When 720 hunters and their friends and families head afield early Monday morning on the opening day of this year’s first moose-hunting season, they’ll have a formidable foe to overcome in order to fill their tags.
No, not the moose. Mother Nature.
Temperatures across the northern tier of the state, where the bulk of the hunting will take place, are expected to reach the upper 70s. According to the state’s moose biologist, those conditions will present a challenging scenario for hunters.
“The interesting thing that’s going to happen up north next week is weather,” said Lee Kantar, a wildlife biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “We’re in this trend where we’ve got wicked warm, stinky hot, humid weather … we need a change so we get a crisp fall morning.”
That’s not likely to happen, especially early in the week. Kantar said hunters need to prepare for a full six days afield — the first season stretches from Monday until Saturday — and to take advantage of conditions that might favor them a bit later in the week.
“If it looks warm and gross Monday and Tuesday, but better later in the week, they’ve just got to stay calm, and hopefully the weather’s going to turn,” Kantar said.
Kantar explained that on unseasonably warm days, the moose may still be moving around, but they’ll likely be doing so deeper in the woods, where it’s cooler.
“That means people are going to have to go more after them and become more of a deer hunter than a ride-the-road-and-look-for-a-moose hunter,” Kantar said.
This year Maine wildlife officials allotted 2,080 moose permits for one of four sessions. The state’s modern moose hunt was first held in 1980 on an experimental basis, and after a one-year hiatus, a hunt has been held annually ever since.
The details of this year’s moose-hunting season:
- Sept. 25-30, with 720 bull permits in eight Wildlife Management Districts in northern and eastern Maine.
- Oct. 9-14, with 1,095 bull permits in 19 WMDs.
- Oct. 23-28, with 220 cow permits in five WMDs.
- Oct. 30-Nov. 25, with 45 any-moose permits in five WMDs in central Maine.
Kantar said he has been doing field work on moose since July, and last week noticed that despite warm weather, the moose had moved out of the ponds that they’d spent the summer visiting. Therefore, hunters expecting to take advantage of pond sightings in order to fill their tag may be out of luck.
“People think this sounds pretty silly, but every aspect of a moose’s life is based around food,” Kantar said. “So where are [the moose] going to be? They’re going to be in new cuts. They’re going to be in choppings.”
Those recent cuts — from 2 to 15 years old — feature regenerating trees with tasty and tender branches and leaves. Maples are a particular favorite of moose, which will also eat some aspen and some birch, along with smaller shrubs, according to Kantar.
Hunters can usually ascertain if an area is worth targeting.
“You can almost do a rapid assessment, which is, ‘Do you see places that have been nipped off by moose, and do you see a lot of that?’ Do you see fresh piles of moose pellets, to know that they’ve been in there recently?’” Kantar said. “And if they’ve been in there recently, meaning in the last week, they’ve got to be in there someplace.”
If hunters find an area like that, it’s not important that they actually spot a bull moose walking about. If there is sign of moose activity, bulls will be in the mix.
“We’re talking about a point [in time] when all the bulls are [mating] and they’re trying to chase down a female in estrous,” Kantar said. “[The cows] are in areas where they’re feeding and moving around. Those are the places that people have to focus on to take a bull.”
When the weather’s warm, it becomes more important for hunting parties to take proper care of the moose meat, so that it doesn’t spoil. Icing down the carcass or cutting it into pieces and packing it out are both good options.
“We have laws in place that people can cut up a moose and haul that moose out. You can do it,” Kantar said.
And hunters who make that choice often find themselves in areas that few others will be interested in hunting.
“Anybody who’s willing to hike in a ways — and we’re not even talking about a half mile — opens up another whole world of moose hunting,” Kantar said. “I think that’s significant. You get to a road that may be inaccessible by a four-wheel drive [vehicle]. You get out and go in there, on foot, and you may be going to a place that a lot of people don’t want to go.”
And at the end of a successful hunt, the hunter is able to enjoy not only an experience to cherish, but provide some unbeatable table fare.
“One thing that we’d like to talk more about, which we haven’t talked about enough in the past, is that if you get a moose, you’re talking about hundreds of pounds of organic meat, using a sustainable resource,” Kantar said. “That’s a huge thing.”
