September 2008 Almanac
This Month: ‘Try to Remember’ the Perfect Month
“Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh so mellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain grew yellow.”
If you’re a true baby boomer born in the mid to late 1940s, you probably remember these Harvey Schmidt lyrics made popular by Tom Jones in 1960. If you lived in Maine, you probably felt certain the State of Maine inspired this lyricist, and he surely had made a pilgrimage here.
A Pine Tree State September delights the senses with the sweet, sweet light and cerulean sky. Dawns break with a crispness promising what’s to come, but by 10 a.m., it’s summer again…or at least summer until near sundown.
September proves a busy month in Maine as folks scurry around, readying for autumn sport and winter’s cold. Shooting and scouting eat up plenty of time, as does piling wood undercover. Folks interested in bears, expanded archery deer season, moose, rails and other critters legal to chase are already out — doing it.
Once upon a time, Maine anglers did little fishing this month except in a handful of name places, often in the north country, but these days, a huge segment of Maine’s sports folks live for September fishing. A big part of the reason involves the ultra-ubiquitous, blue-winged-olive hatches. Folks know that at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m., depending on the species, that a hatch will begin.
Saltwater angling for stripers, mackerel and just maybe bluefish also excite folks now as tidal waters cool and these migratory game fish put on the feedbag. Beaches have fewer sun worshippers now, so fishing the few, lovely sand stretches between Popham and Kittery offer folks paradise now.
Party boats also bring people to the salt, and the quarry is groundfish on most outings. Cod used to be a mainstay of this industry, but haddock have made a huge comeback as of late. Who can go wrong by going out after a bag of filets?
Gardens are such a delight now as staple crops such as potatoes, corn, winter squash, beans for drying, carrots, parsnips and more mature for harvest. It gets no better than preparing a meal with veggie side dishes from the backyard garden, dessert from fruits from the wild and a main dish of fish, fowl or red meat from the waters or forests…such immense satisfaction.
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Tips of the Month
Two Great Flies Keep Rods Bent
Two flies work gangbusters this month on trout and salmon rivers where spawning fish run upstream — a Slaymaker’s little brook trout and Kate’s smelt. Any hook from size 4 to 12 in 6x or 8x long models work, but this time of year, savvy fly rodders have a preference for size 4, 8x hooks.
Here’re the dressings:
– Slaymaker’s Little Brook Trout
Thread: Olive
Tail: Sparse bright green bucktail topped with bright red floss
Body: Spun cream fur thin enough for the olive thread to show through.
Ribbing: Thin, flat silver tinsel
Throat: Sparse orange bucktail one-third length of shank
Wing: Bottom layer of sparse white bucktail, topped with sparse orange bucktail, topped with sparse green and topped with barred badger. Make double certain the four bunches end up creating a sparse wing and extend past the hook bend just one-quarter the length of the shank.
What great action Slaymaker’s LBT has produced on the Roach River!
– Kate’s Smelt
Thread: White for the shank; black for the head
Tail: Golden pheasant topping curving down
Ribbing: Oval gold tinsel
Body: Double wrap of flat silver tinsel. (Start behind the hook eye, wrap tinsel over white thread that has light coating of wet cement, continue to the hook’s bend and back again to behind the hook eye. Coat this with head cement and wrap ribbing while cement is still wet.
Wing: After the cement on the body dries, put on wing. Bottom layer is sparse white bucktail topped with sparse red bucktail. Top with four to eight peacock herls, depending on size of fly. Make sure the ends of the herl are not broken.
Cheeks: Silver pheasant cheeks a la gray ghost.
Eyes: Jungle cock.
This fly proves ultra-durable and effective…what more could anyone ask?
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Where the Action Is
River Mobs and Non-Mobs
The Roach River on the east side of Moosehead Lake offers fly rodders so much fun this month as big brookies and so-so salmon run up the river from the big lake. Check DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 41, A-3 and A-4 for location details.
