If you drew a Zone 4 permit, you drew one of the biggest and most remote districts in the state. This page covers where WMD 4 actually runs, the one rule inside it that catches people out, and the 2026 season weeks.
Maine names it North Maine Woods — Chesuncook Lake to Daaquam. Reading the state boundary description clockwise from its southwest corner, it runs:
In practical terms: if you are hunting off the Golden Road, the Telos Road or the Allagash country, you are in it. Baxter State Park is outside it — the park forms part of the eastern boundary, not part of the district.
Inside WMD 4 there is a roughly 1,000 square mile subunit called WMD 4A, which Maine runs as an adaptive management study. The department deliberately increases the cow harvest there to bring the subunit population down slowly and study what that does to the herd.
It matters to you for one reason: a Zone 4 permit is not automatically a Zone 4A permit, and the two are managed differently. Check which unit your permit names and where its boundary sits before you plan access. It is the single most common thing we get asked to sort out after the drawing.
Your permit names your week and your district. Neither is something a guide can change for you.
This is working timberland, not wilderness park. Large clearcuts at different stages of regrowth, gravel haul roads that change year to year, and long distances between anything. The cuts are the reason the moose are there — new growth is feed — and they are also why spot-and-stalk works here in a way it does not in closed canopy.
The practical problems are access and recovery, not finding animals. Roads are gated and privately managed in much of the district, mobile coverage is patchy to absent, and getting a bull out of a cut a long way from a passable road is the part people underestimate.
We guide moose in WMD 4 along with 7, 8, 9 and 14. We cannot get you a permit and we will not pretend otherwise — the lottery is the lottery. What we do is scout the ground before your week, know which roads are open and gated, and handle the extraction once a bull is down.
If you have drawn Zone 4 and want to talk through access or dates, see our guided moose hunts or call (207) 313-1372. If you have not drawn yet, the Maine moose permit lottery guide explains deadlines and bonus points.
Boundary description and the 4A Adaptive Unit are summarised from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Always check your own permit and the current law book before you hunt.
