Moose calling contest might have scared moose

I was there for last year’s Skowhegan Moose Festival, and I can tell you it was a very fun event. The fair included everything from great food to interesting booths.

I was a judge in the moose calling contest. It was tough to pick the winners because all of the participants, including the kids, were exceptionally good at calling moose.

Roger Lambert, Maine’s top moose hunting guide, was in charge and after the calling contest he led a crowd of over 1000 people sitting in the bleachers and calling moose, in an effort to set a world record for the most people moose calling simultaneously.

And they did set the record with 1054 people calling moose at the same time. It was pretty phenomenal. While they called, I watched the woods behind the fairgrounds hoping a moose would step out. That would’ve been fantastic, but it didn’t happen.

Later I decided if a moose had been in the woods and heard 1000 moose calling, it probably would’ve sprinted off to the next county!

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.