Bear Baiting 101, ATV Maintenance and – Wait – That Guy on the Cover Looks Just Like ….!
Lots of surprises await readers of the Maine Sportsman’s August issue, starting with that fellow in the cover photo holding a MASSIVE striper. He looks just like – no, it couldn’t be! But yes it is! Die-hard Red Sox fans older than 30 will quickly recognize a former third baseman who posed for this trophy portrait while fishing with our Saltwater columnist Barry Gibson. Sox supporters have forgiven this ballplayer’s brief time with the hated Yankees and the Tampa Bay “Devil” Rays, since it’s a Red Sox cap he’s wearing on his Cooperstown Hall of Fame plaque.
Speaking of surprises, are snakeheads – those schooling beasts that have already swum and crawled their way north to New York and New Jersey – coming soon to a Maine pond near you? Read King Montgomery’s Sportsman’s Journal, and learn all about this mobile invasive.
Bill Pierce’s historic and amusing “Snapshots in Time” section in each month’s Almanac has quickly become a reader favorite, and August is no exception – Bill introduces us to Buckskin Sam, a former scout for General Custer who killed five full-grown bears in six minutes in 1898 with his Winchester repeater and his hunting knife, in what he termed “one of the greatest bear fights on record.”
And speaking of bears, Bill Graves, who has taken bear with rifles, muzzleloaders and even a Thompson single-shot pistol, contributes a special section this month titled “Bear Baiting for Beginners,” in which he walks newcomers through the intricacies of proper bait selection, choice of containers and placement of the site. All that information, and great photos to boot! Look for Part 2 of this article in September.
An ATV that works smoothly and reliably is a thing of beauty, while one that repeatedly breaks down because of poor maintenance is little more than an expensive trailer weight. Shane Brown, who sells and services ATVs for a living, unravels the mysteries of smooth operation in his special section, “Servicing and Maintaining Your ATV,” starting on Page 19.
Our regular columnists come through with extraordinary contributions every issue, and two outstanding examples in the August edition are William Clunie’s Freshwater Fly Fishing piece (“Good Friends Foster Epic Angling”), Page 35, and Bill Sheldon’s thoughtful column, “Old Camps have Stories to Tell,” Page 37.
In other news, Joe Saltalamachia is “Obsessed with Antlers” (Page 56); Allie and Luke team up for a field trip with moose biologist Lee Kantar (Page 51); and our team of joke writers and cartoonists keeps cranking out the humor to an ever-appreciative audience of readers (Page 71).
We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as our writers and editorial staff enjoyed assembling it. If you’ve got something to say, write us a short letter to the editor (providing photos, if you’ve got them), and email everything to Will@MaineSportsman.com.
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And thanks once again this month to our informed readers, to our many distribution outlets and to our loyal advertisers.