January 2010 Almanac
*** THIS MONTH ***
Winter Smashes Down on the State
In December, snow may strike outdoors folks as an iffy proposition in the bottom third of the state, but come January, the white stuff will be smashing down. In the North Country, though, winter proves business as usual. Snow has been piling up since late November or certainly early December.
Ice forms on waters across much of Maine in December, and ice anglers can get out and fish now – even for trout and salmon. It’s catch and release though, until January 1.
One part of ice-fishing receives little press, but should. Tailgate parties before football games have nothing on meals on the ice. Fancy venison and sausage recipes, potato dishes and far more sizzle over campfires or camp stoves.
Snow brings on many activities this month, beginning with snowmobiling – a sport that has earned a critical place in Maine’s rural economy. Make no mistake, folks. Sledders are big spenders compared to cross-country skiers, according to many folks involved in outdoors economies in Maine and New Brunswick.
When snow flies, rabbit hunting picks up considerably. A good crust covered with a thin layer of fluffy white stuff from the night before creates ideal running conditions for hounds.
In late December ice anglers in the bottom half of the state obsess about ice thickness, wondering if it will be too thin come Jan. 1. That last week of the 12th month, though, seldom fails us north of Sebago. The ice may not be thick enough to hold a truck, but it can hold humans – and the sport takes off.
The first 10 days of January produce a good chunk of the winter fish that wind up in the One That Didn’t Get Away Club – trophy fish recognized by this publication. In fact, early in January and the first four weeks after ice-out produce far more trophy fish than fall ever does.
Coyote and fox hunters work field, lake and power-line edges now, calling on predator calls while hunkering behind cover. This sport often calls for long-distance shooting, so such calibers as a .222 Remington, .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington, .243 Winchester and 6mm Remington get the nod, but some folks say to heck with small caliber rifles and opt for a tight-choked 12 gauge.
January surely kicks off the smelt-fishing season along coastal rivers, and folks reserve shacks at commercial-smelting businesses.
Photographers get out now, shooting scenic images or wildlife, the latter often bald eagles, waterfowl, deer around feeding stations and dicky birds around feeders.
Yup, it’s winter, a long way from spring, and folks are making lemonade now out of the sour fruit called winter.
*** TIPS OF THE MONTH ***
Synthetic Material Improves Traditional Flies
When tying traditional baitfish imitations this winter, two or three strands of Flashabou improves the catch rate of streamers and five or six strands of Krystal-Flash makes bucktails more effective. Pearl Flashabou or Krystal-Flash improves smelt imitations and gold Flashabou or Krystal-Flash works on baitfish species with gold highlights, silver on baitfish with silver and so forth.
Snow Photography
When photographers shoot photos of snow scenes, they must control polarized light to tame the blown-out spots in the image. A polarizing filter corrects the problem, and at the same time, it darkens the blue of the sky – very effective. Since the advent of digital cameras, filters have fallen out of favor, but snow (or water) shots just cry for a polarizing filter to subdue glaring light.
Wind and Predators
When fox or coyote hunters set up to use a predator call to attract these canines, wind becomes a prime consideration in the success formula. Hunters hunker down on the edge of a field, pond or power line with the wind blowing from them outward across the vast expanse. When a canine hears the call, it’ll circle around and come from the downwind side, hopefully giving the shooter a crack before human scent hits the approaching target’s nostrils.
*** WHERE THE ACTION IS ***
St. George Salmon Eager
St. George Lake in Liberty (DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 13, B-5 and Map 14, B-1) beside Route 3 offers excellent access at the boat launch, easily visible from the highway. Anglers cannot miss this “gateway” to the lake, but crowds are common on weekends. It’s best to hit this water at midweek.
The 64-foot deep spot by the west shore south of Millstone Island has provided St. George regulars with action for years, but salmon can be anywhere on this big water. No one should be a slave to one honey hole here. If one spot fails, it’s time to move.
St. George salmon love smelts, but shiners work, too, as do jigs such as Swedish Pimples in silver.
Good ‘Rabbiting’ East of Bingham
Rabbit hunters in Southern and Central Maine must deal with scarce bunny populations, thanks to secondary forests growing into primary habitat practically everywhere. Further north, though, hunters can find splendid action because big companies cut their forests often, creating prime rabbit cover.
Check out MAG, Maps 30 and 31 and look at Route 16 from Bingham to Abbot. It slices across the middle of these two maps. Then plan on hitting the logging roads north of this major highway from Bingham to Happy Corner east of Kingsbury. Just about any tote road or gravel byway perpendicular to Route 16 will transport folks into rabbit-hunter heaven.
