Machiasport teacher discovers unique way of getting moose

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For every prospective moose hunter who has sent in an application, crossed his or her fingers, and waited (in vain) for their name to come up during the annual lottery, there is hope.

As it turns out, you don’t really need a permit to bag a moose in Maine. All you need is a keen eye, an imagination … and a lobster boat.

At least that’s how it worked out for Martha Jordan of Machiasport.

Now, before you decide to declare open season on the big-boned beasts just because you have 20-20 vision and a vivid imagination, you have to realize that Jordan didn’t actually kill the animal that has been providing her with moose steaks since mid-August.

Nope. Nothing of the sort. Jordan’s tale is a somewhat far-fetched saga of finder’s-keeper’s on the high seas. And if you didn’t see the pictures (she’s got plenty), you probably wouldn’t believe it.

“Everyone down here’s got a story,” says Jordan, a 48-year-old who teaches at Washington Academy and runs Machias Bay Boat Tours and Sea Kayaking with her husband, Rick.

“That’s mine,” she says with a chuckle.

The mere mention of Jordan’s moose “hunt” makes her smile. And when Martha Jordan’s mouth smiles, her entire face gets involved in the mischief.

The day, she’ll tell you (grinning from ear to ear), was Aug. 14. You don’t forget days like this, as you’ll soon find out. The weather was hot and muggy, but luckily, she had chartered a six-person trip on her 34-foot Webber Cove lobster boat, the Martha Ann.

After a typically beautiful trip out of Bucks Harbor, Jordan did the same things she does on every journey. She showed her customers how to haul a lobster trap. She took them out to Hog Island and showed them the ancient petroglyphs. She fed them a picnic lunch.

Then, while returning to port, she saw what she thought was a dead seal floating in the water.

“I took a swing around it, but I didn’t want to get too close, because I didn’t want to get that seal slime on my boat,” she says.

Jordan quickly found out that she hadn’t found a seal after all. She had found a 600-pound cow moose that had apparently become disoriented in the earlier fog and drowned.

You’ve got to realize one thing: Jordan has regularly applied for a moose permit. She has never had her name drawn. And shortly after finding the floater, visions of mooseburgers began dancing in her head.

“I brought my boat in closer and got out my gaff and gaffed her on the chin,” Jordan says.

Then she began a closer inspection.

“I reached over and kind of grabbed her ear and held her up, and pulled some of the hair off her head,” Jordan says. “It was all tight. So I said, ‘Excuse me folks,’ and I worked my way down the boat, trying to pull [hair] off her back, and off her side. Then I worked down along her haunches, still pulling.”

Jordan’s concern with the moose’s hairdo wasn’t without purpose, she explains.

“When they start to decay, those hair follicles will start to loosen and you can pull out the hair,” she says. “But they were all tight.”

That’s when Jordan began to get really excited.

“I said, ‘I bet this is a fresh, drowned moose!” she says.

Jordan enlisted the help of her customers to get a 1-inch rope around the moose, then dragged it back into Bucks Harbor.

“She came up at 41/2 knots, 1,600 rpm,” Jordan says, chuckling again.

That’s 1,600 rpm on her engine. The moose, it seems, was spinning, but a bit more slowly than that.

After getting the moose back to port, Jordan secured it, then started looking for advice.

“I just tied her off short, now, on the back end of my boat,” Jordan says, explaining that she radioed other lobstermen with a simple question.

“‘I have found a moose,'” she told them. “‘A cow moose. I’m gonna take her home. What’s the protocol here? Are you allowed to keep the moose you find around here?'”

The lobstermen told her what she’d already suspected: She ought to call a warden.

When the warden, Joe McBrine, arrived, he also inspected the moose and told her that it appeared to be fresh and edible. Then he helped her quarter it up, right there on shore.

Jordan says McBrine told her that finding moose in the ocean isn’t all that uncommon.

“He told me that last year they had three bull moose that they had found drowned out in the Cutler channel during the rut, because those moose, they figure, were answering the call of the lighthouse foghorn on the back side of Little River light,” Jordan says.

The end result: Jordan took more than 200 pounds of moose meat home with her. She says that in talking with lobster fishermen, she found out that they’d seen the moose swimming just a couple hours before she found its carcass floating in the 52-degree water.

In the weeks since, she is happy to report, the moose has turned out to be quite tasty.

“Perfect. Perfect. Perfect,” she says. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. It tastes like Angus beef, except it doesn’t have the fat to it. It’s like a cow of the forest.”

Perhaps the salt-water marinade helped. Or perhaps she just got lucky. Either way, Jordan is pleased with her find.

“It’s like surf and turf, all in the same meal,” she says, chuckling one more time.

A new role in a great job

As you may have gathered by the promotional house ads we’ve been running (the one that consists largely of my super-sized posterior is a somewhat embarrassing personal favorite), my role here at the NEWS has changed.

Starting today, I’ll be filling a new niche as an outdoors columnist for the newspaper I’ve been reading for most of my 38 years.

For the past several years, I have been told that I had one of the best jobs in the building. I agree.

In case you’ve never had the chance to be a sportswriter, the job consists largely of doing things that convince you that Peter Pan may have been right after all … you don’t really have to grow up.

Starting today, the best job in the building gets even better, as far as I’m concerned. Starting today, I get to play outside.

For those of you have welcomed me into your lives and let me tell your stories, thank you. And for those who think this new job – The Adventure, I’ve been calling it, tongue firmly implanted in cheek – will change everything, let me assure you that in some ways, you’re right.

And in others, you’re wrong.

If you were generous enough to read my pieces before, and were able to get a cheap chuckle at my expense for the effort, I assure you that you’ll still be able to do that. I’m quite certain that this new job won’t somehow grant me instant immunity from my own foolishness. And if my boat sinks, or if I get lost in the woods, or if I end up confused and contused (again), you’ll be the first to know.

That’s the stuff that won’t change. The thing that will: The focus.

As of today, I’m officially an outdoors guy. Three days a week. And though I’m the person writing the column, it’s not really about me. Nor, I suppose, is it really about you. We’ll each play roles in it, but at its root, this new column is about Maine. It’s about the things that make it special, and always have. It’s about the new ways people are finding to enjoy the outdoors.

My role is simple (I figure my editors have made it that way for a reason): I’m heading into the woods, looking for stories. And when I find them, I’m going to haul ’em back, stuff ’em, and put ’em on display for you.

That’s the plan, anyway. If you have any ideas, feel free to call. My truck’s loaded up. I like coffee. And I’m always ready to trade a few yarns.

I’m looking forward to The Adventure ahead. I hope you choose to join me.

The quest: Every now and then, I may ask for your help on a future column with an item I’ll tuck down here, out of the way. Mainers, I figure, are helpful folk, and will likely provide me with the answers I’m looking for.

My quest this week: I need a deer camp. A camp filled with interesting hunters who won’t mind if their stories are told … even if they don’t get their deer. A camp with some history, perhaps. A camp with character. A camp where the laughs are as plentiful as the food. If you know of a place I ought to visit this deer season, drop me a line. (A quick disclaimer: No pawning me off on the brother-in-law you can’t stand. If you’re not going to be at the camp, you probably shouldn’t volunteer it).

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.