I can not believe how fast fall slipped by and we are on the edge of winter.

Linda and I trapped this year for the first time in a couple of years. It has not been a real good season for us. It was our first year trapping on this end. With the new regulations we tried a different way of hanging our traps for fisher and marten. I blamed the poor success on the weather, the bait, the new lure we tried, the area. Not sure what it is. Speaking with other trappers and the local warden I found out we were not the only trappers doing bad. So I guess we will chock it up to a poor year.

As you know we have our new moose call. We are looking for a supplier of the parts right now. We will have it done in time for next summer for sale on the web site.

The new fox call I did for Buck Expert will be released at the SHOT Show in Vegas in January. With this call you can do fox barks, female fox in heat, rabbit in distress, red tail hawk in distress, coyote pup in distress, juvenile coyote howls, yips and barks. I will be working on a couple of other predator calls this winter and testing them as well.

We came up with some new scents for deer hunting. We came up with some synthetic based mixtures as well as real urines mixtures. The reason we went with the synthetic base is because of a trend in Canada that seems to be spreading here to the US. Fish and Wildlife Departments across the country and Canada are looking into banning real urine for hunting and trapping. To date there is not one shred of credible evidence that CWD or other dieses can be spread through urine or scat. However, that is not stopping officials from banning these products.

We did our tests in New York with some of our newly formed pro-staff. I wanted it tested in New York for a couple of reasons. First they have deer down there. It is a heavily hunted state and deer down there have been subject to about every product on the market. I reasoned that if it works there it should work anywhere.

I am still sifting through the information but from what Jeff and Jerry have told me we have a couple of winners especially with the synthetic line. It will either be available from Buck Expert next season or we will be bottling it under our Muskie Moose label. Hunting Season Recap The bird hunting was and still is right now very good. Some areas had a lot of birds. Linda and I had one road just 3 miles from the lodge that was producing 15 to 25 flushes any evening we hunted. That’s right I said evening, not a full day of hunting. Tom, our GSP had a fun fall and we went through some shotgun shells. I will say that the birds came out ahead but we got a few.

While Linda and I do not deer hunt much anymore we do have some encouraging news. There is some deer around. At least by the tracks we saw on the limited snow. Deer that were taken by a lucky few were big.

We heard from one very good deer hunter that the area over by Churchill Dam down through to Oxbow had a very good concentration of deer. This hunter sighted four legal bucks from the road in one day on his way home for Thanksgiving. Nothing that he wanted to shoot but he said big buck tracks crossed the roads back and forth. He wished he had more time to track down some of the tracks that he did cut. File that information away for next year!

It is going to be interesting to see the final moose numbers. I think we are going to see a big surprise and not in the pleasant direction. I predict the success rate is going to be below 70% overall. I saw a lot of parties going home with no moose. Many reported not seeing any moose. The successful parties got out of the vehicle and walked or took stands away from roads.

For some reason they want to change the dates of the hunt in zones 2 and 3 and increase permits in these zones. I have not seen the final bill but I can’t wait. I am really bothered by this legislation.

Years ago we took control of the moose hunt from the legislature and put it in the hands of our biologists. Now some legislators want to take that control back. You don’t always have to agree with our biologists, but right or wrong let’s stop this nonsense before they, the legislature, decide other wildlife issues that need to be handled by professionals not those trying to get votes!

Ice Fishing Season Long Lake was slow fishing open water season. I blamed this on the amount of rain we had. The lake would turn a muddy brown after a heavy rain. Your line would foul with an algae matter down to depths of 15 feet. The surface action was hindered by high water with lots of debris on the surface to foul your lures.

The spawning run in front of the lodge this fall showed the fish are still here. We saw numerous salmon in the 4 to 8 pound range. Many smaller fish below this range were seen as well. We saw two brook trout spawning that would both go over the 5 pound mark and possibly push 6.

Square Lake was the hot lake this past season. Don’t forget a couple of the winning salmon and trout in last years Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby came out of Square. I look for this lake to be a good bet for ice fishing again this winter.

Do not forget about the togue in Eagle Lake on the other end of the Chain. Linda’s 14 pound fish took the honors in the derby last winter. Even though we live on Long Lake now we will be making the trip over to Eagle to fish our togue holes.

The 2012 Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby dates are January 28 and 29. You can find them on Facebook.

We also have a Facebook page under Muskie Moose. Please give us a “like” if you happen to look for it.

Our online store now has the Mick Lacy and Buck Expert waterfowl calls and predator calls and accessories. We will be adding deer, bear, and hog products throughout the year.

