I lived in Maine for a number of years and never got drawn for a moose permit. Move to North Carolina and I get drawn in 1997 and then again this year. In 1997 I was lucky to harvest a bull on day 3 of the 6 day hunt.
I never expected to get drawn this year when I put in, my friend Billy put in for the first time and we waited for the drawing. My brother called me after he heard my name read on the radio, they really do broadcast the lottery live. Then the planning began which I won’t go into at this point.
Day one of the hunt I passed on a bull about the size of the one I killed in 97. I ended up going till day five to punch my tag here is the story of that day.
In the predawn hours we arrived at the first extremely large field we planned to hunt. When shooting light came, we struck out down this field road scanning the area for moose. Billy was the first to spot them and they were about a mile away. We couldn’t tell if they were cows or bulls but we saw the direction they were headed so we started to close the distance.
We followed the road around and it circled right towards them, as we got closer we saw what appeared to be a large bowl in the earth that had been a wood lot at one point but was now clear cut. We could see the dark forms of moose feeding on the new growth but they were still some distance away. To increase our odds at this point it was decided that only Brian and I would move on from here to hopefully stalk within shooting range. George, Jon and Billy stayed back to watch the excitement.
We moved up about 50 yards and we could see that there was 5 moose at least in this bowl; we had expected it to be two from our earlier observation. Brian and I moved toward the tree line for more cover and then started once again to close the distance. We worked our way up to a line of spruce trees where we briefly stopped and glassed them. We could see 3 cows and 2 bulls one of the bulls had a decent rack. At this point we are still outside of my comfort zone I have for shooting game with my 30/06 and absolutely no more cover between them and us to use. We decided that we’ll walk in a straight line towards them and hope they think we are another cow joining them. Brian will make cow calls only if they get skittish and start to move away. We cover the 75 yards or so across the open with little reaction from the moose.
There is a bit of high grass on the rim of the bowl so I use it as cover as I go to one knee to line up the shot. Brian beside me is looking through binoculars and we are verifying that we are both talking about the same bull and lining up on him. Bull fever is tearing me up I swear they have to hear my pounding heart beat and my gasps for air. Brian tells me to take my time but I can’t hold the gun steady enough. That’s when the thought hits me take ‘em like a turkey. I drop to my butt, and get my gun balanced on my knee and begin to get my breathing under control. My breathing is much better and I really begin concentrating on finding the landmarks on this bull to place my bullet in the kill zone. Crosshairs line up and I squeeze the trigger and the instant sound of the bullet whacking its target is un mistakable. I line up again on the still standing bull and fire again. The rest of the moose are milling around unsure of where the shot came from. Brian says to me you hit him good put another one in him. As I line up on him again a cow steps in between us and the bull not allowing me another shot, what seems like a long time but was probably on seconds the cow moves away and I fire two more rounds. Bull fever is in full swing and the 3rd bullet hits a bit high on the shoulder and the 4th misses completely. Then this magnificent beast collapses and Brian Jumps up and yells, “ It’s over Boys”. Only at this point as I rise to my feet and Brian shakes my hand do the rest of the moose begin to move off. We then see another cow that we hadn’t seen leaving with them making it a total of six moose together.
When cleaning the moose we recovered my first bullet where it had gone right through the heart. What I believe was the second round only grazed the leg, the third went through the shoulders and was not recovered and the 4th was just a plain old miss. The distance I shot at was 175-200 yards the longest I have ever shot game.
The hard work was just beginning but we had it all butchered and packaged by 9pm that night.
I did not have to hire a Maine guide but I had 2 friends who are guides that went with me. You can do it yourself but if your unsure there is a lot of good guides in Maine to hire.
http://www.maineguides.org/index.html
Here is a bunch of info on the hunt and how to get in the lottery etc.
http://www.state.me.us/ifw/hunttrap/moosehunting.htm
2006 Application request form http://www.state.me.us/ifw/hunttrap/mooseapprequestform.htm
Overview and history of the hunt
http://www.state.me.us/ifw/hunttrap/hunt_management/moose.htm
