November 2008 Almanac
This Month: Sure, It’s Drab — Deer Hunters Don’t Care
Rain makes a lasting impression when it falls onto November’s bare landscape with all the blacks, browns and grays — a depressing time for a storm. Because of the impact of inclement weather now, many people consider the 11th month a rainy one in Maine.
In truth, though, November ranks as one of the state’s drier months, with an average of eight days of rain where other months, say May around Portland, has 11 days, making it the year’s wettest — even wetter than April.
Long shadows against the drab landscape create an uneasy feeling on sunny days, too, a certain promise of what’s coming soon — full-blown winter. Yes, nature seems cruel to average folks this month.
However, serious deer hunters pray for snow and don’t mind rain. Bad weather tips the odds in their favor — if they know how to take advantage and catch deer unaware.
And deer is serious business in the Pine Tree State. A little over one in seven
Mainers deer hunts, a huge percentage of folks, and when they run into one another, their greeting strikes newcomers as weird.
“Get ja’ deer yet?” will be uttered tens of thousands of times, and the answer means everything to self-esteem.
Serious duck hunters live for the second half of the split season and don’t care about deer at all. They have the marshes empty of other hunters now, and days pass that create those lifetime memories.
As the month wanes, folks with venison in the freezer eat the spoils in a variety of recipes, including deer stew with parsnips, venison-burger chili, venison in a red-wine sauce over linguine, venison Diane, venison Oscar, venison roast braised in red wine and smothered with horseradish, various steak recipes and more personal favorites that make leisurely meals special.
Who doesn’t eat by candlelight with crystal wine glasses and good China?
Who doesn’t find a good bottle of Bordeaux or Burgundy straight from France with appellation controlee on the bottle to accompany the gourmet feast?
Who doesn’t want a crusty French bread or heavy, multi-grained bread, depending on the main dish?
Many of us live for November, and the majority of us who do have a deer rifle in the corner.
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Tips of the Month
Wine Corks for What?!
Game calls for ducks, crows, geese and so forth often get dust, grit and grime around the reed, spoiling the sound. An easy, inexpensive cure for this problem begins with a wine cork inserted into the front end, which keeps the tube as clean as a whistle.
Deer Driving Works, But….
This fall, Field & Stream ran the results of a survey, and one question asked, “What is the most overrated hunting tactic?” Fifty-one percent answered with driving deer, followed by 19 percent saying rattling and grunting as the most overrated — a distant second.
Driving deer works well only when the hunting party [a maximum of 3 hunters, under Maine law] knows the woods well, including: 1) how deer use that particular tract, and 2) which way the wind is blowing. When deer drivers have this knowledge down cold, driving really tip the odds in the hunters’ favor.
With the above rules down, savvy deer drivers follow three rules to success:
First, good drivers make sure they are pushing deer into the wind because these wary animals will not run with the wind for long before they turn to get their noses into it. Hunters often pay little attention to wind direction and try driving deer so these ungulates are moving in the same direction as the air is moving, which seldom works. Whitetails want their noses pointed into the wind; otherwise, they’re like a blind man walking without a cane.
Second, the drivers must push silently as if they are still-hunting. Hooting and hollering just tell the deer the moving hunters’ locations. Silent hunters make deer spooky and want to move.
Third, hunters on stand must stand downwind to the game trails and be as silent as a grandmother’s whisper.
When the drive works with military precision with those above rules observed, deer driving is a deadly tactic that puts game on the pole.
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Where the Action Is
WMD 23 Is Maine Deer Hotspot
Where would a serious deer hunter head in the State of Maine this month?
Well, judging by the number of any-deer permits issued, Wildlife Management District (WMD) 23 southwest of Bangor and extending nearly to Augusta reigns as one hot deer producer.
The heart of this WMD lies on the bottom half of DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 22 and the top one-fifth of Map 14. Towns such as Unity, Thorndike, Brooks, Montville and Monroe lie in the heart of this deer country.
Abandoned fields, old orchards, clear-cuts reverting to wood lots, hardwood ridges and bottomland swamps make this whitetail central, but another, unsung plus insures dense deer populations — fertile soil. This country includes some of Maine’s most fecund dirt, which produces nutrient-rich forage.
The only other spots in Maine that can compete in fecundity lie in the limestone belt in Aroostook County and in extreme Southern Maine in York County.
Routes 9, 139, 7, 131, 141, 220 and side roads off these major highways slice through the best deer country Maine offers. No one can go wrong spending November days in this area, wandering these deer woods. Abundant deer numbers and huge bucks offer a place for every hunter’s tastes — no pun intended.
…Fishing, anyone?