We will also be recording predator sounds this winter for use by Western Rivers on their electronic call. These sounds are going to be geared for the northeast.

Posted: 2011-12-15

Fall just got here and already it has been extremely busy. What we have been up to Our new moose call is done. At least the prototypes and we have been out testing them. We got a great call! It is the first acrylic moose call to our knowledge. We are also using a larger megaphone in order to make it deeper sounding for our Alaskan and Russian customers. We also have played with the reed system and we may be coming out with two calls. One for our Eastern moose and another for the Yukon and Siberian moose.

We went on a long awaited Newfoundland moose hunt with four of our clients. I wish I could report it was a great hunt but it was far from it.

First the food was barely adequate. To me good food and lots of it are part of what makes a hunting trip. This place was horrendous.

The guides new as much about moose hunting as I do about brain surgery. They always called from the same spots and they were not even spots I would call from. The electronic call they used had two female sounds and they were not even of a female-in-heat. They would set the call out, turn it on, and leave it for 45 minutes to four hours in one spot. There is not a cow moose in the world that stands in one spot for that long calling. The moose they kill are all 1 ½ to 3 ½ years old. The young and dumb as I call them.

One of the hunters had a guide that was actually asleep when the moose came in. The hunter had to wake the guide up before shooting.

The guides failed to communicate to us each day what we would be doing in terms of walking. One day I left the vehicle with my guide expecting a short hunt and got back to the vehicle at 2:30 p.m. Had I known we were going to walk the distance we did I would have dressed lighter and worn a different pair of boots.

Our guide drove like a total idiot! I was tossed around in the back of a jeep while Jeff was bouncing around in the front seat. We both had fears about our rifles being thrown out of whack as well as our backs. Subtle hints to slow down did nothing.

These morons also did not know how to handle moose meat. They quartered one in the woods with a chainsaw! When we cut up our moose (yes we did it on our own) we had to wash the quarters off in the lake to remove bone chips and hair.

The meat shed was a haven for maggots. One of our party lost an entire rib section to maggots. I brought cheese cloth for my moose and the outfitter did not have any in camp for the others to use.

One of the guides when he was not hunting could be found in front of the TV watching The Price is Right or Maury and other daytime shows. Seems he could have been out cleaning the camp yard which looked like so sort of town dump.

The outfitter was hardly what could be considered a guide. He went into the woods for an evening hunt knowing we would be coming out after dark. He had no flashlight with him. It rained one day which to me is one of the best days to hunt moose and he did not get out of the vehicle until the end of the day. I assume he did not want to get wet. Jeff and I got out and hunted. When we would return he would ask if we were soaked? I know he wanted to go back to camp but Jeff and I had good rain gear and we were dry all day.

There were many more atrocious incidents both in the field and in the camp. The icing on the cake came on Friday when the outfitter shot a moose for the last member of our party that did not have a moose. Then the hunter was coerced into tagging it. We know that he should not have and it put a lot of tension on all of us. Once we all got together and sorted out what happen and who said what, we could not get out of camp fast enough.

The highlight of the trip for me was calling out Jeff’s moose with our new moose call. He was tough one to bring out as we spooked him on our way in. Our guide did not want me to call until we got to “his calling spot”. I ended up doing it like we do here in Maine and somehow convinced him to come back to us.

On the return ferry trip we met with other moose hunters that had similar stories. We did speak with two parties that had wonderful trips at separate outfitters. We wrote down the names of these outfitters for future reference. My advice if you go to Newfoundland for a moose hunt is do your homework and do the extra credit work to make sure you don’t have a trip like ours.

I returned home on Sunday and spent a grand total of 5 hours here and had to get back on a plane to go to Manitoba. That trip went as a trip should and renewed my faith.

I got back to Maine on Thursday. It is the first time since 1980 I missed a Maine moose hunt. I am at 73 moose to date. If I can get 2 more out of the next two hunts I can end the year at 75! 100 is looking like it is within easy reach now.

Bird Season is here!

Linda and I took Tom the bird dog out on opening day before the rain hit us. In 2 ½ hours we put up 5 partridge and shot at 3 and got 3. Tom might be 11 years old but he still has it. He pointed a grouse, it went up, I shot it. While retrieving the bird back to me he locked up on point again (with a bird in mouth) and another bird went up which I got.

We did not stay out long due to the rain but we failed to put up a woodcock. We are going to look some more this week, hopefully we can find some. It has been warm so I do not think the native birds left us as yet and the flight birds have not come down.

