After years of driving by, however curious I was, I finally pulled off and took the time to chat with Steve Waugh.  Although there is a small sign on his porch that says “Steve’s Antlers”, it’s not really a shop but more of a specialized yard sale where he is only there when the sign is put out on the road.  You might have driven past it yourself, as it is the place that is located shortly after the turn off to route 16 in Oquossoc, heading towards New Hampshire.

On a bright and sunny day, we sat on the porch with dozens of antlers hung up for display and he shared with me his love of moose antler hunting. He pointed to the sign on the road, “MOOSE HORNS 4 SALE”.  “They’re not really horns you know, that’s just what we call them in Maine.”

For years Steve worked at the paper mill in Rumford and a buddy of his there, Albert Ladd, or ‘Alley’ is what they called him, got him interested in hunting for moose antlers. He was hooked from the beginning.

He has a house in Mexico but he’s been coming up here for years. He started at the campground, had a camper down in Haines landing and then he got this camp in 1992, which is pretty much when he started to amass his rather large collection. Over the past several decades, he has had countless people from all over the world come by this same porch to admire his vast collection of moose antlers. “You’d be surprised he said, for some reason it’s mostly women.” I guess I would be surprised, but on the other hand they make a great gift and I know that some artists use them as a unique place for a scenic landscape painting. He spends much of his time educating people about the antlers, showing them to look closely where a person could see the veins for example. He told me a large amount of people didn’t even know that the antlers are what he called “a renewable resource” as they grow new ones every year. He has heard some strange questions over the years. He was explaining to one fella that the antlers just drop off and one guy was just completely dumbfounded. He couldn’t figure out why the moose didn’t come back to look for them!

Some of his most successful moments were when he found seven in one day that wound up totaling over 80lbs. If you look at the picture, you can see he was just barely able to carry all of them on the back of his snowmobile. I asked him how much they usually weigh. “They’re all different. They can be anywhere from one pound to a great big one. The biggest one I ever found weighed 23 pounds. But generally speaking a good antler is anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds.” That one he spoke of still holds the Maine State record. He recalls that he was so happy to have found just the one, but he felt like he won the lotto when he returned four days later to find the matching one. At one point, a gentleman offered him a significant sum of money for them, but of course he had to say no. If you want you could see them for yourself as the record breaking pair is currently hung up at the Outdoor Heritage Museum, only about a half a mile away from his house.

I asked him about his process and it turns out it’s definitely a labor of love, as he puts many hours into it. He goes out typically between the end of December and into February. “In the spring I go back when the snow melts, which would be April. When the snow gets really deep it’s kind of a waste of time because they’d be really hard to find.” Whether by foot or on snowshoes or via snowmobile, he still enjoys the pastime after all of these years. He fully appreciates being out in the beautiful Maine woods. Now that he is retired from the mill, he also fully enjoys the quiet. There is also the added benefit of exercise, and of course, there is still the thrill of the hunt!