{"id":64287,"date":"2022-11-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/?p=64287"},"modified":"2022-11-01T12:09:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T16:09:49","slug":"how-to-spot-a-moose-like-a-mainer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/how-to-spot-a-moose-like-a-mainer\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Spot a Moose Like a Mainer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It is November, and unless you\u2019re a lucky lottery winner with a license to kill, you\u2019re not looking for moose right now. In addition to the sporting thrill of the hunt (and the potentially 400 pounds of meat), moose are hunted in large part to manage their population densities: \u201cSo while we joke that in our line of work we would prefer to have more of them, we know that overpopulation can be a real problem for the herd, and therefore also for us,\u201d says Reid Anderson, recreation manager at Northeast Whitewater near Moosehead Lake. Anderson is one of several Registered Maine Guides who leads moose spotting tours in northern Maine, the season of which runs from mid-May to mid-October, specifically until the day before Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day, \u201cbecause that\u2019s when the moose hunt starts in our district,\u201d he says. Anderson clarifies that there is no bad time of year to see a moose, but Northeast Whitewater leads tours when the roads are passable. \u201cWe don\u2019t have snowmobiles in our business. We don\u2019t want to have snowmobiles in our business.\u201d Snowmobiles are about a billion times louder than, say, a canoe, Anderson\u2019s preferred moose touring vehicle. \u201cIt\u2019s really about being quiet,\u201d he says, \u201cjust be quiet.\u201d Thinking about purchasing some camo? Think again. Colors are a nonissue (moose have terrible eyesight). This also means it\u2019s best for a group of canoes to stick together\u2014without, of course, playing bumper boats\u2014\u201cbecause their eyesight is such that we can potentially be seen as one blob instead of five blobs, and we won\u2019t look like we\u2019re swarming them.\u201d Do perfumes and colognes affect moose, hypothetically speaking? \u201cSure. But not to the point where we\u2019re not gonna find them, and especially not if we can stay downwind.\u201d Northeast Whitewater runs tours as close to sunup and sundown as possible, when the moose are most likely to be feeding on the pond grasses and woody shrubs they\u2019re known to love. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason there\u2019s no noontime tour,\u201d Anderson says. Speaking of tours, get to booking for next season. Tours typically see at least one moose about eighty percent of the time. And the record? \u201cFirst week of October, right before mating season and the moose hunt, at sunup, we spotted 17.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t

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