AROOSTOOK COUNTY, Maine — The first week of the 2017 moose hunting season is underway in several zones.
Former Fort Kent resident Larry Voisine tagged his fourth moose shortly before lunch on Monday, the opening day of this year’s hunt.“This was the best moose hunt I’ve ever been on,” Voisine said, as his 829-pound moose was being weighed.
Voisine said the 14-point bull was with a herd of six or eight cows when he called him over earlier in the morning.
“I was kneeling down in the grass, and he walked right past me,” said Voisine. “He was about 18 yards away.”
Frank Short of Prospect, seen here at the Fort Kent game tagging station, shot this 810-pound bull moose early Monday morning, as it was charging his hunting party. (Don Eno)
Voisine, who now lives in Ellsworth, said he was headed to Limestone to get his moose butchered.
“I’ve been on a lot of moose hunts, but this one takes the cake,” he said.
Lee Kantar, the state’s moose biologist, was at the S.W. Collins lumber yard in Fort Kent, helping to weigh moose and collect data.
With temperatures near 80 degrees Fahrenheit by lunch, Kantar and others gathered at the station were talking about the weather. Hunters also were concerned about getting their animals butchered and the meat on ice before it spoiled.
The hot weather, though, does little to slow down moose activity, according Lantar.
“It may change where they go,” he said, adding that moose may stay in more shaded areas when there is a hot sun outside. But, the biological urge to mate trumps an unusually hot fall,” he said.The early morning weather, which was more overcast, foggy and cooler, made for acceptable hunting conditions, according to Frank Short of Prospect, who also tagged his bull moose Monday in Fort Kent.
Short shot his moose near St. Pamphile, a Quebec town on the far western border of the state. According to him, the bull did not seem to care about the weather at all, only that someone was getting too close to his cows.
“He chased us down,” Short said, with a chuckle. “I was thinking, if I didn’t shoot him he was going to get us.”
A charging bull, in excess of 800 pounds, is nothing to take lightly, and Short took aim.
“I shot it at 15 yards. It was impressive,” seeing a charging bull, Short said.
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- Volunteers collect data, such as antler beam measurements and a tick count, on a moose that arrived at the Fort Kent tagging station on Monday. (Don Eno)
This was Short’s second Maine moose. He and his hunting group were staying at a camp near Dickey, just north of Allagash, where they were planning to butcher the moose and get the meat packaged.
“We have freezers ready to go,” said Short.
Kantar said, that, although the state limited moose permits in the southern part of the state this year, the same overall number of permits, 2,080, were issued as were allotted last year.
Kantar and a few volunteers collect data from each animal brought to the station. A tooth is removed, which is used to determine the age of the moose, antler beam measurements are taken, and ticks are counted on four different areas of the animal.
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- Kylee Lothrop measures the antlers on a moose while helping Amanda Demusz (left) the assistant regional Wildlife Biologyst at the Gateway Variety store in Ashland on the first day of the 2017 moose season in Maine. They were gathering data on the animals the hunters brought to the store to be weighed. (Gabor Degre | BDN)
This data is compiled and compared to previous years to help biologists monitor the health of the herd and make management decisions.
This week’s moose hunt in Zones 1- 6, 11 and 19 lasts through Sept. 30. Other seasons open later in October and November in various zones around the state.
