Archive for the ‘Almanac’ Category
Posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 by Maine Sportsman
February Offers Superb Winter Fun, But We Pine for Spring
On Dec. 22 during the winter solstice, we had less than nine hours between sunrise and sunset, but by Feb. 1, 40 short days later, that time expands to 10 hours, eight minutes.
Yeah, wow! Spring comes fast, but not fast enough for impatient folks longing for spring’s viridescent explosion.
By February 28, we have 11 hours, six minutes between sunrise and sunset. By the spring equinox, the time between daylight and sunset hits 12 hours and actual daylight hits 13 hours.
Despite playing with clock figures, the sun warms the February landscape plenty, and ice anglers and snow sledders worry about sunburn in the second month. By the third month, folks get major-league sunburns on their faces.
Ice anglers have solid ice now except around spring holes and currents, and snow sledders, rabbit hunters, snow-shoers and cross-country skiers find snow galore, particularly in the northern half of the state. Life looks fine for the outdoors crowd who love the white season.
One group of outdoor enthusiasts live for nights in an ice shack, jigging for smelts. In February, smelters do have safe, dependable ice for a favorite Maine pastime that provides a delightful meal and also huge smelts for dangling through the ice for lake trout and northern pike.
Ice-fishing for salmonids has slowed since the first two weeks of January, but in February, some blue-ribbon salmonid waters closed to ice-fishing in the year’s first month now open to the hard-water crowd.
Tunneled conifer thickets and swamps hold rabbits now, and that group lives for days when the hound’s yodel and the soft, rustling wind create a symphony.
A handful of hunters with cat hounds chase bobcats through winter woods, too. This game ends at mid-month.
Wildlife photographers target bald eagles and coastal waterfowl, and folks more interested in shooting photos in warmth stick to songbirds at the feeder. They sit indoors and get images at feeders within feet of a window. Folks do live for the images they get now, and the wise ones wire limbs above the feeders so it looks like a natural setting.
Fly tiers and rod builders work hard now in preparation for spring, and once, that’s all they could do – tie and build rods. Now, though, many waters stay open all winter. As long as ice doesn’t form along river edges, the open-water crowd is in business.
Serious anglers head south to places like the Keys, Costa Rica and Caribbean to fool with bonefish, tarpon, permit, barracuda and far more. What a glorious break for snowbirds getting away from snow and cold.
Sportsmen shows also offer a diversion now, and just about every week, folks can head to someplace in the Northeast for these fun offerings.
Despite the fun a Maine winter offers, though, even the most hardcore snow lover pines for spring when a southwest wind blows from Pennsylvania and the air smells like the new season.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Almanac
Posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
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.
________________________________________________________________________________________ Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Almanac
Posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
December Is Dark And the Shadows Ever So Long
As December heads toward Christmas, daylight lasts 9 hours and 47 minutes per day, counting the half hour before and after sunrise and sunset. Because the sun has sunk further and further into the southern sky, outdoors types out for a day of it notice that even at noon, shadows still stretch out long and harsh.
Believe it or not, though, the glaring, yellow blob offers warmth at mid-day, unless an icy wind comes out of the northwest, common in the dark, festive month.
For hunters and anglers, short days of less than 10 hours fly by, particularly when action picks up. When weather conditions are conducive for fast sport, ice-trap flags fly, beagles push hares around thickets, bird dogs find grouse, open-water anglers keep a bend in the rod, ducks offer blistering shooting and on and on it goes. The non-blood sports also offer fast times.
Snowmobiling starts booming in the North Country when snow falls deeply, and motels and sporting camps fill up – particularly on weekends – with crowds known for spending money. This sport has become so popular that it helps rural economies in Northern and Eastern Maine.
Hiking picks up in December because folks enjoy walking in snow, particularly shallow snow. This crowd loves deciphering critter tracks in such a perfect medium. Even the most casual observer can see the story, often made the previous night.
Cross-country skiing attracts a handful of participants, small potatoes compared to the motorized crowd, and in fact, certainly less than bicyclists in the 12th month. Bikers try to get in those last few pedals before winter slows down the sport considerably, but it’s not the cold that bothers them as much as all the sand on the road edges after snowstorms.
Wildlife photographers hit the woods hard before snow piles too deeply, and favorite targets include bald eagles, waterfowl along the coast, deer, grouse and songbirds. Any critter is fair game, though.
