Hunting & Bear Baiting

Maine Public Lands offer the opportunity to hunt in the backcountry.

• Use our Park Search Feature and select the hunting icon under “Search by Activities” to find the allowable hunting locations on Maine State Parks and Public Lands.
• For season information Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) site.
• Harvest data for black bear, whitetail deer, moose and wild turkey.
• The Maine Office of Tourism provides information about sporting camps and guide services.
• Opportunities for People with Disabilities - an IF&W listing.
• Tree Stand Guidelines (PDF)

Bear Hunting

Information is available from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife including:

• Licenses and Permits
• Laws and Rules
• Season for Hunting and Trapping

Bear Baiting

• Bear Baiting is allowed on Maine Public Lands with a permit from the Bureau of Parks and Lands.
• Bear bait sites are assigned, permitted, and renewable.
• 2025 begins a new 3-year cycle for Personal sites and a 6-year cycle for Commercial sites.
• Rules for Bear Baiting on Public Lands (PDF 142KB)

Application

• Registered Maine Guides that want sites for personal use must complete a Commercial application.
• Commercial Site Application (Fillable Form PDF 769KB)
• Personal Site Application (Fillable Form PDF 763KB)
• These are fillable forms. Please complete, save to your device, then email to the appropriate regional
  office, or, you may print and mail a hard copy.
• Requests for multiple sites within the same region must be on one application.
• If you’re applying for sites located in more than one region, please submit a separate application for
  each region.
• Completed applications must be received by the regional offices before 4:00 p.m. Friday, February 28,
  2025.
• Duplicate requests for the same sites will be resolved by lottery.
• Site assignment notifications will be made by Friday, March 21, 2025
• View the Bear Bait Season information on the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife website.

Maps

Bear Bait Site Maps for an entire region are below. Individual site maps are linked in the table.

• Eastern Region Bear Bait Site Maps in one PDF (6.2MB)
• Western Region Bear Bait Site Maps in one PDF ( 6.9MB)
• Northern Region Bear Bait Site Maps in one PDF (3.2MB)

Map Showing the Public Lands Regions and Regional Office Contact Info (PDF 430KB)

Individual Bear Bait Site Maps (as PDF) by Public Land Region

Eastern Region	Western Region	Northern Region
Amherst	Adamstown	Cyr Plantation
Big Lake	Bald Mountain	Eagle Lake
Bradford Lagrange	Beaver Cove	Hamlin
Bradley	Bigelow Preserve	Hammond
Cathance	Bradstreet	New Canada
Cutler	Caratunk	Oxbow Plantation
Donnell Pond - Tunk Lake	Chain of Ponds	Scopan
Duck Lake	Cold Stream North	Scraggly Lake
Grand Lake Stream	Cold Stream South	St John South
Great Pond	Coplin Center	T13R5 Beaver Brook
Keg Lake	Crocker	Westmanland
Machias River Corridor	Days Academy	Winterville
Macwahoc	Dead River
Molunkus	Dennistown
Nahmakanta	E Twp
Orient	Freeman Twp
Osborn	Highland Plt
Reed	Holeb Twp
Rocky Lake	Johnson Mountain
Seboeis	Lincoln Plantation
Seboeis Plt	Moosehead Junction
Township 24	Moxie Gore
	Rangeley Plantation
	Richardsontown
	Riley
	Sandwich Academy Grant
	Sandy Bay
	Sandy River
	Seboomook
	Shawtown
	The Forks
	West Forks
	Wyman Twp

Public Lands Regional Offices