In recent years, September fly fishers have routinely caught 2- and 3-pound brook trout and occasionally 4-pounds and larger from this tiny river, and salmon normally run 15- to 19-inches, although a bigger landlock occasionally shows up. If you want trophy salmon described in pound, not inches, though, you might do better in the Fish River chain in Aroostook County, but the Moosehead Region has one huge plus. Greenville lies but two hours from Augusta.
The pool below the dam on First Roach Pond, the Bridge Pool and further downstream the Dump and Warden’s pools attract legions as do the few pools down near the lake. Folks in the know find solitude in the pools between the outlet of First Roach Pond and the big lake seven miles downstream.
Most of this river is pocket water, though, an ideal place for stream restoration to make pools to hold more fish.
Name rivers draw mobs this month, and places like Kennebago River west of Rangeley village, Rapid River below Middle Dam on Lower Richardson and Grand Lake Stream would be grand spots to set up a hotdog wagon, but some rivers such as the Sandy between downtown Phillips and Strong (MAG, Map 19, B-3 to B-5) or downstream from New Sharon (Map 20, D-2) offer solitude and more solitude.
This beautiful, clear river with a gravely bottom just doesn’t bring in the crowds — a grand spot to wile away a September afternoon under an electric-blue sky. Browns and brookies offer the attractions, but smallmouths are plentiful, too, below New Sharon.
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News and Tidbits
Can I Train Rover Now?
Dogs may be trained on foxes, varying hares and raccoons from July 1 to Mar. 31. While training dogs, it’s unlawful to use or possess a firearm other than a pistol or shotgun loaded with blank ammunition for the above three species except during the open hunting season for them. It’s illegal to train dogs on Sunday, the latter an obscure law of which many folks are unaware.
– Raccoon Considered Big Game
Maine law considers deer, bear, moose, wild turkey, bobcat and raccoon as big-game animals, but not coyotes. In short, raccoon hunters need a big-game license.
– Flash That Raccoon
Except for raccoon, it is unlawful to illuminate wildlife from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15 with artificial lights from 1/2-hour before sunset to 1/2-hour after sunrise. The rest of the year, it’s perfectly fine to spotlight animals after dark.
– Stevens’ Spelling Lessons
Carrie Stevens, the originator of the gray ghost, the most famous streamer fly in the world, was touchy about the spelling of “gray,” according to the late Ai W. Ballou, the father of the marabou streamer. Stevens disliked the British spelling of “grey” with an “e.” For some reason, American fly rodders tend to imitate the British when it comes to fly-fishing terms, and even an American magazine — Fly Tyer — chooses to use the British spelling for “tier.”
– Maine Tiers Make Contribution
Speaking of Maine fly tiers…. This state has made a tremendous contribution to the fly-fishing world via originating baitfish patterns. In fact, in Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing by Joseph D. Bates, Jr., he lists over 200 patterns. Approximately 50 of them came from Maine and include such perennial favorites as the gray ghost, Colonel Bates, Ballou special, supervisor, warden’s worry, light Edson tiger, dark Edson Tiger, nine-three, Joe’s smelt, black ghost and red and white.
– We Issue Challenge
A recent conversation with a reader has forced us to issue a challenge. Under general fishing regulations in Maine, the daily bag limit mandates that anglers can kill two rainbow trout, brown trout, lake trout or landlocked salmon or a combination of the four species — say one brown and one rainbow — but no more than two fish per day. In 10 of 16 counties, including brookie-rich Franklin, the daily limit is also two brook trout but it’s five in the other 16 counties. Please find us a state that has a smaller general bag limit than two fish and tell us about it.
–Wooly What Threat?
Recently, a forest ranger discovered hemlock wooly adelgids in Ferry State Beach Park in Saco, so it’s official. This bug has finally made it to Maine and threatens to kill a majority of our eastern hemlock, an important tree species here. Hemlocks create winter deer yards and are the only tree in which some songbird species nest. To aggravate the problem even more, hemlocks grow slowly compared to other New England conifers, so it takes the better part of 200 years to grow a mature hemlock stand. This adelgid has killed 75 percent of the trees in Connecticut and New Jersey.
