Hunting Bobcats and Baxter State Park
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Hunting bobcats in Mid-Winter is a combination of work and fun. Walking in deep snow on snowshoes is hard, tiresome work. The $15.00 bounty paid by the State of Maine is an effort to eliminate these blood-thirsty deer killers.

Today there is a debate about whether to place a bounty on coyotes. Coyotes came on the scene in Maine in the 1960s. I respect a coyote. They’re beautiful, but they are savage.

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There is no closed season on cats and they are hunted about the same as coon, except coon are hunted a night, and cats in the daytime. The best time is when the snow is deep and not crusty. One or two good dogs is a “must.” The dogs should be trained not to chase deer as cats are invariably found in the deer yards, near the deer they have killed.

Hunting Bobcats
Hunting bobcats in Mid-Winter is a combination of work and fun. Walking in deep snow on snowshoes is hard, tiresome work.

When a track is located the dog is held in leash till the track gets very fresh, so that the cat can be treed before finding a hole in a ledge to run into. Cat hunting is a very rugged sport for able-bodied men only.

Maine still has a bobcat season, and it’s widely regarded as the most challenging hunt in the state. The season generally runs from early December to mid-February. There is no bag or possession limit.

I would advise anyone who contemplates a cat hunt to get in touch with Mr. Roy Gray, Maine Warden Supervisor, Rangeley, Maine, or the State of Maine Publicity Bureau, 3 St. John St., Portland, Maine.

Hunting Bobcats and Baxter State Park
Baxter State Park has grown considerably as adjacent lands have been added to the park. It now comprises more than two hundred thousand acres.

Baxter State Park

While this article is primarily one of practical information for hunting, fishing and camping, I cannot close without a brief chapter on Maine’s unspoiled wilderness reservation, and the State’s greatest benefactor, former Governor Percival P. Baxter, the man who literally has given away mountains.

Baxter has grown considerably as adjacent lands have been added to the park. It now comprises more than two hundred thousand acres. The number of visitors has grown, too. In 2010, Baxter drew approximately 67,000 visitors to the Katahdin region.

Baxter State Park covers 254 square miles of forest, 162,939 acres.

So much of Maine is wooded, ranging from small, upland growth to heavy, sometimes almost impenetrable, forests, that some might think of a state park designed to preserve the forest lands as fairly redundant.

 

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