During my annual pheasant hunt in North Dakota, I usually see lots of whitetail and mule deer. But two years ago, most of our whitetail deer sightings were of dead deer. On one farm, I saw eight freshly dead deer in four days, including the biggest whitetail I’ve ever seen in North Dakota. I learned […]

“New Hampshire’s moose population has declined by 3,100, which is more than 40 percent, since 1997. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department has reduced the number of moose hunting permits by 60 percent in the last five years.” As New Hampshire goes, so goes Maine? That could be the sobering conclusion reached after reading […]

I’ve had some memorable hunts on Thanksgiving mornings, before gathering with family for the annual feast. Here are two of my most memorable Thanksgiving encounters with big bucks. An Icy Morning Heats Up Crunch, crunch, crunch. I could hear him plodding along in the frozen ground through a stand of spruce out in front of […]

I always get a lot of inquiries in November from deer hunters asking why we can’t hunt on Sundays. Here’s my answer. Sunday hunting was banned in Maine on February 28, 1883, and I don’t think we’ll ever hunt on Sundays here because – well, because we haven’t since 1883. Only six states prohibit Sunday […]

“The last stronghold for the Eastern brook trout and the habitat of our remarkable watershed will require leadership.” Those are the words of Roger Auclair, a first generation fisheries biologist for Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife whose career spanned 60 years at Moosehead Lake and the North Woods. Auclair was recently honored by […]

We’d been lifelong friends, and before I became a full-time Maine guide, I worked for him for a while in his Augusta lawn and garden retail store. But I never offered to take him on a professionally guided hunt, because it would have ruined my reputation. I did hunt with him a lot. And to […]

When sportsmen previously faced the challenge of defending bear hunting and trapping, their campaign got underway almost two years before Maine voters made their decision on the referendum measure in November of 2004. Planning for the campaign began in January of 2003 and by July of that year we had our comprehensive poll in hand, […]

I am sure it was the same deer. Last year, on the last day of the firearms season on deer, a small four point buck wandered up to my tree stand, offering a shot at about 15 yards. I looked him over carefully, decided he would be bigger next year, remembered how much I enjoy […]

You may win an amazing ice fishing shack. And you will definitely contribute to an improvement in Maine’s fishery. I’ve just ponied up $40 for raffle tickets, hoping to win one of the two creatively constructed ice shacks, and eager to contribute to the good work of Maine’s Fishery Improvement Network (FIN), sponsor of the […]

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Studies have shown that the sight of a big buck can send your blood pressure and pulse skyrocketing. Actually, that might be just the remedy for my problem, an erratic and often too-slow heartbeat. After passing out in a Gardiner restaurant on the Friday night before opening day […]