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Bird of the Month
American Woodcock
American woodcock (Philohela minor) hold tightly for pointing and flushing dogs, a gentlemanly trait, which endears this 6- to 8-ounce migratory upland game bird to Maine hunters. Mood writers, oil painters and photographers have depicted woodcock scenes for well over a century now.
From a distance, this russet little fellow looks somewhat drab, but up-close, its browns, cinnamons, tans and black create an explosion of colors that please the most finicky eye. The black looks almost iridescent.
Size determines sex, too, in both body weight and bill length. The male weighs six ounces and has a 2 1/2-inch bill, and the female tips the scale at eight ounces and sports a 2 3/4-inch bill. By autumn, the juveniles are full grown, so these two rules work for sexing fall juveniles and mature woodcock.
Hunters realize a fact that often eludes straight birdwatchers because the former can spread the wings out on a dead critter. The wings look stubby on a flying woodcock, but they measure an incredible 18- to 20-inches across when hunters pull them out straight. The wings are also quite wide from front to back, too, so it’s little wonder with such lift that these birds can weave and bob through dense cover.
Woodcock lay four eggs and occasionally five, but mostly, it’s four. This contrasts sharply with that other Maine denizen of the uplands — ruffed grouse, which lay 12 or 13 eggs. Even though both species lay eggs into a crude ground nest, woodcock have a much more successful survival rate. Because of that, the species need not produce so many eggs.
While on the topic of comparing woodcock to grouse, this writer cannot help but resort to a baseball analogy when comparing them as targets after the flush. Shooting at woodcock is like trying to hit a David Wakefield knuckleball pitch, but hitting a grouse is like swinging at a Jonathan Papalbon fastball.
In the last 50 years, woodcock populations have steadily declined in Maine, thanks to dwindling habitat in the form of farm fields reverting to upland tangles in the North being cleared for development and bottomland tangles in the south being changed to open country for croplands. I suspect we’ll never see the abundant woodcock populations of the 1960s and ’70s because this habitat just won’t return because of modern land-use practices. Those densities have gone the way of the nickel candy bar and dime soda. (Ken Allen)
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Do You Know?
Here’s a Costly Question, Kids
Does a hunter between 10 and 15 years old with a junior hunting license need a muzzle-loading permit to hunt deer during the muzzleloader season for deer?
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Book Corner
Bound for Munsungan
Never in the history of the world have publishers been producing more books than in recent years — a boon to the reading public as well as to “specialty” readers who may never crack more than a handful of books in their life. The ones they do read delve into topics that apply directly to them.
For example, in Maine, authors occasionally pen a book about a single geographical region — say Pierce Pond northwest of Bingham, Grand Lake Stream in Washington County or the Munsungan Region north of Baxter Park, and often, the author pays to have the work published rather than publisher paying for the work expended.
Why?
The sales potential of regional titles often falls far short of what mainstream publishers are willing to risk, so authors pay so a particular subject gets put down in print for posterity — a labor of love.
Chances are good to excellent that the only folks interested in reading localized titles possess an intimate knowledge of the locale, and a goodly chunk of these people often study the book to make sure the author got it right. Folks who write such titles know that and take special care with accuracy.
Bound for Munsungan by Jack Ahern (Pear Tree Publishing, Bradford, Massachusetts) has a subtitle The History of the Early Sporting Camps of Northern Maine, and as the subtitle promises, the book documents a history of sporting camps in the semi-wilderness country north of Baxter State Park. The book covers the Munsungan area’s history, first touching on the Paleo-Indians, and then, it explores the development of sporting camps in the area with emphasis on Munsungan Lake.
To augment the words, black-and-white photos fill the text, but alas, the poor quality paper hurts the reproduction of the pictures, many typical old photos, some from amateur photographers, photos that were already iffy. In my opinion, though, this doesn’t hurt anything and makes the graphics look more historic while creating the illusion of authenticity.
