January 2012 Almanac
January Is Dark All Right
As Christmas looms but a few days away in Central Maine, a scenario repeats itself most years as the ice-fishing crowd looks toward Jan. 1, when salmonids become legal to kill in many waters. Folks notice ice on big lakes has yet to form a safe mantle, so the hot-stove league complains bitterly that nature will derail opening day.
When New Year’s Day dawns, though, most years find ice pretty much everywhere in Central Maine, and if open spots of blue exist, and they always do, at least coves are frozen enough to hold ice anglers. Up north, ice is always frozen by January 1, although residents up there looking at open stretches of Moosehead and Chesuncook would debate that adverb — “always.”
Television’s public announcements warn people to drill test holes as they move out from shore. Apparently, many folks do just that because drowning in winter takes darned few outdoorsmen. When someone does die from an icy plunge, it’s rare enough to generate news coverage with talking heads wringing their hands and shaking their heads.
Ice-fishing once ranked as the top winter story in January, but these days, snowmobiling has eclipsed the hard-water crowd as huge mobs of sledders head north. In rural hamlets catering to snowmobilers, it’s imperative to have a lodging reservation for weekends or risk sleeping in a snow bank.
Snowmobiling spurs rural economies in Northern and Eastern Maine every winter, and even in the bottom third of the state, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops and bars do a brisk business with sledders if snow piles deeply. In this weak economy with high gas prices, snowmobilers prefer traveling less to reach trails, so that makes doing this sport close to home appealing.
Rabbit hunting once ran a close second to ice-fishing, but these days, lack of bunnies in the bottom third of the state has hurt the sport. A hound is a big expense if old Mr. Long-ears is scarce. In the North Country, rabbits thrive in clear-cuts that have grown back to the right height for food and cover.
Lots of people do not think of this topic, but birdwatching really picks up in winter. In morning, we may sip hot tea or coffee and watch the birdfeeders intensely. Some days, birders look at their feeding stations like they’re viewing a feathered version of a large, international airport.
Folks talk coyote hunting, but few stick with it and even fewer shoot just one coyote. However, if high fur prices spurred participation, coyote hunting could get so big that DIF&W would need to have bag limits.
Coyotes, foxes and bobcats draw a small following now, offering them a chance to get out. Winter in Maine can have brutal temperatures and harsh winds, but often, we just get so bored with indoors that going out is no problem. The elements feel more pleasant than a day with walls crowding in.
Fly tiers do most of their tying in winter as they replenish boxes of flies. It’s a fun hobby to tie and dream of greenery coming in a few months.
And who doesn’t like leisurely meals on long winter nights, preparing gourmet meals from the spoils of the forest, and who can forget the joys of reading when north winds sough under eaves.
And speaking of reading…. This writer lives in an area where the power goes out every time three snowflakes fall and the wind exceeds five miles per hour.
An E-book works perfectly when the power goes out because readers can easily read them in the dark. The page is bright enough with little glare, and font size can be enlarged – the perfect entertainment tool for a state that has so many power outages.
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~ TIPS OF THE MONTH ~
Tying Dubbed Dry-Fly BodieForty years ago, a Pennsylvania fly tier showed me a few of his dry flies, and the bodies were ultra-fat. They looked like Humpies.
He asked how I made such slender bodies, and as I said, it’s really quite simple once someone tells the tier the technique, as someone did me when I was 16 years old.
The dubbing begins after the tier has put on the wings and tail and covered the shank between with thread:
When tying dubbed, dry-fly bodies, fly tiers in the know pinch off but a small bit of dubbing material, not much more than a wisp, and pull a little on one end to get the fibers more narrow there. They leave the other end a tad thicker. If the pinch of fuzz looks like too little material to a novice tier, it’s just right.
The strand of thread for dubbing the material should hang from the back of the hook right where the tail disappeared under the fly-tying thread after the tier put on the tail.
After liberally waxing the thread, it’s time to lay the dubbing wisp parallel to the waxed thread and twist it on by rubbing the thumb and index finger together to form a yarn-like strand – thin on the back and thick at the front.
Then, wrap it on like a piece of yarn and tie it off behind the wing. Leave an extremely slight gap between the front of the body and the wing for the hackle feather to settle into when wrapping that feather(s).
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Shooting Eagles!
