Lots of partridge and rabbits killed

 

Lots of partridge and rabbits were killed in Maine in 1955. Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife sent a questionnaire to all hunters in order to collect game harvest information. Here’s what they found.

Deer   35,315

Partridge  185,690

Rabbit   193,525

Woodcock   22,660

Waterfowl   76,180

Gray Squirrel   27,940

Fox   27,940                                                                                                                 

Raccoon   31,290

Bear   2,275

Pheasant   34,145

I found this and lots of other interesting information and stories in the September 1956 edition of the Maine Outdoorsman and Conservationist newspaper.

I loved the story about awarding, for the second year in a row, a live Maine bear to the first Boston Red Sox player to hit a homerun during State of Maine Day at Fenway Park. It doesn’t say if the bear was on site to be handed over as the player stepped on home plate!

There’s a story about Blaine Grove who bagged the largest Tautog of the year, an 11 pounder caught off Nubble Light in about 10 feet of water. He used a double barbed spearhead.

And here’s another great story.

Ever see a fish eat a sea gull? A Neptune member relates that one day while relaxing on the veranda of the local yacht club, he saw a sea gull frantically struggling on the surface, only to be pulled under repeatedly until it disappeared from view. Then a large fish bobbed to the surface desperately thrashing to get down under. It had swallowed the sea gull and thus was too buoyant to sink. Our member states that he went down onto the float, grabbed the fish and hauled him up by the tail.  It proved to be a large monk fish. When the belly was slit open a few seconds later with a pen knife, out toppled the sea gull, which flapped its wings experimentally a couple of times and then took off.

Amazing!

There was an article about what they thought was the successful restoration of Atlantic salmon to the lower Piscataquis and Pleasant rivers. And a photo of a nice striped bass caught in the Medomak River just below Waldoboro Village.

And there was a story of the arrest of a guy for poaching three deer. But he was released and the charges dropped after they found both of his hands in casts from a motor vehicle accident.

There was also a lengthy list of legislative candidates endorsed by The Maine Fish and Game Association. Of 162 Democratic candidates, 93 “have been named acceptable by the association, which also approved 107 of 177 Republican office-seekers.”

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.