January 2009 Almanac

This Month: Winter Has Sprung for Sure

By January 1, most of Maine has enough snow cover to make snowmobilers happy, and hopefully, the northern two-thirds of Maine has enough ice — at least in sheltered coves — so ice fishers can get out and begin the ice-fishing season on New Year’s Day when the general season kicks off.

In Northern Maine, snowmobiling has proven such a boon for the winter economy because these northern hamlets often have more visitors in the next three months than during any other time of year. Action rocks, businesses boom and folks have fun, fun, fun.

In fact, so many winter visitors have actually spurred cross-country skiing in the North Country. In short, without sledding bringing all the people, there would be no amenities to attract skiers. And, without all the visitors, area businesses would not have bothered with making ski trails.

However, no one would bother to argue with which came first — the hen or the egg. Folks know what came first — snowmobiling.

Varying hares have become scarce in the bottom half of Maine because the woods have reverted to primary forests, bad habitat for these long-eared critters, but Northern Maine’s commercial forests have rabbits aplenty. That has spurred a small winter business centered on running hounds after these fleet-footed creatures.

On the coast, towns that cater to sea-run smelting do a brisk business as folks flock to places such as Dresden Mills, Randolph, Bowdoinham and certainly more. Folks who don’t even fish love to sit in a smelt shack, eat rich foods, drink a little beverage and catch a mess of smelts for the table.

Not all pastimes now require going outdoors. Folks tie flies all winter as they replenish boxes of flies. Others build fishing rods. Some folks just cook leisurely meals with spoils from the forests and waters, stored in freezers for times like now.

Other folks just head south to fish, hitting storied destinations such as the Keys, Costa Rica and Caribbean Islands. That would be a great way to spend the month of January!

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Tips of the Month

Coopers Mills Home Fries Delightfully Healthy … No Kiddin’!

Folks prepare leisurely meals during this month of short, short days and long nights, and one healthy dish is — surprise of surprises — a fried-potato recipe called “Coopers Mills Home Fries.”

It begins with a cast-iron Dutch oven with a tight-fitting cover and a mere one tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil. Smear the oil on the bottom of the utensil and place on a medium-low heat. Add four raw potatoes, peeled and diced, half a coarsely chopped onion on top of the potatoes and salt, pepper and an herb (optional) to taste (dill, rosemary, chervil, etc.). Make sure the potatoes are cubed quite small so they cook well.

Cover tightly and wait for the potatoes to sizzle. When that happens, set the timer for 15 minutes and do not peek. After 15 minutes, turn the potatoes with a spatula, and the bottom cubes will be browned. Test one cube. It’s probably cooked, but if it’s not soft without crunchiness, cover and cook five more minutes. Uncover and cook 10 to 15 minutes more or until done.

The finished product has one tablespoon of oil and a sweeter, nuttier taste than home fries prepared with boiled potatoes. It’ll quickly become a family favorite, making the home chef a legend, a legend in the family anyway where it really counts.

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Felt-Lined Boots Toasty Warm

Folks troubled by cold feet in the winter should buy a pair of very old-style boots with rubber bottoms, leather uppers and a felt-booty lining. This style footwear keeps feet warm on the most frigid days.

One quick tip: When buying felt-lined boots, make sure to buy an extra liner. At the end of a day, they will be quite wet from sweat and should be dried completely before inserting back into the boots. Why? A wet or damp felt liner does not insulate the foot as well as a dry one.

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Durable Tails Make Sense

Here’s a fly-tying tip: Nymphs such as a Zug Bug call for peacock-herl fibers for a tail and patterns such as a Flick March Brown and Pheasant Tail suggest barbules from a cock pheasant tail feather. Both materials possess an iridescent sheen, explaining the preference.

However, peacock herl and pheasant-tail barbules possess a fragileness that causes them to break easily when fish strike. Because of that, tiers interested in durable flies substitute red-game cock barbules for tails on Zug Bugs, Flick March Browns and Pheasant Tails.

Along this line, biots are a popular tailing material, but these stiff fibers allow fish to push the fly away when they strike from behind. Again, hackle barbules work best.