If readers study this book closely, it gives tips on good spots to fish around the Munsungan Region. And, make no mistake. This area has good fishing, and it will stay that way for a while because it’s out of the way. For folks who don’t mind making the drive, campsites and sporting camps await the adventurous who want a taste of Maine fishing from yesteryear.
One intriguing feature of the book involves a truth about this region. If outdoor writers such as Bob Cram, The Maine Sportsman’s “The Allagash” columnist, write about the Munsungan Region, many folks in that area cry crocodile tears because it allegedly attracts sports folks. We’ll sit back and watch what happens from the where-to in Bound for Munsungan.
Bound for Munsungan cost $24.95, and the where-to info blended into the text makes it worth the price. (Ken Allen)
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Innocent Bystander
We Ain’t Sma’ter Than You
One of this Innocent Bystander’s writing philosophies involves a time-honored concept that the daily news media fails at miserably — practically on a daily basis in any single newspaper. Writers and editors should never write or edit down to readers, thinking the audience lacks the intelligence or sophistication to understand words or concepts.
At first glance, this advice might strike astute folks as simple commonsense, but it entails faith on the writer’s part. For example, if I know a word, I have blind trust that the reader knows it, too. If a passage in my essay or story explains a concept properly, the reader will understand it.
Here’s a minor but wonderful example of the daily news media editing down to readers — complete with the problem it creates — mainly making the writer look like an idiot.
Several years ago, one of my newspaper columns included a scene involving a solitary vireo singing in the treetops. These days, ornithologists have changed the name to blue-headed vireo, but back then, it was a solitary vireo.
Whatever folks call it, its song strikes the ear as at once beautiful and intriguing. David A. Sibley translates the lyrical sequence of sounds as see-you, cheerio, be seein’ you, so long, and my column included this birding-guidebook author’s anthropomorphism of the song.
Apparently, my newspaper editor considered “solitary” too fancy for our readers and changed it to “single” vireo. As humorist Dave Barry might write, “I ain’t making this up, folks.”
Lots of birders reading my column must have thought me a complete dummy when they came across “single vireo.”
I’ve written for several newspapers in the last 30 years and have dozens of similar stories. The experiences have turned me into a comedian, and sometimes at parties or coffee shops, my stories generate howls of laughter, particularly when my audience includes other writers.
While majoring in English at the University of Maine, Orono, one of my favorite writing teachers, the inimitable Edward M. Holmes, first introduced me to the concept of never writing down to readers. The lesson stuck, and enough people have mentioned my effort through the years to show me readers notice plenty. They’re worth honesty and consideration above all else. (Ken Allen)
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Next Month
Statewide Archery Season: Oct. 2 to Oct. 31
* Incidentally, the 2008 archery season will be bucks only in WMDs that do not have any-deer permits available. In WMDs with any-deer permits, archery hunts can harvest a deer of either sex.
–Gray squirrels: Oct. 1 to Dec. 31
–Pheasant, ruffed grouse and bobwhite quail: Oct. 1 to Dec. 31
–Varying hare: Oct. 1 to Mar. 31
–Fox: Oct. 20 to Feb. 28
–Raccoon: Oct. 1 to Dec. 31
–Skunk and opossum: Oct. 20 to Dec. 31
–Coyote: No closed season
–Woodcock and waterfowl: Not determined as of this
writing.
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Fall Wild Turkey Hunting Season:
–Zone 1 (Archery Only): WMDs 15, 16, 17, 20, 24, 25 and 26 — Oct. 11 to Oct. 25
–Zone 2 (Archery Only): WMDs 21-23 — Oct. 2 to Oct. 31
–Zone 3 (Archery and Shotgun): WMDs 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 — Oct. 18 to Oct. 24
–Turkey hunting has strict regulations about shotgun sizes, shot sizes and license requirements, so please check the regulations booklet for details.
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2008-2009 Trapping Season Dates
Note: Dates listed below are subject to change due to any rulemaking or legislation which may be adopted or enacted prior to the season.
