Deer hunters who wish to procure an antlerless permit for the 2023 season may do so on Tuesday.
All hunters, whether selected in last month’s permit lottery or not, will have an opportunity to purchase one of the 42,520 extra permits.
They are permits that weren’t awarded during the lottery because there were more permits than applicants in some Wildlife Management Districts.
The online process begins at 9:30 a.m. and permits will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis here on the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife website.
Interested hunters should have the following information at hand to apply:
Name and date of birth on their current hunting license, their MOSES ID, which can be found on the license, and two preferred WMDs. Applicants also should have their credit card information ready in order to pay the $12 application fee and $2 agent fee.
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife asks that applicants be patient during the process as it expects high site traffic for the permits. Starting at 9:30 a.m., those who enter the purchase site will be placed in the queue.
Anyone who goes on the site prior to 9:30 will be put in a virtual waiting room to manage site traffic, but there is no advantage to doing so. Everyone who has accessed the site will be assigned a random number and must wait for their turn to buy a permit.
Once in the queue, hunters will be given an expected wait time and the opportunity to purchase a permit will come when it is your turn.
To purchase a permit online, users will need to go to this website page and click “Purchase Permit” under the “Extra Permits” section.
The extra permits up for grabs are across seven WMDs in southern and central Maine. WMD 25 has a whopping 11,017 permits available, while there are 8,522 in WMD 23, 7,605 in WMD 24, 7,014 in WMD 22 and 6,490 in WMD 21. There are 1,801 remaining permits available in WMD 29 and 71 in WMD subunit 25a.
The list of hunters already selected during the Aug. 15 permit lottery can be found here. However, the deadline to purchase those antlerless permits passed on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
Under a revamped process initiated by DIF&W in 2022, hunters who receive a permit are allowed to harvest an antlerless deer in a designated WMD, and also may take an antlered deer anywhere in Maine during the season.
That change was made to motivate hunters to take an antlerless deer rather than passing on that opportunity in favor of shooting a buck. It proved successful, when Maine exceeded its adult doe harvest objective of 13,807 last year when hunters shot 13,883 adult females.
The move also played a role in the overall statewide deer harvest because hunters killed a record 43,787 deer last year, an increase of 12.4 percent over the 38,947 taken in 2021.
Antlerless deer permits may not be swapped or transferred.
All proceeds from the antlerless permits go to the Maine Deer Management Fund, which helps finance the acquisition and management of deer wintering areas, primarily in northern Maine. Those areas include critical habitat for white-tailed deer, which use them during the winter to avoid harsh winds and deep snow.