An informal, somewhat secret group of anglers hang around Cobbossee Stream this month and catch brown trout on egg patterns. Check MAG, Map 12, D-4 and find the Collins Mills Road and fish downstream of where it crosses Cobbossee Stream.
Others hang around the St. George River, or more precisely the stretches below Sennebec Pond (Map 14, D-1) and in downtown Warren (E-1) around Payson Park. Newcomers merely watch the handful of anglers that usually frequent these spots. DIF&W stocks browns during late fall in Payson Park, and unknowing anglers call it a sea-run brown fishery. With luck, anglers will find more stocked browns below Sennebec Pond.
Waterfowlers looking for a classic experience should head to Merrymeeting Bay, or more precisely, the wild-rice fields south of Swan Island, found on MAG, Map 6, A-5. No spot on the continent offers a more picturesque duck hunt, filled with the romance of another era.
The best boat launch for hitting this spot lies just upstream on the Kennebec River. Duck hunters can launch in downtown Richmond off Route 24 right at the junction of Route 197 west (Map 12, E-5).
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News and Tidbits
That’s a Lotta’ Maine Jobs
The Natural Resource Council of Maine put together a news conference in Portland last Sept. 9 to discuss a new report entitled “Green Recovery — A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy.” It came from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the Center for American Progress helped the university prepare it.
Speakers from Maine businesses and non-profit organizations, including energy efficiency, clean energy industries and the Natural Resources Council of Maine spoke at the event. By keying on businesses dealing with creating energy with wind and solar and energy retrofitting equipment, Maine could develop over 9,000 more jobs. When a natural-resources organization leads the way for job creation, people sit up and notice.
An 11-Year-Old Smashes Old Blueback Record
Wildlife officials at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife have verified that on Aug. 20, Carter McLaughlin, an 11-year-old boy, caught a record-breaking Arctic char in Pushineer Pond in Township 15, Range 9. The fish measured 25.4 inches long and weighed 5.24 pounds.
Merton Wyman of Belgrade holds the previous record for a Maine-caught Arctic char, also known as a blueback trout. He caught the 4-pound, 4-ounce blueback in 1973 in Basin Pond.
Emerald Shiners Invasive
Bait anglers have inadvertently and deliberately introduced emerald shiners (Notropis atherinoides) to Maine, a bona-fide newcomer that some folks call invasive. Ironically, it’s legal to use this exotic species for bait in the Pine Tree State.
Fallfish No Small Fry
Most Maine anglers call fallfish (Semotilus corporalis) “chub” or “eastern chub,” but the former routinely grows much larger than most Northeastern chub species. In fact, the world-record fallfish weighed 3-pounds, 8-ounces, far larger than brookies in many northern ponds where folks pay good money to stay in sporting camps. On the Shawmut stretch of the Kennebec River, the still-water edges beside the main currents grow fallfish that routinely reach 14 inches and occasionally larger.
Brookies Minus Bulldog Tenacity
Veteran anglers compare the fight of cutthroat trout — a genuine western native — to that of an eastern brook trout minus the bulldog tenacity. For most of the 20th century, anglers in the American West considered cutthroats a second-rate fighter and lackluster challenge, and old timers hated them in comparison to the introduced rainbow trout and brown trout.
These days, western fisheries managers have placed strict regulations on cutthroats to protect them while instigating liberal bag limits on the acrobatic, wary rainbows and feisty, sagacious browns to rid some drainages of the exotic species, species that most anglers love — yet another example of fisheries biologists not responding to the customer base.
Why Spread Invasive Plants?
A recent letter to this writer furnished at least one explanation as to why people spread invasive plants where they don’t belong. A fellow explained that a few years ago, an acquaintance went to Tennessee and brought back wild kudzu vines, which grow 12 inches a day in good weather. He planted the kudzu along his driveway and by the road, hoping “…It would take off to **** everybody off.” Thankfully, the kudzu didn’t find Maine’s climate to its liking because this is one aggressive plant should it take root. The kudzu died and one invasive plant species didn’t take over the state.
What Stripers Eat?
The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries did a 4-year dietary study of striped bass in New England during summer, and the percent of the total ingested prey weight of their forage included over 50 items from menhaden to crabs to lobster to a garter snake.
Atlantic menhaden led the menu with 18.5 percent, rock crab 12 percent, American sand eel 8.1 percent, unidentified bony fish 7.6 percent, sand shrimp 6.8 percent, American lobster 6.4 percent, green crab 5.8 percent, lady crab 5.8 percent, Atlantic herring 3.2 percent, sea worms (annelids) 2.3 percent and unidentified crustaceans 2 percent — in that order. From there, the percentages ran from 2 percent to 0.1 percent, mostly the latter. American eel comprised 0.1 percent of the summer forage!
