.png)
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
Northeast Wilderness Outfitters, owner Chip Woodman has been guiding the hills, fields, swamps and cut roads of Maine for over 40 years, and he doesn’t make a big song and dance about it. He knows the country like the back of his hand. He knows when the wind’s wrong, when the sign’s fresh, and when it’s time to sit tight and let the woods do what they’re going to do.
With a flight into Portland, ME, you can hunt with Chip in his southern area for Turkey of which Maine has a generous limit: 2 birds in the spring and five (count it five!) in the fall. Looking for bigger game, it's time to move north 2 hours to his bear camp, a well-appointed log cabin.
It’s a quaint camp. Never crowded. Surely not rushed. You’re not lost in a crowd; you’re part of the family while you’re there. Mornings come early, camp coffee always tastes better than it should, and the whole day stretches out in front of you as if it has nowhere else to be.
Bear hunting is NEWO's specialty and is done two ways. Some days you sit over bait, quiet as a church pew, just watching the woods wake up and waiting for something to slip into view. Other days, you’re moving with hounds; listening to them work, pushing through brush and old logging ground, until everything tightens up and you know the bear’s treed and the whole world has narrowed down to that moment.
Along with black bear, Chip also has a guaranteed Moose allocation most years and if you draw he brings limited moose hunters into camp. As well as big bodied Maine whitetail hunts, he also provides fishing, upland bird hunting for woodcock and grouse, and inshore and offshore fishing for Brook Trout, land locked Salmon, and Striped Bass offshore.
Then there’s camp life, which is its own kind of good. The first meal in camp is traditional Maine lobster, pulled from nearby waters, steamed simply and perfectly. I recall one of the old Mainers at the table just grinning, then saying, “Wicked good stuff,” as if that explained everything you needed to know about it; and honestly, it did. It described not just that meal, but the operation as a whole.