In January, somewhere near most Mainers’ homes, folks are feeding bald eagles, and within a mile of my home, people are doing just that with beaver carcasses. Usually, folks can set up a tripod and shoot images of these magnificent birds.
The trick requires patience. The photographer must put the camera on a tripod somewhat hidden near where the birds congregate. And then, the photographer learns to work the birds coming to the site, and the result can be professional photos, particularly when someone springs for a 500mm telephoto lens and keeps the light quartering from behind them and toward the birds.
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~ WHERE THE ACTION IS ~
Varying Hares Plentiful From Bingham to Kingsbur
Varying-hare hunters find superb action in the North Country, but folks need not travel that far north. In DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer [MAG], please peruse Maps 30 and 31 and look for Route 16 across the center of the two maps. From Bingham to Happy Corner just east of Kingsbury, hit the logging roads north of Route 16.
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Giant Browns for the Taking
Great Pond in the Belgrade Lakes has yielded brown trout and northern pike of all sizes, and one brownie in 2011 weighed over 16 pounds. Camps and year-round homes ring Great Pond, unaesthetic to the core but easy to forgive when folks pull a double-digit brown through the ice.
Check MAG, Map 12, A-4 and Map 20, A-4. Note the boat launch on the southwest corner near Belgrade Lakes village.
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~ NEWS & TIDBITS ~
Stormy Day Birding Tops
During migration and in winter, bird activity at feeders and in the wild picks up on stormy days.
A birding term describes these phenomena during migration – fallout. Rain or snow causes migrating birds to abort the journey to seek shelter and food, and that increases sightings greatly.
Occasionally, such conditions produce rare sightings in Maine such as yellow-billed cuckoos, yellow-throated vireos and yellow-throated chats, uncommon this far north.
During winter storms, snow covers lots of natural foods, even buds when snow sticks to limbs, so birds head to birdfeeders. A birdfeeder at this writer’s home hangs off a magnolia, which looks like grand-central for birds during and after inclement weather.
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Dead Seal Mystery
Back in the fall, nearly four times more dead harbor seals showed up on the coastline in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts than in the previous year, and as of this writing, that number nearly hit 100 seals. To put this number in perspective, the last harbor seal census in 2001 showed the population of the species at 99,000.
Most dead seals, including gray seals, were under a year old, perhaps the result of a virus, but in the initial phase of this die-off, no one knew for sure.
A big harbor and gray-seal kill from morbillivirus occurred in 2006, so this virus is a suspect in the 2011 outbreak. In 1979 and 1980, an influenza epidemic killed seals along the Maine Coast, and scientists theorized a bird flu was the culprit. Infected birds defecated on rocks where seals lay, so the disease infected them.
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Winter Oak and Beech Leaves Create Natural Mulch Later
In my childhood, local woodsmen referred to beech saplings as “winter beech” because the leaves stayed on the trees through much of winter. Mature oaks also held leaves but for some reason, made less of an impression on folks, but they talked about “winter beech” saplings as if it were a different species.
Decades later, scientists pushed a theory onto the public that makes sense. Most leaves fall in autumn and begin rotting before winter, putting nutrients into the soil. Trees need a boost in spring, and oak and beech serve that purpose, showing what an intricate pattern nature has woven.
Tree Buds There All Right
When Mainers look at naked tree limbs this time of year, they think, “Four more months before the first mint-green of spring appears.”
This describes when buds first unfurl into leaves around late April, the time depending on latitude and elevation.
If observers look closely, though, they’ll see buds in January. In fact, the buds formed last summer before autumn’s explosion of color, and since then, they have bided their time until spring, providing forage for critters galore.
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Maine’s Little King
Late fall and even early winter wanderers in Maine passing through – say a dense hemlock stand – may hear the thin, lisping see-see-see of a golden-crowned kinglet in the Regulus genus, a Latin name that translate to “little king.” The word refers to the bright-yellow or orange crown on the golden-crowned kinglet (R. satrapa) and red crown on or ruby-crowned (R. calendula) kinglets.
The somewhat delicate call of the golden-crown sounds out of place on a frigid late afternoon that makes the inside of the nostrils feel as if they’re freezing.
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Grouse Facts
Across North America, the range of ruffed grouse coincides with that of quaking aspen and big-tooth aspen – called poplar in Maine – suggesting a symbiotic relation exists between tree and bird.