New Zealand Postpones Felt-Sole Ban
Last July in a close vote, New Zealand officials voted to ban felt-soled waders for fear this fishing tool would spread didymo, an invasive plant that allegedly coats the bottom of clean, cold rivers. The law would have gone into effect on Oct. 1, the opening day of the fishing season.
The ban struck logical folks as strange because didymo in that country often showed up below boat launches, indicating that boats, motors, anchor ropes (particularly), oars, paddles or boat trailers were spreading this plant — indigenous to the Northern Hemisphere. In late August, New Zealand officials postponed the ban until next year.
Weird Maine Law
Landowners with 10 acres of land used primarily for agricultural purposes can hunt their property without a license; however, wild-turkey hunters must own 25 contiguous acres managed for raising dairy cattle, dairy products or beef cattle. Other stipulations apply, so check the hunting-regulations booklet for details.
Muskie Sizes Disappointing
In comparison to northern pike, muskie sizes may disappoint newcomers to the sport. All muskie aficionados may seek a fabled 50-inch fish that weighs around 35 pounds, but the average muskie tips the scales between seven and 15 pounds. The smaller end of this scale isn’t much bigger than an average pike. However, a 56-inch muskie will go 50 pounds, a size that will satisfy most folks.
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Bird of the Month
Golden-Crowned Kinglet
Shadows in mid to late November stretch long, even at noontime, when a Maine day lasts a little over nine hours. As the all-too-short afternoon rushes toward sunset, a deer hunter slipping through a stand of hemlock might hear the high, tinny see-see-see of a golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa).
Indeed, astute observers who hunt Maine deer know the wiry sound of this kinglet cold — a familiar part of our November woodlands in the failing light of late afternoon when folks can almost depend on hearing this kinglet, a winter visitor to the Pine Tree State.
During the 11th month, that see-see-see proves as common as the raucous cry of a blue jay, the hoarse caws of a crow and the chick-a-dee-dee-dee of a black-capped chickadee. However, this kinglet’s fragile call sounds out of place in the chilled, dark light beneath the dense canopy.
Casual observers hear it, too, but they seldom have a clue as to what made it. This furtive bird hangs in the tops of tall conifers beyond sight much of the time, where it feeds on hibernating insects or larvae.
At four inches tall and one-fifth of an ounce, a golden-crowned kinglet ranks as one of the smallest, perching songbirds in the forest, a slightly smaller creature than a ruby-crowned kinglet, which grows 1/4-inch longer and 0.02 ounces heavier, the latter barely measurable on the most sensitive scales. The golden-crown’s wings stretch an amazing seven inches, though, quite a span for such a diminutive critter.
(A winter wren has a shorter wing span but measures the same length as a golden crown. In size, though, the wren weighs 1/3-ounce more — a tubby-two-by-four compared to the golden crown.)
Unlike its close cousin, the ruby crown, golden-crowned kinglets have two black stripes and two white stripes on each side of the face. A black stripe goes across the eye and looks similar to a Zorro mask. One white stripe looks like an eyebrow.
The golden crown helps determine the bird’s gender because the female sports yellow and the male bright orange — if the observer can see the crown. When the bird perches above the observer, it’s difficult to see the colorful dome. (When this writer was a kid, he thought the male and female were two different species because of the different color crowns.)
Both kinglets have two white stripes on their wings.
Guidebooks claim each bird has olive-gray bodies, including the back, shoulders and stomach, but it takes good light close up and personal to see the olive.
This tiny bird lays cream eggs speckled with brown, and the number amazes newcomers to birding — eight to nine eggs! Laying so many indicates that this species endures a relatively high mortality rate for its chicks.
Golden-crowned kinglets construct the nest as much as 60 feet above the ground — generally suspended among several twigs in a dense conifer for concealment. This bird chooses moss, lichens and plant down for the nest, and it makes a feather-line cup on top of the main building material.
A Maine November would be that much poorer without this durable little songbird to liven up the late afternoon after the dying light has shut up blue jays, crows and chickadees. (Ken Allen)
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Do You Know?
This Answer Is Quite “Bushy”
Maine town names fascinate folks, and books and magazine articles have been written on the topic. Do you know what the town names of Wytopitlock and Alna have in common with one another?
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Book Corner
Muskie on the Fly
Maine’s muskie fishing in the St. John drainage has gained national attention — bad and good. First, this toothy predator threatens a wild brook-trout fishery, the bad part. Second, muskie routinely grow 20- to 30-pounds, one heck of a freshwater critter to have on the end of a line, the good part.