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Where the Action Is

Surefire Sea-Run Smelting Spots

Two spots in Central-Coastal Maine have commercial smelting operations that sports folks find appealing places to spend a winter night:

The first location lies in Dresden Mills, easily found on DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 13, E-1, a picturesque Maine village located on the Eastern River.

Check ads in this issue of The Maine Sportsman to find the best places to fish. Ice forms in late December to early January each year, depending on weather, and the smelt-shack operators know when the ice is safe or not. They furnish gear and bait.

The second honey hole lies in Bowdoinham on the Cathance River and West Branch of Denham Stream. This little village also is near Merrymeeting Bay. Smelt-shack operators in this area also have ads in this issue.

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News and Tidbits

Deer Vision Revisited

For decades, wildlife researchers claimed that deer only saw shades of black, white and gray, but according to a New York Times article last fall, recent studies show deer have 20/40 vision slightly blurrier than humans with 20/20. Deer also see the world roughly like a human with red-green colorblindness. (Unlike humans with three color receptors, deer have but two.) However, like fish, deer are more sensitive than humans to light at the blue end of the spectrum. Thanks to eyes on either side of the head, they can see a field of view covering 270 degrees.

Bears in the Barn!

Last October in Sullivan, game wardens said bears killed three goats and also tried to get horses in a barn in eastern Maine. Incidents have been reported at three farms in the Franklin and Sullivan areas over a two-week period.

Game Warden Dave Simmons, the investigating officer, said he drove an offending bear from a barn with a piece of wood. Simmons said the bear weighed 150 to 200 pounds, but it’s hard to estimate a bear’s weight in the dark. Simmons said, “They’re all black with a lot of teeth when you’re ‘face to face’ with one.”

Simmons said bear attacks on farm animals are not a regular occurrence, but they happen often enough.

High Survival Rate

Salmonids caught and released with flies have — on average — a 2 percent to 4 percent mortality rate, which can be improved upon with careful handling. Even with average care, though, this percentage ratio translates into 10 to 20 dead fish for every 500 caught and released.

Learning Birds the Fun Way

One of the most enjoyable methods for learning birds starts at home by placing one or more birdfeeders near a favorite gawking window. Next, place binoculars and a birding guidebook within reach, get a cup of hot coffee or tea and sit down in one of the finer classrooms around.

Strictly newcomers to birdwatching will struggle at first, but soon, the list of identified birds grows…and grows some more. Then, folks begin trudging to the woods to see birds that don’t gather around feeders — say golden-crowned kinglets in winter. Soon, a die-hard birdwatcher is born, and that life list of bird species grows impressively by the year.

Beaujolais Nouveau Chases Away Shack Nasties

As tradition has it each fall, French wine makers in the Burgundy Region bottle thin-skinned gamay grapes six weeks after harvest, which roughly falls in mid-November. A major distribution company, Georges Duboeuf, the largest exporter of Beaujolais Nouveau in France, makes a spectacle of this bottling time in downtown New York each November, where parades actually usher in that vintage release.

The excitement of the event has spread to Maine, where folks in the know buy the new Beaujolais, a fruity but paradoxically dry wine that goes perfectly with appetizers before venison meals. It’s one of those wines that taste better without aging, and folks celebrate this young vintage all winter by having the occasional “Nouveau Beaujolais party” to chase away the shack nasties.

Folks Catch Trophy Salmonids When!

Many people assume that a majority of trophy salmonids come in the fall when salmon and trout spawn, but in truth, The One That Didn’t Get Away Club clearly shows that the bulk of those wall hangers are caught during the four weeks after ice-out and again in the first two weeks after ice-fishing season opens Jan. 1.

Maine Quarter Wins Second Place

According to the federal government, Maine won second place for the most-liked state quarter with a score of 94 percent. The U.S. Government minted 448,800,000 Maine quarters, which hit the streets in June 2003. Folks involved in inland Maine tourism resent the scene on this quarter — Pemaquid Point Light atop a granite coast and a schooner at sea. For years, many people in this state have worked hard to show we have much more to offer than “lobsters and lighthouses” and other ocean scenes and wish the quarter carried a moose, pine tree, chickadee or Atlantic salmon.

