Maine Outdoor Journal | Deer-hunt permits get swapped on the Web

TRAVIS BARRETT

Proof positive once again: Necessity is the mother of invention.

Jeff Zimba didn’t invent DoeTagSwap.com because he was looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or a loophole in the system. The Master Maine guide from Fairfield simply found himself in a pickle.

“Last year I got drawn (for an any-deer permit) in a district I had no intention of hunting in,” Zimba said. “I’d purchased a piece of land in a different district. I’d scouted it, and I’d spent all my time there.

“It’s where I was going to hunt.”

Zimba had the same problem that hundreds of Maine whitetail deer hunters face every season. His name had been pulled in the lottery for a permit, but in a district where he didn’t want to hunt.

“In my case, I had a landowner permit in District 23. I wanted a landowner permit in District 16,” Zimba said. “I had to find somebody who wanted to trade for that, and it’s very, very, very specific.”

Which means it could be both costly and time-consuming to locate one other deer hunter out there willing to swap for the precise requirements Zimba wanted – and vice versa. Advertisements could be placed in newspapers, trade publications, swap and sell guides and even on Internet message boards with no guarantees.

“That’s a needle in a haystack,” Zimba said.

So he started DoeTagSwap.com with a friend of his, introducing a database in which hunters could find people who wanted to swap their permits with others in different districts.

For less than a $10 annual membership, DoeTagSwap.com members can search databases broken down by districts and find hunters who want to hunt in districts other than where they were drawn for any-deer permits.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife endorsed the project, having last year issued a press release encouraging hunters to use the Web site once it debuted.

This year’s any-deer permits will be chosen Friday.

“The big picture for them is that the harvest is balanced,” Zimba said.

“You are allowed to swap your tags (by a certain date), and all this does is provide a mechanism for that. You enter what district you have (a permit in), where you are and what district you want to hunt. When you find what you’re looking for, all we do is facilitate that swap through a link.

“And when you’re done with that, it takes you directly to the IF&W site to complete the transaction.”

Zimba believes that one of the things IF&W likes best about DoeTagSwap.com is that it is not a site for bartering or auctioning off permits among hunters. It’s simply for direct trades of permits from district to district.

Last year, Zimba said he started the site late and found himself with less than a month’s lead time to get word out about the site and facilitate permit swaps. He’s hoping that last year’s success – coupled with getting the early word out about the Web site – will allow more hunters to use it.

“It was just a trial balloon that we launched, and it all came from the necessity of me needing a tag for the area I wanted to hunt,” said Zimba. He said there has already been interest expressed in a MooseTagSwap.com, and interest from other states looking to set up similar databases for their own permit systems.

“It’s the perfect example of necessity being the mother of invention,” he said. “I needed a permit, and there was no mechanism out there for me finding one.”

But it wasn’t all flowers and tea for Zimba.

“The funny back story in all of this is that I never did get anybody to swap with me,” he said with a laugh. “I helped people all over the state get theirs, but I never got my own.”

Staff Writer Travis Barrett can be reached at 621-5648 or at:

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

via Maine Outdoor Journal | Deer-hunt permits get swapped on the Web.