When Mainer fly rodders think of muskie fishing, most of them haven’t a clue about the species because its normal range is several states away from us. What should a novice do with the king of toothy freshwater giant predators?
Muskie on the Fly by Robert S. Tomes, a Masters on the Fly book published by Wild River Press, Mill Creek, Washington, recently came across my desk, a dynamite tome for anyone interested in muskie fishing. Tomes’ thorough treatment of the subject has it all and more, so naturally, this work can answer most of our questions.
Solid muskie-fishing how-to and a jillion color photos fill the book, the latter requiring a quick explanation. In recent years, U.S. publishers send books with color photos to China for printing because it’s much more inexpensive to produce color books there and the workmanship proves superb. The results? Books such as Muskie on the Fly look like a coffee-table edition, not a work meant to devour to learn a subject — say muskie fishing.
Tomes’ book has 284 pages and 12 chapters, including the following topics: Muskie allure, muskie natural history, tackle choice, best fly patterns, fly-rod skills, presentation techniques, hooking the fish (lots of solid tips that would take decades to learn on your own), muskie through the seasons, where-to go and more. The quality of the photos struck this reviewer as absolutely superb. Folks could cut some of them out and put them in frames.
The drawings to illustrate techniques and whatnot are also top drawer, which appeals to ex-school teachers such as this reviewer who know that one of the keys to learning begins with excellent visual aids.
If readers have an interest in fishing for muskie, this book strikes me as a bargain at $59.95. At first, that might sound steep, but we’re talking a big book with hundreds of illustrations and photos on quality paper, and that comment about a coffee-table book was no exaggeration. (Ken Allen)
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Innocent Bystander
Real Ethics Issues or Just Control Freaks?
In the October 2008 issue of The Maine Sportsman, Bob Cram, the “Katahdin Country” and “The Allagash” columnist, wrote about grouse hunting in the Allagash, and in his inimitable storytelling style, he talked about bird hunting with a companion, a senior citizen in his 70s.
The older gentleman no longer possesses the stamina in his legs to traverse rough grouse terrain, so Cram and he were road-hunting. Both men preferred walking abandoned woods roads impassible to vehicles, but the toll of life had caught up to one of them.
At one point, after exiting Cram’s truck and shooting a grouse on the wing, the companion picked up the feathered prize just as a Land Rover drove by. The ultra-expensive vehicle’s window was down, and the driver criticized the man for road-hunting, making the older guy feel miserable.
Just the way Cram unfolded the story without making judgments one way or the other — just showing readers what happened as if he were a video-camera lens — he created pathos that stayed with me long after finishing the column.
In the end, Cram’s piece left me with a familiar thought. Why is it that people step beyond regulations and impose even more unofficial rules — often just control-freak whims?
In a similar vein, on Maine’s outdoors bulletin boards, posters complain about other legal activities such as strike indicators for fly fishing, weighted flies and other perfectly legal activities ad nauseam instead of keying on relevant, injurious practices that truly hurt the environment and resources.
Why complain about an issue such as a senior citizen road-hunting? Does it endanger the grouse population? Is it dangerous if folks wait until they are standing on the road and then follow the blue-sky rule before shooting?
Kindergarten children do a better job of getting along than that fellow in the Land Rover. A favorite saying among the liberal establishment applies here. Can’t we all just get along? (Ken Allen)
Next Month: Grab Your Shotgun. It’s Still Small Game Season
This dark, festive month of holiday spirit, partying and contemplation once passed quietly for outdoors types. Sure, rabbit hunters stayed busy after snow flew, ice fishers looking for a fish-fry tried their luck with pickerel and perch when ponds froze, and a handful of waterfowlers hit marshes in the late season, but mostly, December proved quiet for sports folks.
Man, in the last 15 years, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife changed that scene in Maine with sane legislation to give us more options.
For example, upland-bird hunters can chase grouse and pheasant until Dec. 31, gray-squirrel hunters have until Dec. 31 for this exciting small-game animal, and open-water anglers in ponds and lakes have until Dec. 31 for fishing but must throw back salmonids and black bass. Folks are taking advantage, too.
Northern hamlets push December snowmobiling harder now, so that season kicks off in the 12th month unless no snow falls, and that seldom happens in the north country. Folks heading north find motels, hotels and sporting lodges so busy that they make reservations well in advance for fear everything will be booked.
Remember, 15 short years ago, these places were dead in December.
Long shadows this month encourage contemplation, too, and some folks like nothing better than a long walk to think now. Sure, some of us may carry a gun, fishing rod or ice traps, but mostly, philosophical types wax philosophical now just like in the old days. As the month wanes, rounds of Christmas and New Year’s parties keep us socializing then, so leisurely hikes early in the month before snow piles too deep makes sense.
