Guided Moose Hunts in Maine
Maine Trophy Moose Hunting
Excellent Maine Moose hunting for Trophy Moose in the last week of September and second week in October with 100% success rate putting Maine trophy moose within shooting range of hunters and 98% trophy harvest rate. Thousands of prime habitat acres for Maine Trophy Moose makes the hunting memory of a lifetime. We are fully qualified to find the Maine trophy moose you're looking for and fully equipped to get it out.
You'll be guided by expert registered Maine Guides with 20 plus years' experience that have put in countless hours of scouting to ensure your Maine trophy moose hunt is a success. There are no shared guides. Each Maine moose tag has its own experienced guide. Maine has a lottery system for moose hunting permits. For those hunters on the remote hunts, you will be brought back to the lodge after your successful harvest to spend the remainder of your stay with all the comforts of home.
After you bag your trophy, partridge and snowshoe hare seasons are open.
Moose Hunt Prices
- Fully Guided Maine Moose Hunt: $4,500 per week for hunter and sub-permittee from the lodge (zones 2, 5, 6, 10 & 11)
- Includes meals, lodging, guide, retrieval, transportation to and from hunting site, game retrieval and care
- All hunts are seven nights lodging and six days hunting. Hunting is Monday to Saturday per State Law
- First week season is usually the last week in September
- Second week season is usually the second week in October
- A 50% non-refundable deposit is required to secure reservation
- Final payment due upon arrival with cash, bank check, personal check, or money order
- On premise butchering available upon request
- Call for price to bring extra people along
*Initial deposit required to secure reservation. Reservations are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Remaining balance (plus State taxes) will be collected at check in.
Common Questions About Moose Hunting in Maine
Do hunters need to hire a guide to moose hunt in Maine?
Although it isn’t required, it is recommended to hire a guide to moose hunt in Maine.
Here are some reasons why it is a good idea to hire a guide:
- During a hunt, hunters will navigate wide rural areas of land, and packing out an animal (that can weigh over 1,000 pounds) is almost impossible without experienced help.
- Guides are strongly advised for those new to moose hunting, but any hunter who is not well acquainted with the specific Wildlife Management District (WMD) should consider hiring one to help navigate unfamiliar land.
- Guides handle the logistics that hunters can’t handle beforehand, such as scouting and field expertise, particularly during the rut.
How the moose hunting permit system works:
Due to Maine’s moose hunt being strictly permit only, it isn’t possible to buy a tag over the counter. Permits are species/sex-specific: bull (antlered), antlerless (cow or antlerless calf), or “any” in some years/areas. A hunter can only harvest one moose per year. That can be done by either the permittee or the sub-permittee, but not both. To hunt, you must either hold a permit or be listed as the sub-permittee on someone else's permit and hunt in their presence.
Lottery, applications, and odds:
Most permits are issued via the statewide moose lottery, with smaller numbers via auction and a set-aside for disabled veterans. For 2026, applications are accepted online only from early April through mid-May; exact dates are posted on IFW’s moose permit page. The 2026 lottery will issue 3,705 permits statewide (2,645 antlered and 1,060 antlerless).• Historically, statewide success runs around 60–70%, but at Homestead Lodge we average about 98% success rates on harvesting a trophy moose and 100% of seeing multiple bull moose..
Bonus point system (high level):
The preference/bonus system increases your odds the more years you apply and do not draw.
Residents have better odds than nonresidents, and nonresidents are capped at a percentage of total permits.
Seasons and zones (WMDs):
Moose hunting season is during certain weeks of September and October for 20 out of the 29 Wildlife Management Districts. Some even offer late October-November antlerless dates.
At Homestead Lodge, our season runs late September through the second weekend in October.
We hunt units (zones 2, 5, 6, 10 & 11)
The special “adaptive unit” cow hunt in WMD 4 (to study winter ticks) is being discontinued in 2026; WMD returns to a normal structure with separate antlered and antlerless quotas.
Legal requirements and rules:
Hunters must have a valid big game hunting license for Maine (plus a moose permit) to hunt moose.
Apprentice hunter licenses are not valid for moose hunts. In addition, apprentices cannot be permittees or sub-permittees for a moose hunt.
