do their homework, there's little need for a guide.

That's why even though he stopped putting in for a moose permit in the state's lottery about 20 years ago, Trevor Tidd wanted in on this new November hunt.

"When they opened up this section, I was excited to hunt here," he said.

That reaction was what the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife hoped for six years ago, when it started to push for a southern Maine moose hunt. The idea was that expanding the hunt would help thin the herd in the southern part of the state and thereby minimize automobile accidents with the animal.

While moose were hunted statewide in the early 1900s, official, modern-day hunts only date back 28 years.

Bills to introduce the hunt were introduced in the Legislature for more than three decades before a limited hunt was allowed in 1980, according to the state.

Today, up to 3,000 moose permits are awarded each year. This year was the first in which permits were awarded for midcoast and southern Maine.

Before the season ends, hunters will go to the area south of Sebago and Naples as well as around Auburn and Augusta to hunt the big animals during the traditional November firearm season for deer.

How many will have success in a hunt that often boasts an 80 percent success rate is hard to say.

Kantar said hunters will need to figure out how and where to find moose in southern Maine with so much posted land. And for those who do find moose – new challenges may await even if they bag one.

Like how to transport a 900-pound carcass without the benefit of having a truck close by.

"I think the real story will be how to get it out," Trevor Tidd said.

By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, November 13, 2008


Lakes:
Regions: Sebago


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News