Luck of the draw

OLD TOWN — As I sat down in a booth at the local Dairy Queen last Thursday night, I thought about just how poorly I’ve been hitting to start our softball season and how much I would enjoy the two chili dogs and Reese’s Piece Blizzard that was coming soon after.
As I was digging in to the second chili dog, a friend handed me his phone and told me it’s for me.
The first thing I heard was, “You’re going to have to get a bigger freezer.”
The line confused the living daylights out of me. Why would I need a bigger freezer? I can barely fill the one I have now and …
That’s when it hit me. Somehow I got a tag in the annual Maine moose hunt on my first try, with just one $7 chance entered in to the lottery. If I would have known better, I would have bought a MegaBucks ticket that night and truly tested my luck.
The next two phone calls I got proved to me just how unlikely that feat was. The first call came from a friend who has applied for a permit for over 15 years now, has acquired the most amount of points possible to help his cause and still has come up empty, and who was not amused with the fact that I landed a tag on basically a whim and a prayer.
The next came from my subpermittee, who told me to get ready for the October hunt.
After talking to a number of other hunters since then, I’ve come to one simple conclusion: I am fairly certain I’m a hated man.
I say that because, when I tell hunters who have put in for the lottery for over 10 years, have the maximum amount of points tallied up and who paid $22 for six chances to get one moose permit that I got a tag on just one measly chance and no points helping me out to speak of, they get fairly upset.
And rightfully so, I might add. Hunting moose is one of Maine’s finest outdoor traditions, yet residents that have tried to get one tag for nearly a quarter-century still come up short. It seems like a broken system considering the fact that they were told when this lottery was started decades ago that they would only have to wait 10 years at the most to get a permit.
I feel bad that those who have put hundreds of dollars for numerous chances into the lottery have come up empty year after year. There’s got to be a better system to dole out the permits than this, because a 25-year wait for a moose tag is far too long to make any hunter wait.
Then again, I’m thrilled to get what will likely be the only chance to go moose hunting. Actually, October will be the first time I ever go hunting since I’ve moved to Maine, let alone hunting for moose. Growing up in Wisconsin, deer hunting is a state pastime that lasts just nine days — starting the Saturday before Thanksgiving and going until the Sunday after. Ever since moving out this way, I’ve been itching to take to the woods again with my Remington .30-06 rifle and get back to my roots.
I just hope I can bag a moose in October. Otherwise I’m going to have a hard time looking those hunters in the eye that didn’t get chosen and tell them that my tag was wasted.