Ruffed grouse, ring-necked pheasant, quail and partridge belong in the Phasianidae family, and the “ruffed” in this grouse’s name refer to the collar of feathers around its neck that looked like ruffed collars popular on Old World clothing in the 1600s. The male holds the feathers erect during mating. Both genders spend their entire life in a 40-acre area.
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Mating Porcupines…a Messy Business
Porcupines thoroughly soak the female with urine before mating in November or December, and the ritual often includes loud screaming like a wildcat. If fertilization takes place during one 8- to 10-hour period when the female is physically receptive, a single offspring is born the following spring.
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Confusing Woodpeckers?
Downy and hairy woodpeckers hang around winter birdfeeders in New England, particularly if folks put out suet blocks laced with birdseeds. Both birds sport similar plumage that takes careful scrutiny to note the differences, but fortunately, they have one major indicator – size.
The hairy measures 9 1/4 inches long, sports 12-inch wingspan and weighs 2 1/3 ounces, where the downy has the following measurements – 6 3/4, 12 inches and slightly less than 1-ounce. The weight is decidedly different.
Hairy woodpeckers grow much larger than the diminutive downy woodpecker. The word “diminutive” led to a learning trick when this writer’s oldest daughter, Heather, was seven. I told her the “d” in “diminutive” stands for “downy,” and she remembered the little one was a “downy” and the bigger a “hairy.”
The male of both genders has red on the back of the head but the female has no red.
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Checking the Poop
In winter, owl and hawk droppings show up on top of snow, and determining whether it came from an owl or hawk requires little scrutiny once folks learn the basics. Owl dropping falls straight down, but hawks squirt back quite a distance, after raising their tail out of the way. Bird waste differs from mammals, too. The latter has separate opening to get rid of solid waste and urine, but birds have only one – a cloaca. This tidbit came from Mary Holland’s Naturally Curious. (Check “Book Corner” this month.
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Catholic Mice
Known for being seedeaters, deer mice and white-footed mice have more catholic tastes, evidenced by careful observation of shelf fungus growing on the side of trees. Amateur naturalists can easily see incisor marks on the fungus where these mice gnawed throughou the winter.
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Maine Maple Syrup Takes Third Place
In 2011, Maine’s 350 licensed sugar-bush harvesters made 360,000 gallons of maple syrup, earning the state third place as the United State’s biggest producer of this “breakfast sauce,” an $11 million crop in 2011. This figure of 360,000 gallons was up 45,000 gallons from 2010.
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Lichens Widespread
Lichens cover 8 percent of the Earth’s surface, which amounts to more square miles than tropical rainforests. Lichens fall under fungi in classification, and they sometimes grow in the most inhospitable places on the planet, including on this writer’s roof where the sun beats all day.
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Stripers Spawn Successfully in 2011
Last fall, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources released a report that stated striped-bass showed a high measure of spawning success in Chesapeake Bay during 2011, but according to Brad Burns, president of Stripers Forever, a conservation organization, this good news must be balanced against nearly an 80-percent decline in the recreational striper catch along the Atlantic Coast.
“The 2011 Maryland Young of the Year (YOY) Striped Bass Survey shows the first really successful spawning year class since 2003,” said Burns. “Most of the striped bass that populate the Atlantic Coast from Maine to North Carolina are spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, so the 2011 YOY count is good news.
“But the bad news is that the number of small stripers along the coast is now critically low, and that it will take four years for the fish produced this year to reach 18 inches – the minimum legal size for angling in the Chesapeake Bay – and eight years for those fish to grow large enough to be legal for angling elsewhere along the coast.”
Burns also pointed out that Mycobacteriosis, an often-fatal disease is widespread in Chesapeake Bay, substantially elevating striped-bass mortality – perhaps well beyond the historic levels used by fishery scientists to calculate future population levels. Those young stripers born in 2011 could be substantially reduced before reaching adulthood.
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~ BIRD OF THE MONTH ~
Harlequin Ducks Visit Maine in Winter
My first sighting of a Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) occurred 20 years ago on a sunlit day in raging rapids on Northern Quebec’s George River.
My guide was powering an open, wooden, lapstreak jet-boat up ferocious rapids, when he screeched, “Look at the Harlequin duck!”