Commercial Fishermen…Again

Last fall, Stripers Forever (SF) received a copy of a letter from an eyewitness, who described a discarded bycatch of striped bass in an area east of outer Cape Cod.

According to SF, mid-water herring trawlers and groundfish draggers routinely have this wasteful bycatch — a well-known annual occurrence during the peak of the fall striper migration. When combined with the bloated take of the legal and black-market, commercial-striped-bass fisheries, it must have certainly contributed to the numerous reports about this season’s poor striper fishing along many areas along the Atlantic Coast.

SF contends that these dead fish should certainly be counted towards commercial striped bass quotas, but they are not. In fact, SF thinks that they are uncounted not only for quotas but also when calculating the overall fishing mortalities that fishery managers use in setting harvest levels. The bottom line is that this is just another important reason that there should be no commercial striped bass fishery, according to SF.

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Bird of the Month

American Goldfinches Brighten Winter

In summer, the average 7-year-old child can identify a male American goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) by the bright yellow body contrasting sharply with the coal black forehead patch, tail and wings.

Whether it is a male or the dull, yellow-olive female, though, the two conspicuous white wing bars on each wing help in identification, as does the deeply undulating flight that graphs like a sound wave. Also, goldfinches travel in flocks.

When goldfinches band around birdfeeders in winter, though, the much drabber, olive-yellow hue of both genders fools some folks. However, the white bars on the black wings are quite infallible in IDing this species.

These merry little birds liven a day around feeders in a long Maine winter. Their sweet, canary-like towee-towee-towee-tweer-toweer-ti-ti contrasts with their thin, wiry per-chik-o-ree– both calls more prevalent in early spring than in winter.

The Audubon guidebook translates this latter call as potato chip, which always intrigues folks when a bird sound gets anthropomorphized. You know. It’s like an olive-sided flycatcher calling Quick, three beers.

Typical of finches, goldfinches feed on weed seeds, tree buds and some insects in season, and characteristic of birds on such a diet, they inhabit hedges, abandoned fields, brushy grasslands, working orchards, overgrown wild orchards, backyards, city parks and just about any deciduous, edge habitat, where they flock in good numbers.

As finches go, goldfinches are small, measuring five inches in length, sporting a 9-inch wingspan and weighing a hair under a 1/2-ounce. Compare that to a house finch at 6-inches long, 9 1/2-wingspan and 3/4-ounce weight. This sounds close in size, but the house finch runs 50-percent heavier and actually looks much larger.

Goldfinches nest quite close to the ground in the upright fork of a shrub or small sapling, where they build a well-made, cup-shaped structure from grass, plant down, bark and other soft materials. They lay four or five pale-blue eggs. (Ken Allen)

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Do You Know?

Is Lead Weight Illegal on Flies?

Do you know if using lead weight is illegal on flies?

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Book Corner

Changing Planes a Great Maine Book … Maybe a Classic

Changing Planes by Kathy Scott (Alder Creek Publishing, Hastings. MI) arrived on this reviewer’s desk in early October, the most delightful book imaginable from a Maine writer.

I liked Changing Planes so much that I deliberately read it slowly, quite a compliment from me. I’m a trained speed-reader and normally race through a book in a night or two, particularly one as short as this one — 223 pages. It’s not a small book, might you, but it doesn’t ramble on for 750 pages, either.

To be honest, a lot of Maine outdoors books coming this way impress me little, particularly those titles written by well-meaning amateur writers praising their game-warden father or husband. (In truth, many from the game-warden genre strike me as unreadable, or at least I cannot read them.) The number of warden books sent here in the last 20 years shocks me. Who would have thought so many people would write these titles?

The first thing about Changing Planes that wowed me was the prose. Make no mistake. Scott, a wicked good writer, has mastered the art of short, concise imagery, and her writing soars, partly because she chooses good action verbs, writes in active voice, works hard at syntax and has an excellent mind for lyrical arrangements of words.

