Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
At 6:35 a.m. Monday, Mark Boudreau spotted a bull moose standing directly in front of him on a logging road. He and his nephew had barely started driving into their hunting area when they came face to face with the animal they had spent days scouting for. Just 18 minutes after legal shooting time, Boudreau’s long-awaited hunt was over.
Boudreau, 53, of Sidney, had been applying for a Maine moose permit since he was 23. After three decades of waiting, he finally drew one this year, having accumulated 40 bonus points along the way.
His nephew Nick Cummings was at the moose lottery in Acton when he heard his uncle’s name announced.
“I called him as fast as I could dial my phone, and the countdown was on,” Cummings said.
Boudreau hunted in Wildlife Management Districts 14 and 17 with his nephew Noah Cummings as his subpermittee. The family has hunted from its camp nearby since 1962, building a longstanding tradition around Maine’s moose hunt.
Together, they’ve participated in 22 moose hunts since 2014 and have yet to come home empty-handed.
Years of experience helped them prepare for Boudreau’s long-awaited hunt. They scouted nearly every weekend, using trail cameras to monitor moose activity. Having hunted the same area in previous years, they already had a good idea of where to look.
In the four days before the hunt, they repeatedly saw moose in a recent cut where Boudreau would eventually take his bull.
Their plan was straightforward: drive to the spot where they had seen the moose. If the animals were gone, they would try calling to draw in a mature bull.
They waited at the end of the road until shooting time, then started driving at 6:31 a.m.
Four minutes later, they spotted the bull standing directly in front of them.
Boudreau and his nephew got out, loaded their firearms and had a quick, 10-second conversation before deciding the bull was the one they wanted.
Both hunters fired once. When the bull turned and stumbled away, they each fired again, and the moose fell.
The bull weighed 846 pounds and had a 46-inch antler spread.
For Boudreau, the moment marked the culmination of 30 years of hoping for a chance to hunt a moose of his own. Until then, he had served as a subpermittee on just one other hunt.
“He had a very emotional moment,” Cummings said.