Archive for October, 2007
Posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
The 2007 deer season extravaganza is upon us. It is an exciting time of year to live in New England. Please don’t even get me started on the Red Sox. How am I supposed to get up early to go hunting.…I mean work…. when I, like the rest of Red Sox Nation is glued to the television until the wee hours? My father-in-law wants to know why the games have to start so late. I need to take a class in time management. World Series and sleep deprivation aside, deer season has renewed my deliberation of hunter access, private property and “posted” signs. I feel a history lesson forthcoming.
Today’s sportsman, without doubt, have to deal with a vastly different landscape than did their preceding brethren. More difficult? Not as good as? More restricted? I’m not sure, but it is unquestionably different. To start, the Native American concept of land ownership was exceptionally different from the legalistic and individual nature of European ownership. A major factor in treaty disputes was Native Americans’ concept of land and land ownership. Indians fought among themselves over hunting rights to a territory but the Native American idea of “right” to the land was different than that with which we have become accustomed. The Indians had no concept of “private property,” as applied to the land. For the most part, the Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans. The question begs to be asked…..did the Native Americans make use of “POSTED” signs. Were they ever given a reason to exclude access? Had trespass even been imagined?
Let’s move forward. In the early years, in what is now the United States, the British granted charters to large land companies, which were essentially comprised of wealthy land speculators who resided in England. These land companies had the authority to issue land grants to those individuals who were loyal to the crown. The crown ultimately controlled all of the lands in these huge charters, with the land companies acting as agents of the crown. Some of the more famous of these land companies were the London Company, Massachusetts Bay Company and the Plymouth Company. A proprietorship was responsible for the granting of lands from the charter, as agent for the charter (and therefore, for the crown). When these disbursements of land were made, the land itself was laid out in descriptive form in much the same way as later deeds, with landmarks and other prominent identifying data. Do you suppose these land proprietors put up “POSTED” signs. Did you have to be a loyalist in order to hunt on someone else’s land? And…..what about the deer? Who did they belong to?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Central Maine Hunting Report • Categories: Hunting Reports
Posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
I spent most of this week getting ready for the opening of “deer season”, that is firearm season for white-tailed deer hunting. I’ve been to training sessions, collected all the necessary supplies, learned how to remove the brain stem and lymph nodes to test for Chronic Wasting disease, and visited most of the meat cutters that I will be checking for the next five weeks.
One morning, on my way to introduce myself to a local meat cutter, I spotted a large group of Canada geese in a field, so I stopped to watch them for a few minutes. Off in the distance, on the edge of the field, at the very top of a bright yellow maple tree, I noticed a smallish bird perched. For a few seconds, I think my heart stopped beating; I was hoping that this was a northern shrike. Not that shrikes are rare, Maine Audubon’s bird alert has reports of them throughout the state this week, but I haven’t been able to get my eyes on a shrike for over 2 years.
As a birder, I am often plagued by what I call “nemesis birds”, birds everyone else is seeing but me, or birds that show up ten minutes before or after I arrive. This is very typical for me, and for the past two years it seems that everyone was seeing shrikes but me. People would tell me, “had a shrike on my ride in today”, “there was a shrike in the field just ten minutes ago”, “my shrike was in its normal spot again this morning”. I have been looking all over a shrike. I am outstanding at finding things that look similar to shrikes, such as mockingbirds, but a shrike, I couldn’t find one to save my life. Even my brother, who never so much as looked at a bird until he had kids, called me last spring, wanting help figuring out a bird they had seen in his suburban Boston backyard. “It was the strangest thing” he said, “it was small and grayish, with a little mask, and I swear Jude, it went after a chickadee, but it wasn’t much bigger than the chickadee?” I cheerfully explained what he saw, and what the bird was doing, but in my head, I have to confess, I was thinking, “figures, my brother and ten year old niece are finding shrikes, but I have yet to see one”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: Hunting Reports
Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
Saturday, October 20, was youth deer hunting day. It provided a great opportunity for Regional Biologists to interact and talk with hunters as well as collect deer biological information on northern Maine’s deer herd. This special deer hunt for junior hunting license holders (ages 10-15 years) is very popular in Aroostook County and we see a lot of young hunters taking advantage of this hunting opportunity.