Here’s an example of a typical passage in Changing Planes that begins with Scott, lying in marsh grass, watching Canada geese:

I redirected my ear, conscious of not moving. What was rustling toward me? It crept like whispers, closer, closer. The geese were undisturbed, it was so quiet, but in my listening world, it was remarkably distinct. At last, a garter snake poked his head through the duff to inspect my knees, decided against the ascent over my legs, and slithered off to round the cape of my toes before continuing its journey.

Not to belabor the point, but here’s another jewel, describing a day fishing the Kennebec with her husband and guide, Sean:

I cast my dry fly into the rips, switched the rod to my left hand, and submerged my throbbing right elbow into the cool waters of the Kennebec. The current was a bit much, so I turned against it and waded shallower, bending lower so my ear almost touched the surface. Blissful, soothing relief. I zoned out for a moment, then looked up to see Sean’s grin only a few feet away. He approached in his strong but measured Maine way.

“You do realize that you have a fish on?” he asked wryly.

“Well, sure,” I lied, scrambling to play it to the net he was offering.

…Good stuff — the best.

Some of the writing in this book smacks of courage, too, some personal stuff. “Courage” might be an overused word, but I almost felt as if I had stumbled onto someone’s diary in a few places. Such writing does take raw guts, more than most authors possess.

It’s a bargain for $24.95, an excellent book for reading slowly on long, winter nights with a north wind soughing under the eaves. (Ken Allen)

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Innocent Bystander

Hunters Face Bigotry Often Enough

When I was first getting into photography 36 years ago, the oddest encounter occurred one December morning in one of those remote, mountain blueberry fields beside an abandoned stretch of the Barrett Hill Road in Union.

I had just bought a new 35 mm SLR camera and tripod and was shooting artsy photos of a single, ancient yellow birch. The wind-ravaged tree stood alone beside a stone wall that dropped straight down the steep hillside, choked with low-bush blueberry plants. How artsy? I’ve done three oil paintings from this one photo.

While I was setting up to capture images of the birch, a woman and her 6-year-old daughter were hiking along the Barrett Hill Road far below and spied me above. Much to my surprise, they walked up to me and started talking — a real chatty pair.

While shooting photos in the decades since, I have noticed that trait over and over. People trust photographers and are ever so quick to talk with them — no matter how remote the setting.

It’s so different when folks are wearing hunting clothes, even when the firearm is out of sight in the vehicle.

Here’s a sterling example of how people treat hunters. A few years ago, I was deer-hunting in Windsor during the muzzle-loader season and quit early because of the unseasonable heat.

On the way home to Belgrade Lakes village, I stopped at a jewelry store in downtown Augusta to buy diamond earrings for a Christmas present and made the mistake of not taking off my hunter-orange vest and hat before entering this place. My baggy woolen trousers didn’t help, either. No one would wait on me, and the attitude of these jewelry-store employees was painfully obvious.

When one sales clerk attended to a well-dressed woman who had clearly entered the salesroom after me, I pointed out the lack of consideration in a polite manner. The woman reacted poorly to my gentle, honest reprimand and snapped at me.

“The other customer was clearly here first,” she said with practiced condescension.

This Christmas-earring story had a happy ending, though. On a whim, I went to Kohl’s for the first time, a large box store at a nearby shopping mall, and received great service and an even greater price, so who says box stores are evil?

People must have a group to hate, a group on which to practice their bigotry, and these days, hunters fit that whipping-post mold well. Those of us who hunt can all tell a story about a time when folks treated us shabbily, and it began with our clothing. After all, “hunter” is not tattooed on my forehead, so my hunter-orange clothing is the only indication of what I am doing on a day afield for deer or upland birds.

As hunters, what can we do about such treatment? The best way to handle it is simple. I just tell the story about the local jewelry store over and over to anyone who wants to listen and emphasized the service and price at the shopping-mall box store. (Ken Allen)

Next Month: February Is More of January, Just Warmer and More Light

Ice can be iffy on January 1 and in Southern Maine, snow may be scant, but by February, ice and snow rule in Maine from Kittery to Fort Kent…from Eastport to Wilson’s Mills.

Yes, February is just more of January, but better. We have the ice and snow, longer days and slightly warmer temperatures. In fact, as February slides toward March, Northern Maine stores sell more sunscreen because folks out on the ice with bare faces and necks are getting burned badly. Helmets save sledders from this problem.

