December 2007 Almanac
This Month: Time to Lay Back, Or Go Full Throttle?
When snow falls in the dark, festive month, it divides the state’s outdoor-sports crowd into two camps. One group looks at December as the busy man’s month, but the other approaches late fall and early winter as a time of lethargy and meditation.
For hard chargers, ice fishing kicks off for everything but salmonids and bass as soon as ponds and lakes freeze, and smelters begin as soon as ice freezes on coastal rivers. A handful of folks hit select rivers and one stream as well as tidal water to cast, and surprisingly, fly rodders make up 98 percent of this group.
After the first layer of snow covers the landscape, rabbit hunters, wild-canine shooters and bobcat enthusiasts hit the woods with a vengeance, and often, spruce-and-fir thickets are tunneled fairylands.
If fishing and hunting for smaller critters isn’t enough, muzzleloaders after deer have a delightful month for hunting, particularly in the bottom third of the state where snow conditions and temperatures strike us as perfect for chasing whitetails.
The big news, though, huge really, belongs to a motorized machine that began hitting the scene a half-century ago — snowmobiles. This sport has become so popular that snow sledders need reservations in north-country hamlets such as Rumford, Rangeley, Jackman, Eustis-Stratton, Greenville, Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Calais, Machias and so forth. Higher elevations in more northern latitudes kick off in early December, too.
That same snow that kicks off snowmobiling draws cross-country skiers and snowshoers out, but this group is small potatoes compared to the mechanized folks. According to tourism studies in nearby Canadian provinces, snowmobilers are big spenders compared to the slender-ski users.
Hiking or skiing on fresh snow enables observers to study tracks — the stories of animals’ recent movements — but this tourism dollar is difficult to measure.
Winter strikes many folks as the perfect time to rest up from the previous three seasons for more cerebral pursuits such as reading, fly tying and preparing leisurely meals with the spoils from the wild — wild game, fish and flora. It’s little wonder that gout attacks rise considerably in March after a winter of eating and drinking alcoholic beverages.
Next Month: Rev Up Your Engine, It’s Ice Fishing Time
Two sports rock now in Northern and Eastern Maine. 1) Snow is a certainty in January, and Northern Maine hamlets boom as tourists from south of the north country flock to this region to snowmobile and cross-country ski, the latter a small, small attraction compared to sledding. 2) As surely as snow falls in the first month, ponds and lakes freeze, and ice-fishers flock to the ice on New Year’s Day when the salmonid and bass seasons begin.
Just like last month, many folks love winter and spend every spare second in the out of doors, snowmobiling, ice-fishing, open-water fishing, smelting, hunting rabbits, coyotes, foxes, sea ducks and more. To them, January is a busy man’s month.
Others stay indoors and pursue more sedentary outdoor sports. Fly tiers tie as the month sails along, trying to replenish boxes and concoct new flies before the April 1 opener of fishing season. Avid readers have myriad outdoors titles published since autumn. Folks clean fishing equipment, refurbish it and arrange it for spring.
A lot of the lethargic types head south now and fish tropical waters for bonefish, barracuda, redfish and more. A correlation exists between folks who think winter is good for staying indoors and for going to southern climes. If they don’t like getting out in the cold, then it’s a good indication that they have a touch of seasonal affective disorder, cured by one or two weeks in Florida.