Cheaters Outdoor TV

The daytime TV show Cheaters is making an outdoor version to expand their market. First episode Vern from Vermont is caught in the act of cheating on his wife with “a fat ugly cow” according to his soon to be ex. Exciting TV for sure

ALASKA/YUKON MOOSE
Score: 249 1/8
Location: EARN LAKE, YUKON
Hunter: REAL LANGLOIS
Year Taken: 2008
P&Y

While recent moose permit lotteries have been staged on Thursday evenings, Cabela’s lobbied the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which conducts the lottery, for a Saturday event that would be more easily targeted toward families and those who would travel to the event. Activities will begin at 10 a.m. this year and continue throughout the day. The actual drawing will begin at 4 p.m.

BDN

So once again I miss the draw…. I’m sitting in NC waiting for the results to get posted tonight like many other hopeful hunters. Maybe my luck will hold after all I have been drawn twice before…..but one of these days I’m going to make the lottery in person.

Loading my first moose in 1995

Maine Moose Lottery deadline is this Friday the 13th so if you plan to get your chance to hunt you better get cracking. I just submitted my info on line hoping that I get drawn for the 3rd time. I lived in Maine for a number of years and never got drawn but move out of the state and I’ve been struck by lighting twice.

Moose meat is some of the best table fare you’ll ever find so the opportunity to fill my freezer is part of the reason I keep applying. The other and really the more important thing is the hunt itself in some of the prettiest places you’ll ever see. Fall in Maine means spectacular foliage with the woods coming alive with absolutely spectacular colors. A moose hunt just gives you a reason to be out in the woods at this special time.

Well I hope Friday the 13th turns out to be a lucky day for me. The drawing happens in June and I’ll have links to the results as soon as they are available.

White Bull Killed in Vermont

The taking of an albino moose in Vermont by a teenage girl has brought up the debate again. The photos of the moose killed in Vermont are rather impressive. Within the hunting community there are two basic camps a trophy or something that should be protective.

I fall in the trophy camp I see no reason to protect an animal that has a recessive gene. Albino animals are often deaf and suffer other abnormalities that make survival in the wild a lot more challenging. By protecting them you risk passing on the trait to future generations.

One of the arguments against the killing of albino animals is that Native Americans saw them as sacred or special. While there are numerous stories of how magical encounters with ghost deer or buffalo by Native Americans there is also stories about how they killed and used their hides for special powers.
I see it like many of the other characteristics of the animal that we hunt be antler size, beard length, or whatever we see that makes it special to us.
With that said it is sad that a hunter especially a young hunter has to hide their identity because of the craziness that the legal taking of a rare moose.

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department moose registration report on the kill shows the moose was shot with a rifle at 7:15 a.m. Oct. 20 on the North Side of Black Mountain in Averill, just south of the Canadian border. The region is a haven for moose with its vast stretches of undeveloped paper-company land and the sprawling Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. The area is crisscrossed by dirt roads where a motorist can wind by forests, mountains and bogs for an afternoon without seeing another car.

The bull moose weighed in at 744 pounds and had antlers with a spread of 45 inches. The hunter was among 770 people awarded a legal permit to shoot a moose in Vermont during the Oct. 16-21 season. About 11,000 people applied for permits in this year’s annual lottery.
Although Vermont has restrictions on moose hunting, there is no prohibition on shooting an albino moose.
The animal was hauled out of the woods by horse — a common practice — loaded into a pickup and brought to be tagged and registered at the Island Pond weigh station, a temporary setup erected for the season at a highway department garage on Railroad Street. Vermont State Game Warden Jason Dukette received word that an albino had been shot and was at the weigh station to study the animal, which he estimated to be about 2 years old. The moose’s eyes were pink, as were its hooves — indicating a true albino.
“It was as white as white can be,” Dukette said.

Burlington Free Press

Congratulations to the successful hunter You have taken a spectacular trophy.

Loading my first Maine Moose

Today is the day for the annual Maine Moose Lottery that many of us wait for like a kid waits for Santa on Christmas Eve. This year Maine Inland Fisheries is holding the event at LL Bean in Freeport Maine and for those in the area it is probably worth checking out. The moose lottery has been going on for a number of years in the early days they actually had a barrel with all the applications and the winners were hand drawn at the event. Technology has caught up with them and the names are now drawn by a computer.
In the past those who couldn’t attend the event could listen to a live radio broadcast as politicians and local celebrities read off the names of the lucky ones that got drawn. When I lived in Maine we would spend the evening listening to the radio broadcast but never heard my name read. Once I moved from Maine to North Carolina I couldn’t get the show but I was excited the first time I got drawn because my brother called me after hearing my name broadcasted over the radio.
The last couple of years technology caught up and the radio broadcast was carried over the net by Skinny Moose Media making it possible to listen again. Unfortunately the airways will be silent tonight when the draw happens and here is why….

This year’s event, as I said, will be at L.L. Bean. I contacted MDIFW to ask them if they would consider holding off posting the names of the winners until the end of the show, or at least later. The answer was “no”!
It seems a shame that private business was called upon to save the show and no effort is being exerted on the part of MDIFW to make sure people have a reason to attend the show rather than wait until 6:30 the night of the show and go online and see if they won or not. This reasoning makes little sense to me. I’m pretty small potatoes compared to other businesses and enterprises that lay out considerable expenses, time and effort to put on a show.

Tom Remington Black Bear Blog
This is really a shame and cuts into the nostalgia of the event. So I guess I’ll have a quiet evening at home and just log into the results once they are posted. Technology is good but sometimes it’s also the enemy. I hope in future years that Maine considers holding off the names until they are read at the event.

Check back here for a link to the winners once they are posted this evening. Good Luck to everyone.

Don’t forget the Moose Lottery is being drawn tonight from Fort Kent Maine. Tom over the Black Bear Blog is doing a live stream from there. One of these years I’m going to have to get up there for the lottery but like many of you tonight I’ll be sitting around my computer straining to hear my name or one of my many friends and relatives. Good Luck.