Rochester man among lucky moose permit winners

Moose Biologist Kristine Rines and Wildlife Division Chief Mark Ellingwood announce the results. (Courtesy NHFG)

CONCORD, N.H. - The adventure of a lifetime is in store for a Rochester man and 50 others who have been offered permits to hunt moose in New Hampshire this October.

They were all winners in the state's 30th annual moose hunt lottery drawing held this morning at New Hampshire Fish and Game Department headquarters in Concord.

An enthusiastic audience was at Fish and Game to hear the drawing results in person. They enjoyed doughnuts and swapped backwoods stories, all hopeful they might hear their name called this year. Young hunter Max Paganini of Sanbornton, NH, got things rolling by pushing the button to start the computerized random drawing.

The luckiest hunter in the room was Rich Tichko, who won an either-sex permit for Wildlife Management Unit C-2. "I'm pretty excited," beamed Tichko, sporting a huge smile. He will take his wife Jessie along as his subpermittee.

Robert E. Hobbs of Rochester won an either sex permit for area D1.

A full list of the names of the 2017 winners is available on the N.H. Fish and Game website at www.huntnh.com/hunting/moose-winners.html.

Winners were selected from a pool of 6,850 applicants. In addition, over 1,340 people submitted an application for a bonus point only, but are not included in the lottery. The bonus point system improves the chance of winning for each consecutive year entered and not selected. The overall odds of being drawn this year were 1 in 87 for state residents and 1 in 391 for nonresidents.

Winners will be offered permits to hunt moose in a specific Wildlife Management Unit during the 2017 N.H. moose season, which runs October 21-29. Each permit winner is assigned to one of 19 Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) in which he or she can legally hunt. Winners are allowed to enlist a guide and one friend or relative to help on the hunt as a "subpermittee."

In addition to many New Hampshire residents, permit winners hailed from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Vermont. Nearly 85 percent of those chosen were New Hampshire residents; this percentage is set based on the resident/non-resident ratio of N.H. hunting licenses sold the previous year. A description of the lottery process and table of applicants and odds can be found at www.huntnh.com/hunting/documents/moose-lottery-stats.pdf.

Hunters whose names were selected in today's drawing will be notified by mail. Lists of successful applicants and alternates are available at www.huntnh.com/hunting/moose-winners.html; at Fish and Game headquarters in Concord; and at the Department's regional offices in Durham, Keene, Lancaster and New Hampton.

Last year, New Hampshire hunters took 52 moose, for a statewide success rate of 72 percent. New Hampshire has had an annual moose hunt since 1988, when 75 permits were issued for a three-day hunt in the North Country.