I was facing forward with my head down to avoid the spray. His sharp command made me jerk my head back to see which direction he was pointing, and to the right less than 10 yards away sat a male Harlequin. He perched on a rock with a stiff current boiling around both sides of him.
My first live sighting of the species struck me as odd now. From my seat in the rocking boat looking through spray, the Harlequin reminded me of a male wood duck, but color paintings in a bird guidebook and a photo in another one show that it really doesn’t look like the gaudy woody at all.
The male has chestnut flanks, which led to my impression of a wood-duck male’s lemon flanks. Dark-gray, almost black plumage and white stripes on the body and head looked bright in the sun. Both genders have a white dot on both sides of the head below and behind each eye. The male looks mostly dark gray with a white patch near the eye.
This small duck has a little bill, thick neck and long tail and rarely mingles with other waterfowl. It’s a diving bird that feeds on crustaceans and mollusks.
According to Sibley, the male call sounds like a “thin, scratchy squeak” and the female a “harsh clucking or quacking” sound.
To spot a Harlequin takes lots of luck or dedication to traveling to a hotspot for the species. In fact, the late Bill Silliker chose the latter and routinely shot winter photos of Harlequins in the ocean off Cape Elizabeth.
Once after a Harlequin shoot there, he said, “I bet you’ve never seen a Harlequin. That’s not a criticism – just an observation from past experience with other outdoorsmen.” My answer about the George River clearly surprised him.
Harlequins lay six to eight, pale-cream eggs in down stuffed into the crevice of rocks along a stream, which must be susceptible to mortality after rain raises flow levels, partially explaining why this species lays so many eggs. (Ken Allen)
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~ DO YOU KNOW? ~
Maine’s Best Name Fly-Fishing Spots
In winter, Maine fly rodders plan trips to name spots around the state, trying to crowd as many storied waters to their life-experience list as birders add species to their life list.
Do you know which eight Maine spots arguably rank as this state’s most popular fly-fishing destinations?
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~ BOOK OF THE MONTH ~
Incredible Nature Book Hits Bookstores
Every 10 years or so, an incredibly complete nature book aimed at New England hits stores, a must-buy title, and that somewhat rare event just occurred. Mary Holland’s Naturally Curious (Trafalgar Square) has a subtitle A Photographic Field Guide and Month-by-Month Journey through the Fields, Woods, and Marshes of New England.
That mouthful pretty much says it all.
Stunning color photos and drawings fill the book, but the format impressed this viewer. It was similar to the “Almanac,” which requires 25 or 30 leads each month with entirely different topics – a mammoth task. …Except instead of a 4,000- to 5,000-word effort, we’re talking a 475-page book with hundreds of leads, a monumental work.
Holland has broken Naturally Curious into 12 chapters for each month of the year. In the January chapter, she covers topics of interest for the first month of the year, including hibernating amphibians and reptiles. Then, she moves on to common winter songbirds, birds of prey, mammals, insects, arachnids, plants and fungi.
In the mammal section, readers get to see photos of scat from different species and other signs such as urine and blood on snow from a coyote in estrous. On and on it goes.
After this introduction to January, which covers 10 pages, Holland takes a closer look at the month, which touches upon the birth of a black bear, a winter event, and rodents in winter, the latter a fairly complete coverage for amateur naturalists. This reviewer also liked the blue-boxed sidebars that covered bears.
The chapter also delved into winter deer, insects in winter, snow’s effect on wildlife, wildflowers in the white season and so forth. No, wildflowers may not bloom now, but the dried heads offer folks a view without the brilliant colors.
I do not have enough glowing words in my vocabulary to do this wonderful work justice. Anyone with an interest in New England nature must buy Naturally Curious. (Ken Allen)
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~ ANSWERS TO “DO YOU KNOW?” ~
Top List of Eight Fly-Rodding Spots
Resident and non-resident fly fishers in Maine often head to name waters that have fly-fishing-only (FFO) or artificial-lures-only (ALO) regulations as well as additional regs to protect the fisheries. They all offer brook trout and landlocked salmon. Brown trout are less popular, but few fly rodders complain about their presence.
Below are eight spots. Readers can add to the list, but please remember, we’re talking name waters and not secret hotspots.
1. East Outlet of the Kennebec River in Rockwood, an FFO destination that holds salmon and brookies in a calendar-photo setting. Check DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 41, B-1.