*** NEWS AND TIDBITS ***
David Cobb, whose family still runs a set of sporting camps on Pierce Pond northwest of Bingham, and his friend, Bruce Fraser, once took a slightly anxious ride with a 100-pound black bear when they transported the bruin from one end of the pond to the other. This event occurred around a half-century ago, and a photo of the two boys and bear in the boat showed up in a somewhat recent issue of Down East magazine. The ursine passenger was named Amos, one of two cubs that a Kingfield hunter, Dr. Burt Covert, had discovered in early 1959. He had raised the bears and intended to give them to a zoo; however, no zoo wanted the bear pair. So, after the bruins became increasingly aggressive toward one another, Covert decided to set them free near Pierce Pond.
Cobb and Fraser transported Amos to an island in the middle of the lake, but the bear soon learned to swim to the mainland. What followed was a series of boat rides as the boys ferried Amos from location to location in an attempt to keep him away from vacationing sports.
Eventually, the bear tried to climb into a boat with a client at the camps, who shot the bear, wounding it. This showed – once again – how problems develop whenever someone attempts to domesticate a wild animal.
You Say $2.4 Billion!
Outdoor activities such as fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, boating, ATV riding and wildlife and bird watching contribute $2.4 billion to Maine’s economy, according to a recent study touted by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Information and Education Division.
First Down Jacket
In 1940, Eddie Bauer of Seattle, Washington invented the first quilted, goose-down jacket patented in the U.S. (patent #D119-122). Bauer dubbed it, “The lightest, warmest thing on earth.” Seventy years later, the design is still with us, a testimonial to its popularity, popularity based on effectiveness. Mainers have embraced goose down since World War II.
Controversial Youth Deer Day Reg
This past deer season, the youth deer hunting day took place on Oct. 24 for children 10 to 16 years of age, but unlike past years, a new regulation has made this hunt tougher. In Wildlife Management Districts 1-14, 18-19 and 27 and 28 where DIF&W issued no antlerless deer permits, children could only shoot bucks with at least 3-inch antlers. Many people object to this new law because it makes hunting success that much more difficult for our youthful hunters who need a taste of success.
Pine Needles Tell Species
The needles on a white pine (Pinus strobes) grow in clusters of five, but on pitch pine (Pinus rigida), the bundles number three and on red (also called Norway) pine (Pinus resinosa) two. White pine needles measure eight inches long on average but red six inches.
Tree Gills
Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) needles grow from two sides of a twig exactly like on a balsam-fir, and each needle is flat like a balsam-fir needle.
One feature of hemlock charms little kids – the white line that runs down the center on the back of each needle. Hemlock trees gather oxygen through the white line.
When this writer’s oldest daughter was 6 years old, she listened to an explanation, highlighting the function of the white line, and she said, “It’s like fish gills.”
‘Four-sided,’ You Say
Unlike balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and eastern hemlock, white (Picea glauca), red (Picea rubens) and black (Picea mariana) spruce have 4-sided needles that don’t make a flat arrangement along each twig, but rather, radiate out in all directions. Black spruce feels quite soft, but red and white spruce are sharp to the touch.
White vs. Red Oak Leaves
The leaves on white oak (Quercus alba) have five to nine rounded lobes, while the northern red oak (Quercus rubra) has seven to eleven spiny lobes.
Most Widely Distributed Tree
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), also called trembling aspen, ranks as the most widely distributed tree species in North America. The long-stemmed leaves rustle and shake in the slightest breeze, explaining the “quaking” or “trembling” description.
Common Crow a Paradox in Literature, Life To borrow a line from Henry Longfellow, the common crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) resembles a common raven only as “the mist resembles the rain.”
The obvious key to identification – size difference – offers problems explained here last month in an essay about ravens:
Although the average crow measures 17 1/2 inches long, sports a 39-inch wingspan and weighs one pound and the average raven’s dimensions go 24 inches long, a 53-inch wingspan and 2.6-pound weight, quite a size difference, a large crow can be 21 inches long and a small raven 22 inches. One-inch offers little distinguishing difference, even from a short distance.
The best way to distinguish between these two species at a casual glance strikes serious birdwatchers as simple:
• The raven has shaggy throat feathers (ornithologists often describe this feature as “goiter-like”), a wedge-shaped tail, glide-and-flap flying style, solitary rather than flock travelers a la crows and a hump on the beak, creating a “Roman-like” nose.
• The crow has smooth throat feathers, more squared-off tail, more constant flapping in flight, quite gregarious – truly a flocking species and slightly curved beak without the hump.
A crow makes a caw, cah or kahr call, Peterson’s translation, and a raven’s sounds like a croaking c-r-ruck or prruk as well as a metallic tok, again a Peterson interpretation.
