Mavilla says he had been applying for a Maine moose tag for 25 years, and once he drew the tag he had no clue who to hunt with. He says a number of outfitters sent him letters inviting him to contract their services, and he spoke with several of them before selecting Randlett. "There were more expensive guides and cheaper guides, but Randlett had all the right answers," he says.
Randlett only takes three or four hunters per season and hunts wilderness areas that he and his guides have scouted for trophy bulls. Mavilla says they use topo maps and GPS to mark exactly where they spot large moose. Mavilla hunted wildlife management area 4 in the middle of the North Maine Woods, a wilderness of about 3.8 million acres. He says they used a wilderness lodge at Pittston Farm near the Quebec border as a base and drove out 40 miles from there to hunt. Because Randlett's two other clients had killed moose early in their hunts, the guides assigned to them came to help Mavilla, thus providing him with three guides on this hunt. He says that besides the spots they had marked while pre-scouting for trophy bulls, they also knew places frequented by moose in general. Mavilla says that when warm weather put off the moose calling for a few days he got to see just how well his guides knew the area and the moose movements. He says he finally began seeing bulls, and when one of the guides set up a moose cow decoy, a........(continued)