–Bear Trapping Season: Sept. 1 to Oct. 31 Early Fox and
–Coyote Trapping Season: Oct. 19 to Nov. 1
–Early Muskrat Trapping Season: (WMD’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 only): Oct. 26 to Nov. 1
–Statewide Trapping Season: Bobcat, coyote, fox, mink, muskrat, opossum, otter, raccoon, red squirrel, skunk and weasel: Nov. 2 to Dec. 31
–Fisher and Marten Trapping Season: Nov. 15 to Dec. 15
–Beaver Trapping Season: (Season dates for 2008 will be set in early fall of 2008.)
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September Weather Report
The average September high and low temperatures in Portland are 70 degrees and 47 respectively and in Caribou 64 and 43 — delightful for daytime romps and nighttime sleeping.
From mid-June through August, Maine’s monthly average temperature remains quite static, but come September, it begins its autumn plummet. The average high and low drops about 8 degrees in Portland and approximately 10 degrees in Caribou.
The decline doesn’t begin at once, though, because the first 10 or so days of September often mean more of summer. By mid-month, though, the air has a subtle nip that promises fall — and soon.
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September Season Dates
–General Open-Water Fishing Season — April 1 to Sept. 30
–Daily bass bag limit three fish — July 1 to Sept. 30
Bear Hunting
–General season — Aug. 25 to Nov. 29
Hunting over man-placed bait — Aug. 25 to Sept. Sept. 20
–Hunting with dogs — Sept. 8 to Oct. 31
–Bear trapping — Sept. 1 to Oct. 31
A bear permit in addition to a general hunting license required from Aug. 25 to Nov. 29
Beginning in 2008, non-resident hunters require a late-season bear permit in addition to a general hunting license to hunt bear during the regular firearm season on deer. Yup, once again, Maine sticks it to the non-resident.
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Expanded archery season for deer: Sept. 6 to Dec. 13
Moose hunting (by permit only):
–In wildlife management districts (WMDs) 1-6, 11 and 19: Sept. 22 to Sept. 27
–In WMDs 1-14, 17-19, 27 and 28: Oct. 13 to Oct. 18
–In WMDs 15, 16, 23 and 26: Nov. 3 to Nov. 29
–In WMDs 15, 16, 23 and 26: Nov. 1 for residents only
Second half of split crow season: Aug. 1 to Sept. 30
Rail and snipe season: (Not set as of this writing)
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Maine’s 10 Highest Mountains
Katahdin — 5,267 feet
Sugarloaf — 4,237
Old Speck — 4,180
Crocker — 4,168
Bigelow — 4,150
North Brother — 4,143
Saddleback — 4116
Abraham — 4,049
The Horn — 4,023
Spaulding — 3,988
Next Month: A Highly Recommended Month
October in Maine has everything to recommend it — relatively little rain compared to other months, cool days, frigid nights, fall foliage and everything happening at once. Activities include fall fishing, upland birds, waterfowl, bear, archery deer, small game, turkeys, canine trapping a good part of the month, moose, camping, canoe tripping, backpacking, scenic photography, wildlife photography, harvesting garden staples, gathering wildfoods (such as apples and mushrooms…true delectables), songbird migrations for birdwatchers and on it goes.
So much is going on now that it’s difficult for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to juggle all the seasons so different user groups are not stepping on one another’s toes — not an envious task.
For example, upland bird hunters dislike sharing the woods with trappers, and folks who still hunt for bears become annoyed with those who use bear hounds, but of course, the still hunter-bear hound conflict is nothing compared to the bear baiter-bear hound battle the month before. Most people go about their business, though, without bumping into others — a most pleasant time of year in the Pine Tree State.
October indeed makes most of think of the cliché — life in Maine really is the way life should be. For 31 days, we got it all before the onslaught of winter with its $4-plus oil prices.
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Answer to “Do You Know?
Nothing’s Free Anymore, Not Even for Kids
A resident hunter between 10 and 15 years old with a junior hunting license must buy a $13 muzzleloader license to participate in the muzzle-loading deer season. A non-resident junior hunter between 10 and 15 years old with a junior hunting license must purchase the $62 non-resident muzzle-loading license to hunt.