Posted: 2011-10-04

I am sad to tell many of you this but Reggie Poulin of Fish River Tackle passed away in June.

Reggie and I worked together all last summer to develop what I wanted in the ultimate muskie spinner bait and I felt we had achieved it. His line of spinner baits could be trolled or used casting. The lure was light enough for our shallow water on the St John and Big Black yet heavy enough for the deeper pools.

I had just taken on distributing Reggie’s product line for muskie as well as his trout and salmon line. Reggie also came up with a new spoon for muskie and pike that we found was a killer on Lake Trout.

Reggie will be really missed by those of us that worked with him and knew him.

Fishing Report

Long Lake FINALLY came on. Talk about late. Four and five pound salmon are showing on a regular basis. Surface temps this past weekend were at 71 to 72 degrees. Action can be had at 35 feet for numbers of fish, bigger fish are between 65 and 75 feet.

The streamer fly action on Eagle Lake came to slow down over the July 4th weekend. The fish finally dropped down but not deep enough you could not catch them with lead line or downriggers.

Remember, Square Lake was the sleeper this year and good fishing was still occurring this past weekend. Ice fishermen may want to remember this as well as those of you that may come up next year for the spring season.

Brooks and streams are still producing good fishing. Rain has kept the water high and cool. Trout are not moving to the secluded spring holes as of yet. There is still time left to get the kids here and have a good time with our native trout.

Muskie fishing is good. How can it go bad? The new boat launch in Frenchville is finally open. Small 14 to 16 boats can be launched here. Once the water drops I am not sure how far one will be able to travel in either direction. Canoes are still the preferred watercraft.

I have been informed that the Van Buren Boat Launch has been closed since last week and will remain closed for at least another week. It seems that Homeland Security dumped a pile of gravel to the entrance of the ramp for “Tests”. Van Buren does not have much to draw people there. Close that boat ramp and you take away one of the major reasons to go there. If I lived in Van Buren I would be on the phone to my US Representatives to get that gravel removed ASAP! I have been told it will be gone by the weekend of the Fort Kent Muskie Derby.

Those of you wanting to bring bigger boats here and do not want to deal with crossing into Canada to fish on Glazier Lake, can head to Van Burean. This launch features a paved ramp, docks that you can use overnight as well, and for the first time you will be able to register your muskie right at the ramp and it will be called in to the Derby headquarters in Fort Kent saving you a 45 minute ride. See the derby web site for all the rules. www.fortkent-muskie.com

Hunting Forecast

I have been reluctant to put this out there. I am not impressed with the amount of birds we are seeing. We had a wet spring with rains at the most inopportune times. It may be a little on the slow side this year. We will keep looking for a more positive report.

Deer are deer and we still do not have numbers even with the mild winters of recent years. One bad winter took a deer yard from 500 inhabitants to less than 50. The good news is the coyote numbers are dwindling due to lack of food. Fox are making a strong come back with the low coyote populations. It is hard to spend anytime on the roads without seeing a fox or a family of fox.

Moose are moose and we have moose! Yet I do not understand the moose management of the State of Maine.

We have a commissioner that wants to increase the amount of participants in the moose hunt. I am all for that. However, our moose biologist, Mr. Kanter has decided that we can remove 250 extra cows from zone 1. (This is only an example of his flawed biology)

It seems to me if we wanted to increase moose hunting opportunities we would take more bulls out and leave the cows for breeding. I believe this is taught in wildlife biology 101. Mr. Kanter refuses to look at information that is available to him through Buck Expert, Inc in Quebec. Buck Expert did a huge breeding study to collaborate what researchers were finding in the wild. The information is available to Maine or anyone else that wants it!

We also need to look at our neighbors in Quebec. 100 feet away from Maine. They offer an over the counter moose hunt. Two tags per moose in open zones, three to four tags in zecs and Providence managed areas (highly managed moose zones).

I am not advocating for a free-for-all moose hunt but we have massive room for improvement.