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Answer to “Do You Know?”
Latin Scholars Got This One
“Wytopitlock” means “alders” in Algonquin, and “Alna” is the Latin word for “alders.” Anyone who has ever visited either place can attest to the fact that both places have alders all right, making it a grand name for either place.
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We have plenty of turkeys and we want to expand hunt opportunities. This will open up hunt opportunities for people after work, as well as youngsters after school. With so many birds out there, and a season that protects hens, managing the spring season is almost a no-brainer.
—DIF&W bird biologist Brad Allen, commenting on his proposal to expand the spring season to all day hunting in 2009. Lewiston Sun Journal, September 7, 2008.
There’s plenty of wood for everybody.
—Les Otten, Chair of the Governor’s Wood-to-Energy Task Force, presenting the group’s recommendations. Susan Cover story, Blethen Newspapers, September 27, 2008
Maine has more standing timber today than it did in 1950. We’ve always had the ability to solve this, but we’ve become so addicted to oil.
—Dept. of Conservation Commissioner Pat McGowan, a Wood-to-Energy Task Force member, advocating for the group’s recommendations. Same Blethen Newspapers story.
Maine’s boating laws need a fresh look. Now.
—Lewiston Sun Journal editorial, following a split decision on charges against a Massachusetts boater who killed two people in a nighttime collision on Long Lake last year. September 26, 2008.
Not every conflict, thank goodness, will end as tragically as this one. But a robust and frank discussion about the adequacy of Maine’s boating laws to protect all kinds of experiences on the state’s lakes would be welcome — and would provide at least a sliver of a positive outcome for such a terrible tragedy.
—Kennebec Journal editorial, September 26, 2008.
It’s a visually stunning change. I think it’s something we can celebrate. And I hope part of the celebration will be the reclassification of this river.
—Former Benton Selectman Richard Lawrence, testifying in favor of an upgrade from Class C to B for the entire Kennebec River. Keith Edwards story, Kennebec Journal, September 19, 2008.
We are looking to help them build capacity. They are really trying to maintain membership, and it’s been tough for a lot of organizations. I think it is related to people tightening up. They practice their own conservation in the field, but they are also thinking about what they’re doing for their oil tanks.
—Janet Wyper, L.L.Bean’s manager of community relations, about the company’s decision to donate 5 percent of hunting product sales during its Hunting Expo to the Maine Bowhunters Association. Deirdre Fleming story, Portland Press Herald. September 18, 2008.
There needs to be some flexibility and creativity within the act and I don’t believe that is going to come unless (the status) is downgraded to threatened.
—Pat Keliher, Director of Fisheries for Maine’s Marine Resources Department, commenting on a federal proposal to list Atlantic salmon as endangered in the Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot Rivers. Kevin Miller story, Bangor Daily News, September 17, 2008.
Drug Bust — I (moose and marijuana): Two people, including an Allagash Wilderness Waterways ranger, were summonsed Thursday, Sept. 18, for hunting moose in closed season and for night hunting. The non-ranger also was charged with shooting from a motor vehicle, cultivating marijuana, and possession of a usable amount of marijuana.
Drug Bust — II (moose and marijuana): Wardens David Milligan and Preston Pomerleau found two individuals looking for moose on Saturday, Sept. 20, and later arrested one of the individuals for possession of hashish and hydrocodone, and summonsed for marijuana possession.
Drug Bust — III: Warden Jim Babiarz assisted Border Patrol on a stuck vehicle call. The subjects in the vehicle had marijuana and were arrested.
Drug Bust — IV: Wardens Ed Christie and Ryan Fitzpatrick assisted the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Border Patrol, Maine State Police and the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office with a large-scale marijuana harvest — 87 plants.
Drug Bust — V: Wardens Irene Yaws, Joseph McBrine Jr. and Sgt. David Craven executed a search warrant at a Washington County camp that culminated an investigation conducted by Warden Yaws. Violations of IF&W hunting laws, and LURC and forestry regulations were noted, as well as a large amount of harvested marijuana.
Drug Bust — VI: Warden Paul Farrington, with help from Warden Jim Davis and Sgt. Ron Dunham, wrote two warrants and served them on consecutive nights. The first yielded more than a pound of marijuana, most of it processed for sale. The second was for a felony gun possession that stemmed from a complaint of two deer hanging in the man’s shed. It turned out there was only one deer, cut in half, that had since petrified from hanging in the shed since last fall. Several guns were seized and other evidence was collected.
—DIF&W Weekly Report, September 26, 2008.