Contributors to this thread:
Maine and NH are up. Yikes NH has odds posted. Worse then I thought. Cutting NR tags in 1/2 in 2 years did not help. I have 1 below max points and my odds were under a 1/2%
Nebraska doesn't have moose draws.
Someone will be along soon to tell you that you are wasting your time. And shortly thereafter someone will tell you how unfair these draws are. I am in, and I highly recommend these hunts to all, they are a lottery, which I accept as long odds. They are also close to home and the meat can come home with me.
Remember, VT also has an Archery only tag.
Good luck to all.
Steve H...... That may explain why I never draw!
His handle start with Z ? Lol
I am in for Maine as always. Dumped VT and NH a couple years back and put the money towards another application. That said I stopped waiting for Maine after a 15 year drought and have done two moose hunts since then....if it comes in great if not it’s not holding me up any more.
I'm in for Maine once again. Kind of curious how many "bundles" of points most of you guys buy? I only ever buy one and hope for the best. Worth a shot.
My friend drew 2 years ago with 30 years of points.....I got to do the Euro mount. 45" Bull. He is 62 and literally applied to Maine 30 years straight
Yah....buy a powerball ticket while your at it. It’s called paying voluntary taxes...
I am in with 80 bonus points. One of these years maybe.
I wish you guys would stop encouraging others to apply. My chances go down with every application. I am encouraging everyone to boycott Maine until they change their stupid preference point system.
Good luck.
One ticket just to be in the Maine game. I probably need to pay attention and figure out what units to list NEXT year prior to applying versus slapping numbers in like I just did, lol.
I drew Maine as a resident last year, with 9 points. I guided a guy a couple years back who drew with 16. An outfitter buddy of mine gets a client every year that draws their first putting in as a non resident (with less than 10 points bought).
Good luck
Cashed NH points in 2012 but still in with max NR Maine points. Outfitter welfare & bonus point prostitution packs will prevent me from ever rejoining their game if I ever cash out. Joke of a distribution system run by podunk legislators.
Never went into any of the NE lotteries for any of the 65 years I lived in NNY. Just saved the $$$ and have been to NL 7 of the last 8 years. Headed back in 2019.
Have been in VT NH ME since day one in all three,have been lucky to draw 2 permits in VT through the years,back in the game this year as there is only 2 permits available to the general public for the rifle hunting and 4 for the archery hunt, have max points in Maine & NH ,only have ever bought a single chance in Maine hoping to draw someday!!
I'm with newfie1946moose, if you want to moose hunt, save your $$$ and go to NF. I still apply in NH, because face it, it doesn't cost much and there IS a chance.
This is my first year eligible to get back into the NH draw. I will be puttting in even though the number of permits is way down. I go into the Maine lottery with 16 years worth of points, who knows, maybe it's my year to draw. I have 2-3 bonus points in VT but I will not be applying there this year with only 1 NR permit available. This is the proposed VT breakdown 1 tag Hunt of a Lifetime (sick child) 1 tag given to the auction 1 tag given out to one lucky nonresident 2 Archery tags (VT resident) 5 Veteran tags (VT residents) 6 Rifle tags (VT residents)
I've been an apply-everywhere-for-everything type of guy for a long time. With lots of points for Moose in the 3 NE states. But I have to admit it's getting harder to justify continuing, with the Moose populations evaporating and seemingly no end in sight. I wonder about the sanity of pouring more money and hopes into it as a NR. Now if I was a resident of one of the three states, I'd definitely stay in the game, since it costs so little to apply.
My daughter lives in Maine though, so I did go ahead and purchase my 2 y-o grandson his lifetime Maine hunting license, and 2 moose points so far. Hopefully he will thank me someday ;-)
Ace's Link
No Moose draw in VT this year. The herd is down due to Winter Ticks.
They only authorized 13 permits total, 5 of which will be auctioned, 5 available to Military Vets and 3 Special Opportunity Tags.
All Bonus Points will be Frozen in Place.
VT and NH have been a losing venture for a long time.
Killed my Vermont moose the first year they had the hunt, 1993. Sadly things don't look good for future NE moose hunts.
Blood-sucking ticks are killing huge numbers of moose, researchers say
An insidious pest is killing about 70 percent of moose calves across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The Boston Globe reports, and their deadly work is being aided by warming temperatures and shorter winters that allow the parasites to survive longer, scientists believe.
"They are winter ticks, which attach themselves to a single moose by the tens of thousands," reporter Brian MacQuarrie writes. "Adult females can expand to the size of a grape and engorge themselves with up to four milliliters of blood."
An ongoing study on Eastern Washington moose is indicating that big tick loads may be having an impact on moose in this region, too, but it's too soon to make conclusions, state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists say.
However, longer-going studies in the East are showing how big numbers of the little suckers are bringing down the largest member of the deer family.
“The moose are being literally drained of blood. This is about as disgusting as it gets out there,” said Pete Pekins, chairman of the Natural Resources Department at the University of New Hampshire.
Pekins and UNH are at the center of the largest study of New England moose ever conducted, a three-state effort stretching across the woods of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont in which researchers are attaching tracking devices to the moose as part of an effort to learn how ticks are affecting them.
If the reduction continues, researchers said, the range of New England moose is likely to shrink northward. And for many moose that survive, the ravages of winter ticks could render them less healthy and less likely to reproduce.
“It’s like a sinister, evil horror movie,” said Lee Kantar, the Maine state moose biologist.
Maine and New Hampshire teams recently captured a total of 123 moose cows and calves, attaching GPS and other electronic gear. In Vermont, which joined the program this year and began capturing moose Tuesday, the plan is to collar 60 animals.
The effort is a mixture of high tech and high drama as a helicopter swoops within 20 feet of a moose and fires an entangling net. The crew lands and then hobbles and blindfolds the animal, which researchers said has a calming effect, before collaring the moose and collecting the samples.
The drug-free process takes 10 to 15 minutes.
About 76,000 moose roamed Maine in 2012, said Kandar, who did not have a current estimate. New Hampshire has about 4,000, down from a peak of about 7,500 in the early 2000s.
And Vermont is down to 2,200, from a high of 5,000 animals in 2006, although much of that reduction was the deliberate result of hunting to bring the population into better balance with the habitat.
Now, the primary concern is winter ticks, which lie in wait on vegetation in the autumn — interlocked by the hundreds and thousands — until they attach themselves to a passing animal such as a moose.
Deer and other animals groom the ticks from their bodies. But for moose, which have not developed that ability, the insects become blood-sucking hitchhikers whose victims usually die in late winter and early spring.
“They’ll be on the moose in such large amounts, that the moose will literally scratch against trees and take the skin off,” said Wayne Derby, a master guide from Bethlehem, N.H. “Sometimes you’ll see 2 to 2½ square feet on the shoulders where the moose have rubbed off the fur.”
Derby has a term for the tick-infested animals: ghost moose.
If winter starts even two weeks late, that extra time in the forest means that more ticks — which do not fare as well in the snow — will find more moose to ride.
“Climate change is having an effect,” said Kent Gustafson, wildlife program supervisor for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. “We’ve seen winters basically get shorter over the last two decades or so.”
We have seen an infestation of the ticks in the last 10 years through out NE. It’s terrible
Wow really glad I chose to never get involved with Vermont. That has turned into a really sour investment. I want absolutely nothing to do with any place that puts 40% of their tags on the auction block. But Maine is not much better with 20% welfare & their NR bonus point cheapening scheme. Barely enough remaining to make it worthwhile for a DIYer. Would never buy into any of these schemes from the ground floor these days. Max points is the only reason I continue.