Northern Maine had unusually warm temperatures with very heavy rain and wind last Saturday morning . Generally, this is not the best of deer hunting conditions, but many hunters did report seeing deer, and a few youth hunters were successful in tagging one. I checked a couple of nice bucks at Northstar Variety in New Sweden, the largest a 9 pointer weighing 148 pounds field dressed. Regardless of the outcome, everyone seemed to be enjoying this hunting opportunity and the camaraderie of being outdoors together. Certainly, a successful deer hunt shouldn’t be measured solely on whether a deer is harvested, but as a great opportunity to get out with young hunters and educate them on hunting safety, outdoor skills, hunting laws and etiquette. Most importantly, this is a chance to spend some valuable time with a young relative or friend.
Hunters are now reporting fewer bear sightings. We still have a high bear population in northern Maine but because fall bear foods, particularly beechnuts, are not abundant, bears have started to den early. Because of this behavior November deer hunters will have very few opportunities to harvest a bear.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Aroostook County Hunting Report • Categories: Hunting Reports
Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
The fall turkey season appears to be quite a success, at least in the portion of the turkey hunting zone that falls within Region F (eastern part of WMD 17). Turkey registration stations in East Corinth, Old Town, and Milo tagged 36, 11, and 14 birds respectively. These numbers include birds taken in the first fall shotgun season and turkeys taken by bow and arrow.
Waterfowl hunting in the area continues to be productive. While duck numbers do not seem to be bolstered by incoming migrants, migrating geese are starting to come through the area. It’s a very unpredictable situation though; one morning you may observe hundreds of birds, and the next day it seems as if only a couple of flocks are in the area. The key is to keep scouting and when birds are in your area – take advantage of it!
A couple of friends of mine came up from Pennsylvania to do some upland bird and waterfowl hunting. The grouse hunting was very good. We hunted reverting farmland in the central and northern parts of the Region and were not disappointed. Most areas yielded 5-6 flushes on grouse, but some areas provided upwards of 15 flushes. The woodcock hunting in the central part of the Region was also very good. I believe we were still hunting mostly resident birds, but this is usually the time of year that the migrants will be making their way through the area. If you have ever gotten into a “flight” of woodcock, you’ll know what I mean when I say the action can be fast and furious!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Penobscot Valley Hunting Report • Categories: Hunting Reports
Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
Last spring I was out harvesting moose lungs again, this time on Toe-of-the -Boot. Say what? In recent years quite a few young moose have died of heavy tick infestations and/or lung worms, which is a rather new and very important development for moose “managers.” Those moose are generally approaching age 1. Bigger moose are much better able to handle tick loads. The speculation is that the tick populations grew following the build up of the moose population. If recruitment into the population of older animals is down, “allowable harvest,” as a percentage of the population at large, may be changing downward.
We need to investigate, but how? It is nigh impossible to get good information on the magnitude of this loss. And we aren’t sure whether the loss is constant or periodic. These moose tend to die in late winter when not many people are in the woods to notice and when getting around is difficult due to rutted and/or soft roads, high water, and patchy snow cover. Aerial composition counts which could be compared to herd composition counts done in the 80s are out because yearlings aren’t too readily distinguished from older animals. What to do?
NH has taken the approach of radio-equipping calf moose & monitoring their survival. Preliminary results don’t look good for the moose. We could follow suit except for the expense. And even then, it is doubtful sample size would be sufficiently large to be sure the rates obtained are representative. The only practical answer appears to be to follow trend information such as hunter success rates, reported sighting rates, incidence of road kill, and possibly age structure of the harvest.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Moosehead Region Hunting Report • Categories: Hunting Reports