Certain spots earn a reputation for holding half-tame critters that prove especially cooperative to work with a camera – say whitetails around deer feeders, an especially friendly fox or owl, Harlequin ducks off Cape Elizabeth or you name the place and species. Photographers flock to camera spots where pickings – although never easy – can be easier.
Outdoors types love to read in winter, and a big part of the allure is all the books piling up through the busy fall. Many of us can’t wait to get at them after a leisurely meal by candlelight.
One endeavor starts booming along toward New Year’s – tying flies. Nothing beats an evening at the vise, constructing flies while sipping tea or coffee and dreaming for spring.
All these and more are happening in Maine right now.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Categories: Almanac
Posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
Maine’s A-Changing:
Bicycling Vs. Deer Hunting
In November 2010, an unseasonably warm Saturday with virtually no wind, this writer decided not to deer-hunt and bicycled for several hours, often on wooded, undeveloped roads around the Belgrade Lakes Region. It was the last really warm day for the sport in 2010.
During this long pedal covering 60-plus-miles, 30 bicyclists caught my eye, give or take one or two bikes. In that long jaunt, I passed one hunting vehicle parked beside the road. One! In fact, it was the only parked vehicle, and it had an empty firearms case folded on the front seat, proving it was a hunter, probably a hunter after deer.
Maine is a-changing!
Astute observers notice a point on Maine bulletin boards dedicated to angling. In the past several years, more and more impressive sized salmonids show up on these boards, indicating that Maine anglers are learning how to catch November trophies after the spawn.
Some anglers have learned how to present egg imitations, and others find the right baitfish and even match-the-hatch choices to put a bend in the rod. They’re learning particulars about the sport, as the photos show.
These changes are huge compared to a few years ago when deer hunting dominated the month, and the only real serious alternatives to whitetails was second-season duck hunting. Most of us can count the number of November waterfowl hunters we know with fingers of one hand.
Meanwhile, guys like The Maine Sportsman columnist Tom Seymour concentrate on pollock off docks in Maine harbors or hit other species that folks seldom target.
Hikers get out, particularly on Sundays, and they find mushrooms, tender roots and young potherbs for meals. On and on it goes as outdoors types plunge into the woods and onto the water before winter begins and such sports as ice-fishing, snowmobiling and skiing vie for attention.
If snowfall is light in at least the first two or three weeks of November in the bottom third of the state, hikers get out in places such as Camden Hills State Park in Camden. Kennebec River Rail Trail from Augusta to Gardiner, Bradbury Mountain State Park or any place with blazed trails.
In the North Country, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing might start if enough snow falls, and snow sleds dominate winters in Maine now. Our winter economy up north would die without these motorized gadgets.
Gardens still produce Brussels sprouts, spinach and other greens that tolerate frigid temperatures.
What a month for the outdoors that November makes for those who love the Maine woods in all the seasons.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Almanac, General
Posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
We Have Plenty of Choices Now, Folks!
Just about every hunting sport happens in October– upland birds, waterfowl, deer, bear, moose, turkey, raccoon, rabbit, gray squirrel, fox and coyote – and angling still attracts legions after salmonids and bass. If that isn’t enough, we can trap muskrat and canines in early seasons and also bear.
Deer ranks as the favorite hunting quarry for most sportsmen, but ruffed grouse hold second place – and not a distant second, either. Pa’tridge huntin’ is popular in Maine!
Bears interest still hunters, houndsmen and folks on stand beside trails or feeding spots. Lucky folks with moose permits can shoot the world’s largest deer. Turkeys provide such a quality hunt that this bird draws in a serious group, as do waterfowl, woodcock, raccoon, rabbit, fox and coyote.
Trout and salmon can keep the feedbag on until mid-October, depending on latitude and elevation, and many of us live for fly rodding this month in blazingly colorful landscapes.
Bass have their followers, and maybe a day will come when bass anglers outnumber salmonid aficionados.
Folks love to canoe trip, backpack and car camp now that pesky, biting bugs have subsided and hills have turned to yellows, reds and golds. Hiking also picks up in this cooling month, and folks love to walk up trails into mountains that offer scenery in all directions.
Photographers shoot landscapes now, thanks to golden, sweet light, and wildlife photographers target critters and more critters.
Vehicle campers, canoe trippers and backpackers brave enough for frigid nights beneath the stars camp out in this colorful month and enjoy seclusion. Hikers, bicyclists and joggers get out now, too, loving the cool days.
Soon snow will cover the landscape, but that’s okay. Winter offers delights, too, but October just has it all.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Almanac