Poe highlighted the sinister side of ravens, which influenced American culture, but crows also possess that status of being a symbol of evil. The novel Cold Mountain – made into a somewhat recent movie – uses crows to foreshadow the death of one of the key characters near the end of the story, one example of many in literature through the centuries.
I once lived in an area where heavy development made it illegal and dangerous to discharge firearms, and crows proved quite tame, giving me ample opportunity to study them – sometimes from eight to 10 feet. A close-up view of this bird’s face surely gives the observer an opportunity to see why writers chose to use this bird as the personification of evil.
However, it also gave me the opportunity to study how cleverly this bird lives its life and panhandles food. Anyone who spends much time studying this species learns to love them, even when they get into the garbage on the day the truck picks up the trash and strews it all over the yard. It’s a must to put bags in a container with a solid cover.
In short, crows reign as a paradox – are they evil or highly entertaining? The answer depends on the day. (Ken Allen)
*** DO YOU KNOW? ***
Which Tree Looks Like a Triangle?
Of Maine’s three common spruces – white (Picea glauca), red (Picea rubens) and black (Picea mariana) – do you know which species generally has a rather perfect triangular silhouette?
*** BOOK CORNER ***
Spencer’s Book Impresses the Reviewer
Where Cool Waters Flow with the subtitle Four Seasons with a Master Maine Guide by Randy Spencer (Islandport Press, Maine) impressed this reviewer, a pleasant surprise because most Maine books by registered guides or relatives or wives of game wardens strike me as not worth the paper on which they’re printed – harsh but truthful.
Spencer’s book, a true delight, particularly lends itself to slow reading in the winter when winds sow under the eaves. The book should be savored one or two chapters per evening.
Throughout the book, this guide, writer and singer touches upon obligatory history of Grand Lake Stream and its surrounding countryside and woods with emphasis on people and changing tourism trends. This part interested me little, but….
Spencer also tackles such topics as trapping bait and difficulties of identifying bait (beginning on page 58), eeling (page 171), family hunting tradition (page 183), growing old (page 203) and deer camp (page 208), all great, entertaining topics. Spencer’s treatment of “growing old” works brilliantly, as seen partially through the eyes of Val Moore.
Spencer also has several chapters on all manner of fish species from trout and salmon to cod, eels, perch, pickerel, bass and more. No one could accuse this man of being an adipose-fin snob.
One feature throughout the text intrigued this reviewer – lots of recipes of seasonal foods. (I wrote an entire cookbook on the topic in the early 1980s – long out of print – so the subject fascinates me.) No one who reads Spencer’s book will get through it without making plans of trying at least one recipe – if not several.
Spencer writes well. He uses active voice, few linking verbs and few I’s – the mark of a professional. It made me wonder if he majored in English in college.
This man also writes concise, short images that put the reader there, and here’s a quick example, one of many.
Spencer wrote, “The sun rose and the softwoods dripped loudly onto beech leaves below.”
That single sentence leading into a chapter put me there beside the writer in those woods. That’s what imagery does – puts the reader there.
Another skill Spencer showed occurred in a chapter beginning on page 214. Spencer started the chapter with this sentence:
“Because of its popular association with death as well as to life forms that give us the creeps, the swamp is a paradox.”
Then Spencer doesn’t give us the paradox until the last paragraph about 1,500 words later, which at first had me wondering, “Where the heck is the paradox?”
But then the absence of the explanation built suspense as I read on, looking for his opinion of what made the swamp paradoxical. That essay style strikes me as an excellent technique, used by all the great American essayists since the turn of the 20th century, including folks such as Fadiman, Updike, Hoagland, McGuane, Harrison and others too numerous to list, but this partial list gives readers the idea.
One point in books doesn’t get much ink, but it should. The editing proved slip-shod, and here’s a perfect example. The lead sentence in one chapter made me cringe: “There are a lot of outdoor words that have fallen through the cracks of usage.”
The dreaded “there are” sentence often uses two clauses where one will do. The single clause version says it more concisely: “A lot of outdoor words have fallen through the cracks of usage.”
But my comment smacks of pickiness, and that chapter about odd, regional words came off as one of the more brilliant ones in the book.
Spencer’s work cost $15.95 – worth the price for many winter evenings of joy. (Ken Allen)
*** INNOCENT BYSTANDER ***
Rampant Erroneous Information
Maine’s Internet fishing boards catch my eye once in a while, and most posters strike me as fine folks, the kind of people I would enjoy fishing or drinking a cup of coffee with anytime.
However, the amount of erroneous information that these posters write flabbergasts me, and please don’t read “flabbergasts” as hyperbole. The number of defective judgments, deficient knowledge or carelessness can make reasonably knowledgeable types shake their head in genuine disgust.
Worse yet, some of the mistakes must cost businesses money or in the following case, wasted gas and time to reach an alleged brook-trout Mecca.