2. Moose River in Rockwood, a big, brawling water with lots of complicated regulations to protect its salmon and brookies. Check the fishing-regs booklet and don’t be afraid to hire an attorney (MAG, Map 40, A-5).
3. Kennebago River from the Steepbank Pool upstream to Kennebago Lake several miles north produces brookies and larger-than-average salmon compared to much of the rest of Maine. It’s FFO (Map 28, D-3 upriver to C-3).
4. Androscoggin River in Gilead reigns as one of Maine’s most beautiful stretches of river: photos here show vertical ledge drops that could be used to illustrate a fishing or kayaking article about the West. It’s single-hooked ALO and contains brookies, browns, rainbows and salmon – a chance for the coveted, salmonid grand slam (Map 10, B-1).
5. Pleasant River in Windham, an ALO, catch-and-release-only water, produces browns and brookies. This small, gentle stream makes fly rodders feel as if they have stepped into a Schwiebert story. Fish average 8- to 11-inches but holdovers and big fish from the Presumpscot sometimes migrate upstream here (Map 5, D-2).
6. The Rapid River west of Rangeley has FFO, barbless-hook regulation, and all brookies must be released alive at once. Anglers can kill three salmon per day with a minimum length of 12 inches (Map 18, B-1).
7. Grand Lake Stream, an FFO water, stretches but two miles but has a 100-mile-long reputation for landlocked salmon. It can get crowded, particularly in May, June and September, but regulars swear they can find solitude much of the time by walking away from name pools. Give it a try and you be the judge about finding little honey holes away from crowds. Grand Lake Stream below the West Grand Lake dam may be the best April Fool’s Day spot in all of Maine (Map 35, B-4).
8. West Branch of the Penobscot River from Ripogenus Dam to Telos Road Bridge has an FFO reg, 1-salmon limit and a 26-inch minimum on salmon. This brawling river pounds, crashes and slides between steep hills, occasionally with Mount Katahdin in the background. You haven’t fished in Maine if you haven’t hit this river among rivers (Map 50, D-2 downstream to D-5).
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~ NEXT MONTH~
It’s Cold All Right, But Getting Warmer
December always feels so cold, but in Maine, January ranks as number one for the lowest average high and low temperatures and February wins second place just behind January. December falls in at third.
But a lot of psychology is going on when discussing the degree of cold in these three winter months.
• December offers us the first truly winter-like weather, so it feels colder than what the thermometer reads.
• Statistically, February loses by darned little to January, but longer days of sunlight make it feel so much warmer. By late in the month, people without sunscreen get bad burns on bare skin without sunscreen.
Ice in the second month has thickened plenty and offers snowmobilers and ice anglers safe passage, but some spots where currents or springs lurk can dump us into the water on the coldest night.
Snow builds up well by February, and snowmobiling is a go from Kittery to Fort Kent and from Bowmantown to Lubec. Snow-sledding peaks this month, but early March also produce moments of splendor on the trails.
A few blue-ribbon lakes open to ice-fishing on Feb. 1, and serious ice fishers head to these places. No deer hunter looks forward to opening day more than ice anglers do to Feb. 1 – say on Lobster Lake when ice-fishing kicks off for the year.
Snow melts and refreezes, good for running beagles on top of snow, making rabbit hunting fun now, particularly after a dusting of the white stuff. It doesn’t hurt that days are longer now, creating more warmth and just plain more light for a longer day in the woods.
Coyote and fox hunters like this month, too, because vigils on field, clear-cut or lakes edges are just that much warmer for a long wait.
Places like the Eastern River and Cathance River have commercial smelt shacks that draw crowds after small, silvery baitfish – ideal for the palate. Look in this publication for ads showing where folks can smelt.
Sportsman’s shows prove big now as folks flock to these places to beat the shack nasties. People routinely drive to Massachusetts to attend a show and even go as far as Pennsylvania. It is fun to meet with like-minded people to socialize in winter.
Serious fly tiers get panicky now as spring approaches and folks wonder if they’ll get enough flies done for the coming season. Secretly, they may sit there and wish spring were further away.
More and more Mainers fish open water all winter when they find the right circumstances, while others go south to cast. There’s always something going on in this state – despite the month – even if we have to leave Maine to find it.