When Bradford’s Dave Kane ventured into the northern Maine woods with four friends and relatives Monday morning, the first-time moose hunter had a pretty good idea of how he wanted the hunt to end up.

He didn’t care how large a moose he saw.

He didn’t care about the size of the antlers.

But he was willing to be a bit discriminating.

“[I wanted to see] a bull in the road,” he said with a chuckle.

“And that’s no bull,” his brother, Ray Kane of Holden, chimed in.

The reason was obvious: Virtually all hunters say finally receiving a permit in the state-run lottery is a huge thrill. And seeing and bagging the moose of a lifetime also ends up high on their list of memories.

But dragging a 500- … or 800- … or 1,000-pound moose a few hundred yards to a truck?

Those are memories most would likely forego. And shooting one as close as possible to a dirt road – shooting from a paved roadway is illegal – can make a hunt much less labor-intensive.

On Monday, a couple hours into the opening morning of the first week of Maine’s split-session moose season, the Kanes got exactly what they were looking for.

A bull. In the road.

“That was the game plan, and it worked out well,” Dave Kane said a few hours later as his 751-pound bull was weighed in at Gateway Variety in Ashland.

A third brother, Jim Kane of Liberty, N.Y., joined his siblings for the hunt and was pleased with the way things turned out.

“We got it done pretty good,” Jim Kane said. “We came equipped with the right stuff, and with five people pitching in and getting things done, that made it happen.”

As of midday Monday, 21 moose had been tagged at Gateway Variety. Foggy and rainy weather prevailed as 1,120 permit-holders headed into the woods of northern and eastern Maine.

Beginning Oct. 10, another 1,775 hunters will embark on their own six-day season, with more of the state’s Wildlife Management Districts opened to hunting.

According to Lt. Pat Dorian of the Maine Warden Service, temperatures in the mid-50s and a couple of recent cold nights have seemed to counteract a string of mild weather.

“Everybody’s been saying that up until two, three days ago moose were still by the water holes,” Dorian said. “Those cold nights we had Saturday and Friday seemed to get the rut moving.”

Mating moose are more susceptible to the calls of hunters, and when the “rut” is on, moose may move around more as they actively seek mates.

But the cool, rainy weather on opening day may change the tactics of some hunters, Dorian said.

“This [Monday] morning at 6:30 it turned into a torrential, downpouring rain,” he said. “Pretty much people went back into their vehicles instead of sitting out, calling.”

Dorian said cooler temperatures were especially handy after the moose were shot as hunters try to cool down their moose as quickly as possible so meat doesn’t spoil.

“It’s a lot better [than it has been in some years],” Dorian said. “And it certainly helps having someone like [the Windham Butcher Shop] up here to skin ’em, process ’em, get the hide off ’em.”

The butcher shop sent up a mobile unit with refrigerated trucks so hunters were able to tag their moose then have them processed by professionals before heading home.

The largest bull weighed early in Ashland was tagged by Steve Welsh of Lisbon Falls.

Welsh said he and his hunting buddies guessed the moose weighed from 650 to 700 pounds … but they were wrong.

The bull weighed 906 pounds, field-dressed.

“We were a ways off, I guess,” he said, as his hunting pals milled around the tagging station parking lot, talking on cell phones to report on the results of the hunt.

Welsh said despite bagging a moose at 7:20 a.m. on the first day of the season, he and his hunting party weren’t packing up and heading south.

“We’ve got another buddy [who works with us] and his son got a permit, so we’re going to try to help him get a moose,” Welsh said. “We’re not done yet.”

That’s not the case for 12-year-old Michael Seehusen of Gorham, who headed north for his first moose hunt with his dad, David, and three other relatives.

David Seehusen’s name was drawn for the permit, and Michael got the first shot at the 453-pound cow moose.

“We drove around the corner and saw a moose in a ditch,” Michael Seehusen said. “It looked sort of like a stump sticking out of the ground, but then we saw it was a cow.”

The duo dispatched the moose, hauled it to Ashland, and by noontime, their hunt was over.

While they won’t be lingering in Ashland all week, Michael didn’t seem too eager to rush back to rejoin his seventh-grade classmates.

“Not tomorrow [Tuesday],” he said with a grin. “Probably on Wednesday.”

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