Maine IFW Hunting Report Shows Strong November Deer Hunting Season To Date
Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife released its current hunting season report with strong results to date for deer season across all the regions in Maine. Northern Outdoors is in Region E – Moosehead Region. Here's what the IFW has to say about our region:
Region E – Moosehead Region
Good things are happening up in the Moosehead region, where all the area tagging stations are showing an increase in numbers over the past few years. “Some tagging stations are up by as much as 20 percent,” said IFW wildlife biologist Doug Kane. “Kokadjo is up, and it has been like a desert up there the last few years.” Kane thinks that the region hasn’t rebounded all the way back for the harsh winters of ’08 and ’09, but “people are happy because they are seeing deer.”
The big bucks are starting to show up in the harvest as well, as there was one 15-pointer that was shot in the southern part of The County, and it topped out at over 260 pounds. Kane, who is gathering biological data from a number of harvested deer, is pleased with what he’s seen as far as age structure of the harvest as well. “The yearling and 2-and-a-half year old numbers are really strong. The two-and-a-half year olds are really showing in the rut,” said Kane who says this bodes well for numbers in the spring.
The rut is in full swing as well. Kane remarked about an interesting observation. He was at the tagging station at Indian Hill last Friday, he handled three bucks, and all three were shot between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. All were out chasing down does in the middle of the morning. “I have never seen anything so marked as that,” said Kane. “I am hearing a lot of stories about bucks chasing does.” Kane also cautioned hunters not to get confused if the bucks seem to stop moving. He said that when does are in peak estrus, there isn’t much movement, but just before and just after is when you get the peak movement for bucks.
This season, hunters at Northern Outdoors have had very successful hunts with several deer over 200lbs so far.
Learn more about Northern Outdoors guided and unguided hunts at our updated hunting website: MaineDeerHunting.com
The IFW report was compiled by Mark Latti with IFW Wildlife Biologists.
Read the full report here.
Learn more about Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife here.
