Omen fails to break moose-permit drought

loading...

Some families, it seems, are just plain lucky when it comes to gaining state permission to hunt for moose.

My family, for the record, is not one of those.

But on Thursday, as I prepared to head to Rumford for this year’s exercise in futility (I mean, “moose-permit lottery”), I stumbled across what could only be an omen.

I met a real, live, lucky person, from a real, live lucky family.

She has shot a moose. Her mother has shot two. Her grandfather shot one. And all of this has happened over the past few years.

“We’re just a lucky moose-hunting family, I guess,” 18-year-old Morgan Wren told me.

So lucky, in fact, that I figured the Wren family good fortune just had to rub off … or to at least serve as a harbinger of my own impending good fate.

Wren told me that she’s so lucky, when she actually won her moose permit, she ended up winning twice … more or less.

Wren, then 15, had been bothering her mom all summer for a certain piece of jewelry that certain moms are reluctant to let their daughters get.

And then her mom slipped … and made a deal.

“She said that if I shot [the moose], I could get my belly button pierced, because she didn’t actually think I would do it,” Wren recalled on Friday, a day after 2,895 names were announced by the state.

“I was excited, because I wanted my belly button pierced my whole eighth grade year, and she finally made a deal,” she said.

Wren’s mother is an avid moose hunter. In fact, at the 2003 moose lottery in Old Town, her mom wore a moose costume, just to get in the proper mood.

As it turned out, her daughter was a pretty good hunter, too.

Early one morning a moose sidled up to the family camp in the Allagash. Morgan wasn’t really ready … but she made do.

“I was just out of bed and I was washing my face and had soap all over my face,” she said. “I ran out and shot it, barefoot, right in front of the camp.”

A couple of years later, that moose’s head served as part of her mother’s costume at the Old Town lottery.

Her mom, Rae Fournier-Wren, began screaming and shouting when her name was drawn … for the second time.

And this year? Was it another lucky year for the Wrens?

Not really.

“We didn’t get [a permit] this year, or my mom would have called me,” Morgan Wren said with a chuckle.

And while we’re talking moose …

No. I did not receive my moose permit this year. Not even with a higher (theoretical) chance of success than last year. Not even after rubbing rabbit feet and crossing my fingers and doing my lucky Give-Me-My-Moose dance.

I say “theoretical” because as any veteran lottery-watcher can tell you, when you don’t win, it doesn’t really matter what your potential chance of success was.

After all the names are called, and yours isn’t, your actual success rate was exactly the same as it was last year: Zero.

In this year’s lottery, no one named “Holyoke” received a permit. Neither did anyone named “Lander,” which was troublesome in that I had convinced myself that the reciprocating subpermittee arrangement I had worked out with a hunting and fishing buddy (named Lander) would finally pay dividends this year.

So, come September and October, my hunting adventures will (again) be limited to hunting for stories about the rest of you.

If you were one of the 5.3 percent of successful Mainers, congratulations.

And if you end up with an interesting story to tell, I’m perfectly willing to live vicariously through you.

Still more moose statistics

As we reported on Friday, entrants in this year’s moose-permit lottery were marginally more successful than they were a year ago: 5.3 percent of in-state applicants received their permits this year as opposed to 4.9 percent a year ago.

To break that down a little more, the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife counted up the actual number of “chances” that were bought last year and offered a few more interesting statistics.

Each in-state entrant can buy one, three, or six chances in the lottery, and also get credit for past years in which they were unsuccessful. Out-of-state entrants are allowed to buy one, three, or six chances or unlimited blocks of 10 chances.

According to the DIF&W, in 2004 there were 126 “chances” in the lottery for every in-state permit awarded, meaning applicants who purchased the maximum full six chances had a 1-for-21 shot at a permit.

This year’s percentage was better … and yet, here many of us are, still waiting for next year.

Wagner to protect deer habitat

The Washington County Fish and Wildlife Conservation Association announced on Friday that a cooperative effort between the group, the DIF&W, and Wagner Forest Management has paid dividends for the area’s deer herd.

Back in May the constituent groups met with Wagner, asking the company to help preserve a deer-wintering habitat near Crawford Lake in townships T43MD and T27MD.

According to the WCF&WCA, Wagner officials immediately agreed to several recommendations to implement harvesting measures that would take into consideration the company’s harvesting goals, as well as the existence of the wintering areas and riparian travel corridors used by deer.

The WCF&WCA was formed a year ago to help improve wildlife habitat, curb poaching, and reduce predation, with an eye on increasing a dwindling deer herd Down East.

This latest announcement is good news for the club … and for Down East’s deer. Club members, the DIF&W, and Wagner should each be commended for their cooperative effort.

Coming up …

On Sunday I’ll be sharing guide Dan Legere’s drift boat with Doug Saunders of Rockland as we make our way down the East Outlet of the Kennebec River near Greenville.

It promises to be an enjoyable day for Saunders, who won our “Win a Drift Boat Trip” contest back in March, and I’ll share some of the details with you next week.

Also next week, I’ll introduce you to a Bangor High School student who is not only one of the best young shooters in the nation but also one of the top musicians you’ll ever find.

How she balances those two pursuits is interesting, and I’ll tell you all about it.

If you’re interested in seeing more about the story before it appears here, you can do so on our weekly “Going Outdoors” segment, which appears on the ABC-7 6 p.m. newscast.

Beginning this week, “Going Outdoors” will also appear on ABC-7’s 11 p.m. show, and on the FOX-22 10 p.m. newscast as well.

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