Last winter I sat in on the European Unions Annual Moose Biology Symposium. I was asked for the North American take on some of their rules and listened closely to what other countries do.
- Sweden tries to remove 50% of their moose population each year. This is a country that has wolves and brown bears. Yet they know they need to remove this amount on an annual basis to keep the population in check.
- Finland does the same thing.
- One issue that these two countries do not deal with is winter tick or moose tick as it is often called here. They have some instances of an outbreak on occasion but they take that into consideration when setting limits annually.
- Moose limits are set based on the land’s carrying capacity. If a group of hunters have access to a large chunk of land that has excessive moose, they are given tags to remove the surplus. The group I hunt with in Sweden has 80 tags for 3000 acres.
- Sweden still allows clear cuts in the forest lands. These are highly managed clear cuts. They do not allow spraying of herbicides and rely on moose to kill off the undesirable hardwoods by eating the undesirable wood species.
- Wintering areas in Sweden are often over browsed of young softwoods such as fir, spruce, and sometimes cedar. Mr. Kanter would have you believe that moose feed on softwoods only when preferred browse is at a low. This is not true. When temperatures dip below “O” Celsius moose need to eat approximately 20 pounds of fir tips per day to maintain their metabolism along with another 20 pounds of their preferred browse. Why this is, we still do not know, but the fact is they need it or they will die as we have seen in countless zoos that Buck Expert Researchers have been brought to, to try and find the cause of moose winter sickness. Give the moose their soft wood tips and they snap out of this syndrome in a matter of hours. It is believed by US Biologists that once moose go to soft wood for browse it is because they are starving.
- Our Maine Moose Habitat is managed for a maximum carrying capacity of 60% in some areas. In other areas it is managed according to the insurance industry’s accepted level of car/moose accidents. Your moose herd is being managed by outside interests! In yet other zones it is being managed by legislators that are trying to bring in additional revenue to their constituents. I refer to zone 2. Sen. Jackson wants zone 2 managed for the same numbers of moose kills as that of zone 3. Sen. Jackson refuses to look at the insurance industry’s take on zone 3 and is only trying to bring money to his and Rep. John Martin’s home. Also, it should be noted that Rep Martin also owns a sporting camp that capitalizes on this increase in moose permits.

I am all for increased opportunity of our moose hunting. What I am against is that it is still being managed by special “special” interests in the form of the legislature. We fought long and hard back in the late 80’s to get control of the moose herd to the biologists not our elected officials who can not manage a budget let alone a living creature.

We as sportsmen can get excited about a new administration, however, realize that the policy makers are still the same biologists. All are scared for their jobs as they can be cut by your elected leaders at any time.

Our new Department of Inland and Fisheries Commissioner, Commissioner Woodcock has a “New” plan to make the moose draw more fair. I have read the plan at least five times and it does still not make sense to me.

You get only one chance each year at an inflated price over and above the one chance you might currently buy. If you have been in the draw for “X” amount of years you get this many additional bonus points. If you are only in for this many you get “Y” amount of bonus points and so on. You need to be a mathematician to figure out this lopsided plan. Once again it is someone with some form of power trying to reinvent the wheel?

When researching my book on moose hunting I found that Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire all used the same computer program to draw permits. I found that officials in VT and NH all joked about once you were drawn on this program you would get drawn again shortly!

I had seen this trend in Maine. I questioned Maine officials about this and here is the answer I got. “The program is set up for a 100 year time span. If everyone entering the draw enters equally over a 100 year period they will all be drawn the same amount of times”. I won’t get into how none of us have 100 years to apply. This is pure BS.

Additionally there is a flaw in the program used to draw permits. How do you explain the following?
- My dad has been drawn 5 times
- I have a friend that has been drawn 3 times
- I have a neighbor that has been drawn 4 times with his fourth this year.
- I have had one Maine resident client that has been drawn two times - I have three non-resident clients that have been drawn twice
- I have one non-resident client that has been drawn three times.

I can count numerous others stories. In my research and talking with hunters in NH and VT I heard very similar stories. Yes, there is a FLAW in the program.

Instead of Commissioner Woodcock trying to reinvent the wheel why not use what other states that have draw hunts use?
- Permits will be drawn from the highest number of “Preference points” first.
- Once that pool is depleted the permits are drawn from the next to the highest number of preference points and so on.
- This way there is no two year wait period once you are drawn. You get to reapply and start earning your preference points again.
- Doing a rough draw estimate with what numbers the state releases you would get to go moose hunting every 11 years or there about. That means I got a couple of my own moose hunts left in me which I would like to do.

Think about this money maker for the department;
- If it takes 10 years to be able to get drawn for moose hunt. Parents would be able to put their children into the draw system at age 1 and start building preference points for their turn to hunt when they turn 10 or 11.

The Department gets their money each year. We all get to go moose hunting in our lifetime. Nope, our new administration wants to reinvent the wheel and not fix the problem.

Posted: 2011-07-18