Ice anglers have bonuses now in the form of quality salmon waters being open on February 1. Like FFO waters in mid-spring, these February 1 ponds and lakes attract legions. Why? They have stricter regulations and stricter regs attract more anglers.

Snow deepens now and rabbit hunters must use snowshoes. It’s not the same sport it was in early December, but longer days, a warmer sun and snow-laden limbs make for a winter wonderland, a perfect backdrop for the sport.

Fly tiers continue with fervor now, trying to fill boxes before spring. This unofficial season really attracts quite a few outdoors folks.

Sportsman’s shows are everywhere in southern New England this month, creating a wonderful diversion for folks suffering from cabin fever. Some Mainers even head as far away as Pennsylvania and Maryland to attend these shows.

Fox and coyote hunting attract a small but dedicated group, and some of them live for this sport. They mostly use predator calls but serious ones bait and even put out a decoy.

Plenty goes on in Maine this month, but the two leading money producers are snowmobiling and ice-fishing, and a big money producer in the latter is live bait. A single smelt can be as expensive as a hand-tied fly from Africa.

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Answer to “Do You Know?”

Is Any Additional Weight Illegal?

In the 1990s, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife changed the definition of fly to remove the stipulation that additional weight was illegal.

On page 9 of the State of Maine Open Water Fishing Regulations booklet, anglers can find the definition of a fly.

It reads, “Fly: A single-pointed hook dressed with feathers, hair, thread, tinsel, or any similar material to which no additional hook, spinner, spoon or similar device is added.”

This is how a retired head warden explained this definition. When the words were penned, tiers often used “French tinsel,” which has lead in it. So, lead is a similar material to tinsel and is legal as is any lead substitute.

(Most of us green-oriented fly rodders use lead substitutes these days, and in truth, even though it is legal to use lead, it is illegal for stores to sell lead sinkers so it’s just a matter of time before lead substitutes will be the only legal choice.)

Clouser Minnows have lead or lead-substitute eyes, and that pattern is also legal because 1) French tinsel with lead is legal, 2) the eyes are part of the dressing and 3) the fly weighs so little that the fly line takes it for a ride, not vice-versa. (…More on no. 3 in a moment.)

When discussing weighted flies, Maine’s definition of fly fishing fits into the discussion, and the definition is brilliant — absolutely brilliant.

“Fly Fishing: Casting upon water…in which the weight of the fly line propels the fly.”

In short, the weight of the line must take the lure for a ride, not vice versa. When the weight of the lure takes the line for a ride a la spin fishing, it’s not fly fishing according to this state’s law.

This well-thought-out wording really takes a large part of the guesswork out of defining a fly. If the line is propelling the fly through the air and the fly has no extra hook, spinner or spoon attached to it, then it’s fly fishing with a fly.

• Hunter Dies on Last Day of Deer Hunting (Firearms) Season: A New Gloucester man died Saturday night, Nov. 29, of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound while hunting alone. Ernest L. Russell III, 55, of New Gloucester, went hunting on Prong Pond Mountain in Beaver Cove Township (Piscataquis County) at approximately 12:15 p.m. Saturday. When he did not return by 7:15 p.m., his wife notified the Maine Warden Service through Piscataquis County dispatch, according to MWS Lt. Pat Dorian. Mr. Russell’s vehicle was located by activating its OnStar system, and Game Wardens Jim Babiarz and Eric Dauphinee followed tracks in the snow to locate the hunter.

• Nephew Shoots Uncle in Leg: A 40-year-old man was shot in the left thigh by his 19-year-old nephew on Thanksgiving morning in Phillips while hunting with five other family members. The nephew told the Maine Warden Service he thought he was shooting at a deer, according to Sgt. Rick Mills. The hunter made it out of the woods on his own, and was first treated at Franklin Memorial Hospital before being transported to Central Maine Medical Center.

• ATV Accident: A Standish man suffered non-life-threatening injuries while riding up a hill on an ATV, Nov. 30, on a trail near Middle Road in Standish. The 66-year-old man was ascending a 200-foot high hill when the ATV he was on rolled on top of him about 100 feet up, according to Game Warden John Lonergan. He was transported by LifeFlight to Maine Medical Center.