On Sept. 23, 2009, a poster on Maine Fly Fishing asked board members where to catch trophy brookies, and the next day, the owner of the site wrote that Maine’s record brook trout weighed nine pounds and came from Square Pond in Southern Maine on May 15, 1997.
The Maine Sportsman keeps track of state-record fish, and several years ago, the record keeper at this publication made a gigantic error with that Square Pond brookie. It was really a 9-pound brown trout, but we acknowledged the blunder and corrected it.
That should have been the end of the story, but those Net sites that had recorded the Square Pond brookie – which could number in the hundreds – didn’t correct the mistake because it’s common for Net sites not to be updated.
As of this writing, Maine’s record brook trout weighed 8-pounds, 8-ounces and came from Big Black Pond in 1979. James Foster of Howland caught the brute 31 years ago.
So, to make a short story shorter, let’s hope no one heads to Square Pond, expecting a 9-pound brook trout.
I pointed the 9-pound brook-trout error out to the Maine Fly Fishing bulletin-board owner. He thanked me, but as of this writing in late October, no one had corrected the error on the board.
The board owner found the bogus brookie record on the Net. Because the mistake on the Net appears at several web sites, the board owner cannot be judged harshly. It does underscore the problem that web-site updates commonly get neglected.
What’s the moral of the story?
Don’t use the Net exclusively for key information because it may be wrong. Like an investigative reporter, posters should check with two other sources to make sure. (Ken Allen)
*** NEXT MONTH ***
More of January…But Warmer
February offers outdoor folks more of January, but lengthening days just make the month a tad warmer – about two to three degrees. The longer sunlight, though, makes it feel just that much more balmy than statistics reveal.
In fact, several years ago, Alan Szarka, once a columnist here and a man who works the tourism scene in Jackman, told this writer that sunburns were a common malady with ice anglers in late February and particularly March when temperatures jump seven or eight degrees on average across the state. Naturally, by March 20 or 21, sunlight reaches 12 hours, too, a long day.
Snowmobiling is really hitting high gear in February, and folks heading to hamlets such as Rangeley, Stratton, Jackman, Patten, Houlton, Fort Kent or Princeton need a reservation for weekend lodging for sure, and wise sledders reserve a room at midweek, too, just to be sure of a bed.
High gas prices (even low now is still high), a waning economy and rising Maine taxes have created an interesting wrinkle in snowmobiling in Maine last winter. Many sledders decided against long trips to the North Country for snowmobiling and stuck close to home.
That increased business at the Sunset Grill, a local restaurant in downtown Belgrade Lakes village near this writer’s home. Usually, this establishment has limited snowmobiling business, but last year, this place like other southern regions of Maine experienced crowds of patrons, particularly on weekends.
Secondary-growth forests from the 1960s and 1970s in the bottom third of Maine have sprouted up to primary forests in the 2000s, horrible cover for varying hares. This has led to a fascinating shift in hunting desires. Folks from Southern and Central Maine routinely travel north to where woodcutting, far more common in the top half of the state, has created dynamite rabbit habitat, insuring fast hunting for these long-eared critters.
Stocking practices in the bottom third of the state offer attractive fisheries to folks who don’t mind hatchery fish, and ice-fishing pressure has picked up considerably in the South Country.
Folks still head north, though, for the semi-wilderness ice-fishing experience. They stay in sporting camps and hit the ice for much of the day. Ice anglers are big spenders, too, as a general rule.
One “sport” hits high gear this month as folks long for spring. They buy a good bottle of wine and prepare a leisurely meal. Often, the main dish consists of fruits from the forest or water, but if hunters or anglers come up short, beef substitutes well for venison, boned chicken thighs for hare and farm-raised salmon for – well – wild salmon.
Such meals work as celebrations, too, in the vein of Kahlil Gibran’s chapter “On Eating” in The Prophet, so folks choose China, crystal wine glasses, good silver and crusty French bread to accompany the main dish and veggies.
This is a grand month full of activities from snow-sledding to cross-country skiing, from predator hunting for wild canines to rabbit hunting and so much more, and the best part of the month is this: It’s close to March and March is but a hop, skip and jump from spring’s viridescent explosion.
*** ANSWER TO “DO YOU KNOW?” ***
All Triangular…But One Is Nearly Perfect
White and black spruce look quasi-triangular, but the sides on a silhouette of a white spruce curve outward a little in a convex arc and black spruce can be quite irregular shaped.
Red spruce often grow in a rather perfect triangular shape, though, which reminds this writer of an oil painting in which the artist had several distant red spruce in part of a scene. He painted them exactly as they grew, but critics claimed he had made the trees too symmetrical – “…A bunch of little triangles,” as one woman said. That shape was identical to the sight the painter had seen in real nature.