Harvest Maine by Crystal Ward Kent

Author:Crystal Ward Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-03-22T16:00:00+00:00

THE HUNTERS

Most people dream of winning the lottery, but in Maine, that lottery might not be for cash but for moose. Cyrus Morgan of North Berwick saw his dream of hunting moose come true when he won the lottery for a hunting permit in 2010. Cyrus had been playing the lottery for ten years and wondered if his number would ever come up. As he entered his ticket at Cabella’s, he was hopeful but not confident, so he was shocked when his phone rang and a friend who worked at the store said Cyrus’s name had been called.

“I was ecstatic!” he recalls. “I’ve been hunting all my life, mostly white-tailed deer, and two of my dreams were to hunt elk out West and to hunt moose here in Maine. Finally, one of them had come true.”

Hunters can apply to enter the moose permit lottery in April; once their applications are approved, they have to wait until the winners are drawn in June. The lottery is run by Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and is open to both residents and nonresidents. The moose lottery allows a certain number of names to be drawn each year, based on the sustainability of the moose population. About three thousand permits are issued in any given year. Each hunter is assigned a zone to hunt within and is given five days to bag a moose. As of 2011, if a hunter is not successful, he must wait three years before he can be allotted another permit.

Cyrus had primarily hunted in the woods around his home and in the North New Portland area. The zone he was assigned was in Jackman, a rugged wilderness area along Route 201 and the site of Benedict Arnold’s desperate march to Quebec.

“We got up there on a Saturday night and started hunting on Sunday,” he recalls. “We saw signs and kept tracking Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. At first, I was only seeing cows and calves, no bulls, which was all my permit allowed me to hunt. Finally, on Thursday, I got my moose.” (Three types of permits are issued: for bulls only, for antlerless moose (young bulls or cows) and for bulls or cows.)

Cyrus’s kill was estimated to be about two years old, a young bull with a thirty-inch rack. Moose (and other game animals) must be taken to Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s weigh stations to have their stats recorded. Wardens estimate the age of the animals by taking one of their teeth. Hunters get a copy of the report and can also look up information about their kills online.

Guides tell of hunters who become so excited that they can barely fire their weapons when they sight their first moose, but Cyrus had no problem. “When I had the bull in my sights, my reaction was automatic,” he says. “All those years of hunting kicked in, and the minute I had the gun up on my shoulder, I just drew a bead and fired.”

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