• Poachers Caught Near Fallen Warden’s Grave: Several wardens and a warden pilot were able to flush out one man, who implicated three accomplices, who was hunting at night and killed a deer. The incident started with a complaint of shots being fired too close to a residence in Whiting. The hunters tried to hide in the woods out of sight from wardens, but a washed away road kept the hunters from going too far. Tracking efforts by the wardens eventually forced into the open. The incident took place near the grave of Warden Lyman O. Hill, who died in the line of duty on Nov. 8, 1886.

• Roadblock, Chase Lead to Arrest: A “shots fired” complaint in Springfield led to the apprehension of a man who fled the scene when a Maine State Police officer arrived. Warden Sgt. Ron Durham and Trooper Meserve were persistent and applied their law enforcement training to apprehend the man. No one was hurt, and the man was transported to jail and charged with several felonies. He was armed with two shotguns, straight and butterfly knives, and 100 shotgun rounds.

The state says additional protection can wait until next year. However, as the November 17, 2008, incident confirms, the risk to the lynx is present today. The court concludes the Endangered Species Act requires greater urgency.

—U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock, ordering DIF&W to take immediate steps to prevent Canada lynx from being trapped in the type of trap that killed one of the cats in November. Kevin Miller story, Bangor Daily News, November 27, 2008.

When you cut resources and you cut funding, clearly something is going to have to give.

—DIF&W Commissioner Dan Martin, announcing a proposal to reduce his department’s budget $2.5 million in each of the next two fiscal years. Kevin Miller story, Bangor Daily News, November 14, 2008.

To lose that… would have an enormous ripple effect on Grand Lake Stream. This would be a real dagger at the heart of that place.

—Dennis Labre, retired biologist and part-time resident of Grand Lake Stream, where DIF&W proposed to close the state’s landlocked salmon hatchery. Same Bangor Daily News story, November 14, 2008.

There’s a lot of people here who fear that he’s going to try to take their firearms away. And I think they’re right.

—Kennebec Guns owner Julian Beale, reporting that semi-automatics and handguns were flying off the shelves following Barak Obama’s election. Joel Elliot, Central Maine Newspapers, November 24, 2008.

We had a group of hunters that said they were here for 16 days and they saw one deer track.

—Brandon Lavigne of Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville, reporting that deer were few and far between this season in the north woods. Kevin Miller story, Bangor Daily News, November 24, 2008.

We’re starting to see a move where people are night hunting more with bow and arrows. So people don’t hear shots at night.

—Warden Sgt. Kevin Adam, Associated Press story, Lewiston Sun Journal, November 17, 2008

The state maintains that Maine law allows it to stop any ATV driver for any reason. McKeen’s attorney, a lower court judge, and the Maine Civil Liberties Union say the law is unconstitutional and ATV drivers, like others, can only be stopped if there is a reasonable suspicion of law violations… We’re not often in sympathy with ATV operators, but in this case, we’re on their side. Leave ‘em alone.

—Kennebec Journal editorial, November 20, 2008.

Robert LaPointe acts like he is special. Clearly, the defendant doesn’t think the rules apply to him.

—Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Robert Crowley, sentencing LaPointe to three and a half years in prison for a boating accident that killed two people on Long Lake in Harrison last year. Christopher Williams story, Lewiston Sun Journal, November 13, 2008.

This listing has a 99 percent chance of putting the nail in the coffin of Maine’s pulp and paper industry and a 1 percent chance of helping the salmon.

—Dean Gilbert, Rumford paper worker, at a federal hearing on the proposed listing of Atlantic salmon as endangered in the Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot Rivers. Keith Edwards story, Kennebec Journal, November 6, 2008.

They’ve touched nothing. I don’t even know if I can call these people poachers. They’re just killing these to watch them die. Usually a poacher will take the antlers or the meat.

—Maine Warden Jason Luce, commenting on the killing of a moose for the third year in a row in the same area in the York County town of Acton. David Hench story, Portland Press Herald, November 7, 2008.