MAINE-Southern Maine?

[cmike0210]

Anybody here on the forum live in maine, or more specifically southern maine?

[boarblast]

 Wow! all this time and no one from Maine. I am surprised since hunting in Maine is perfect levergun condition. Anyway I am from central NH, about an hour and a half from Portland.

Steve

[cmike0210]

yeah right!  Very brushy up here cant wait to get out there with it.  NH is a wonderful place as well geat state!  Sucks about the old man in the mountain!

[MaineHunter]

cmike0210 - I'm from southern Maine.  Rural Kennebunk.  Where in NH are you?

[cmike0210]

i'm actually in maine, north waterboro to be exact, the other poster, boarblast was from new hampshire. 

[MaineHunter]

Caught my mistake a couple of hours after I posted.  Got your deer yet?

My sons and I are getting skunked around here!!

[cmike0210]

hah nope, i am still trying to obtain my hunters safety course records from when i lived in PA., so i don't have to retake the darn thing.  I've kinda just been scoping out some good spots and looking forward to next year.  So do you and your sons all run the leverguns?  Heading down to KTP tomorrow to see about a scope for my badboy.

[MaineHunter]

We're not strictly lever gun fans..  When my wife & I quit going to Florida for 6 months and I started hunting again I bought a used Savage .308 which I really like.  My sons each have 1 or more Winchester 94s and one of them as an older Remington 788 in .308 that is a real accurate gun.  I've carried the Marlin all this season loaded with leverevolution.  Sitting here waiting for the rain to let up so we can get in one more day

[greyowl]

I didn't notice your post until this AM. I'm in central part of the state. I have three Marlin lever rifles. Good deer hunting in this area, but not for me this year. I had a shoulder op. the beginning of the month. I got out once before going under the knife. Probably 6 months with no shooting at all, 8 months until center fire stuff most likely. BORED BEYOND BELIEF. Well good luck to you, though today is the closer and it's raining hard here this morning. I'm interested in the 338. I think it has the potential to be a great cartridge for this type of cover. Thats my thought anyway, though I had a 444 for a long time and that was a top notch cartridge too.

[cmike0210]

I also do not only love the levergun, although it is just a truly classic american rifle and i love the looks and function of it.  I also like the 30-30 round as it's kinda of a do it all cartridge not too big and not too small.  I still would like to score a big bolt action in 30-06 or other similar round as well, i do like the Savage when it comes to the bolts though, but would take whatever came along at the right price.  I also have Remington 870 12gauge, an Iver Johnson .22 thats pretty cool, pump action, and i just got a .40 springfield xd which is just a solid machine.

Hope your shooting again soon their greyowl!  I'd like to get up into those parts next year i'll bet it is great hunting, and beautiful ta boot. 

Hows the hunting down there in the rural kenny mainehunter?

[MaineHunter]

cmike - its lousy.  Our group saw only 2 deer all season, both does.  My 16 yr old grandson got one opening day (his first) and one of my sons missed another the following week.  With the warm weather and the rain it was a tough season for us.  I haven't talked with anybody in this area who has seen a lot of deer.

We also have a real beaver problem.  Ward Brook runs through some of my property and our normal hunting area and there is a lot of beaver activity and several dams which have flooded a lot of the area.  I called the Maine Warden Service and they connected me to a local trapper and he is going to meet with us next Saturday and see if he can help our situation.  If we can get rid of the critters then we can bust out some dams and return the brook to its normal flowage pattern.  As it is now every hole we make in a dam is repaired within a couple of days.  They sure are industrious little critters.

It was still a great year though even if we didn't harvest a bunch of deer.  My two sons and I had the pleasure of training three young hunters between 13 and 16.  When the older of the three got his doe it really charged up the other youngsters.

[cmike0210]

Sounds good how many acres you sitting on down there?  I'd love to have a stream running through my property or even a property large enough to hunt on.  I started to hunt when i was about 15 or 16 on my grandfathers farm in pennsylvania he had 128 acres there with a stream, pond, fields, hills, and woods, perfect deer country, not to mention the grouse and pheasant just an awesome place to tromp around on.  I am trying to covince my parents to retire here in maine and buy up some acres while the gettin isn't so bad.

Speaking of seeing deer i havn't seen all that many myself.  I hit one with my truck last fall on the backside of sebago (114) she scooted back into the woods hopefully surviving, but after that being paranoid i'd figured i was gonna see one every night and was sure to hit one weekly, but honestly i havn't seen one on the road alive or dead since that.

Maybe your gonna have to switch gears and start going out for the gobblers, Maine seems to have no shortage of them eh.

[six_gunz]

hah nope, i am still trying to obtain my hunters safety course records from when i lived in PA., so i don't have to retake the darn thing. 

I'm pretty sure you can use an old PA. hunting license to get your Maine license.
I took my Hunter Safety course in IL. back in '82 and have no clue what happened to it
over the course of moving around all these years. I'm going to re-take it next year with my youngest son anyway so he can get his.
I apply online and get my Maine license every year. I think I just listed the state and year where I took it on the info page and if you have a hunting license from another state you can get grandfathered in.

Anyway good luck.....haven't been seeing squat here in North East MA......should've planned a trip
up to our place in Lee ME. We only have 41 acres, but here's lots of deer up there.... Bear hunting was excellent this year in Maine, all the rain put a damper on natural food sources and brought them in hitting baits hard!
Oh well, there's always next year for deer!

[MaineHunter]

cmike - I'm sure six-gunz is correct about a Maine license.  If you've had a valid hunting license in another state within the past five years you should be all set to go.

Between my 2 sons and myself we have only about 14 acres which we personally own, it abutts about 1/2 mile of open power lines where we are usually quite successful.  Not so this year.

[boarblast]

Hi Guys,

 I guess the deer shortage is all over New England. I'm from the Sunapee/Dartmouth region of NH. No one at work has taken anything with the exception of a tiny doe and a bear that most would consider a cub. I am sitting on 13 acres complete with power lines and roughly 200 acres of conservation land around me. Seen some bedding,droppings, and tracks, but no deer. Jumped a buck in mid September while hunting coyotes, have not seen anything since.

 Looks like a dud of a season for me. I really wanted to get some blood on the .444 I picked up this year. Guess I'll have to take it coyote hunting:>)