Archive for the ‘Almanac’ Category
Posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
Photographer Bill Silliker Loved
Sweet September Light
The late Bill Silliker, a world-class photographer, extolled the quality of September light and used adjectives such as “golden” and “sweet” to describe images he shot in the ninth month. He worked himself to a frazzle to take advantage of the month – perhaps the best month of the year for photography.
One need not be a photographer or painter to appreciate Maine in September. It rivals Provence or the French Riviera for favorable light that’s so dazzling it adds to any outdoors experience.
This month, weather has a quaint charm, too, which also feels odd just about every day. Days start out like early fall, but by later in the morning, it’s summer again.
Let’s say someone goes bicycling at 7 a.m. and immediately heads down a hill lickety-split. The wind generated by speed feels ultra-cold and goose bumps pop out on bare arms. By 10 a.m., that same pedaler will be sweating up a long, steep hill under a glaring sun. That’s September.
Striped bass, black bass and salmonid action picks up this month, so folks get snapping with their fishing plans – a busy month as warm summer water starts cooling, activating game-fish feeding sprees.
Hunters after bear, moose and certainly deer in the expanded archery season also stay busy now. None of these sports attract a lot of people, but the ones who do them are dedicated.
September strikes many folks as an in-between month, though, and they do stuff such as ATVing, hiking, backpacking, canoe tripping, road bicycling, off-road bicycling, photographing wildlife and landscapes, harvesting staples from gardens, foraging for wild foods and on and on it goes, including preparing leisurely meals with fruits from forests, waters and backyard gardens.
Folks need not be foragers to enjoy the month’s tasty offerings. In the dining department, it is also a time of seasonal foods in every supermarket from Kittery to Fort Kent. If folks cannot feel close to the earth in September, they never will.
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Categories: Almanac
Posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
Observant People See Fall Coming Now
In a Maine July, average highs reach the upper 70s and average lows drop into the 50s, perfect temperatures for the human body – neither too hot nor too cold.
It is little wonder we consider July a touch of paradise, and everyone wants to be outdoors fishing, barbecuing, hiking, camping, swimming — or you name it – as long as we’re outdoors.
As July begins, though, that lawn just won’t quit, so we mow every three to four days, making us wish we left lawn fertilizer in the store last spring – where these chemicals belong.
July has one feature in common with August. Folks look at these two months as ideal for camping, whether hiking, backpacking, canoe tripping or vehicle camping.
Meanwhile, anglers find opportunities and more opportunities:
If bluefish are ever going to come, it’s by the 7th month. Please do not put money on bluefish arriving at a dependable date. This species has become the definition of hit-and-miss fishing.
Because of the severely declining striped-bass population, though, bluefish have become an important target species for folks with bigger fish on their mind than mackerel, harbor pollack, cunner and the usual pan-sized suspects.
Mackerel provide plenty of fun, though, and for a typical Maine native, they taste mighty good, too. We love our mackerel, despite the oil and stronger fishy taste.
Brook-trout ponds have dependable hatches in the first half of July, particularly over the Hex hatch, a huge mayfly that brings big brookies topside. Bottom-dredgers concentrate over deep holes and springs and do well, hauling brookies up from the depths.
Several caddis species emerge, too, and often get trout chasing them as they rocket to the top. A down-wing wet fly with no tail often draws aggressive strikes when a fly rodder strips the fly beneath the surface.
Brookie brooks in Northern Maine still produce now as long as flows hold up. If a pond or lake lies up or downstream and flows drop, anglers can depend on trout running to still water.
The same holds true for rivers and big streams. Trout and salmon run from flowing waters to still waters to spend summer months until September lowers water temperatures in tributaries and outlets.
Lake-trout anglers find these big char concentrated into deep holes. They work these places, knowing togue lie there, thanks to fish finders showing them the way.
Black bass move to deeper water along drop-offs near shallow coves, and while on the topic of warm-water species, pickerel crowd weed beds, white perch stay deep as water temps rise and ditto for black crappies, sunfish and yellow perch.
Party boats get big crowds after July 4th as they ply the depths for cod, haddock and more – a great way to get a mess of white, flaky fillets. This sport is social, too, and folks have as much fun talking as they do fishing.
Hunters have woodchucks now. Bear hunters do their scouting in July, and start baiting 30 days before the August 29 start of the season.
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Categories: Almanac
Posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
July Means Paradise Enow
In a Maine July, average highs reach the upper 70s and average lows drop into the 50s, perfect temperatures for the human body – neither too hot nor too cold.
It is little wonder we consider July a touch of paradise, and everyone wants to be outdoors fishing, barbecuing, hiking, camping, swimming — or you name it – as long as we’re outdoors.
As July begins, though, that lawn just won’t quit, so we mow every three to four days, making us wish we left lawn fertilizer in the store last spring – where these chemicals belong.
July has one feature in common with August. Folks look at these two months as ideal for camping, whether hiking, backpacking, canoe tripping or vehicle camping.
Meanwhile, anglers find opportunities and more opportunities:
If bluefish are ever going to come, it’s by the 7th month. Please do not put money on bluefish arriving at a dependable date. This species has become the definition of hit-and-miss fishing.
Because of the severely declining striped-bass population, though, bluefish have become an important target species for folks with bigger fish on their mind than mackerel, harbor pollack, cunner and the usual pan-sized suspects.
Mackerel provide plenty of fun, though, and for a typical Maine native, they taste mighty good, too. We love our mackerel, despite the oil and stronger fishy taste.
Brook-trout ponds have dependable hatches in the first half of July, particularly over the Hex hatch, a huge mayfly that brings big brookies topside. Bottom-dredgers concentrate over deep holes and springs and do well, hauling brookies up from the depths.
Several caddis species emerge, too, and often get trout chasing them as they rocket to the top. A down-wing wet fly with no tail often draws aggressive strikes when a fly rodder strips the fly beneath the surface.
Brookie brooks in Northern Maine still produce now as long as flows hold up. If a pond or lake lies up or downstream and flows drop, anglers can depend on trout running to still water.
The same holds true for rivers and big streams. Trout and salmon run from flowing waters to still waters to spend summer months until September lowers water temperatures in tributaries and outlets.
Lake-trout anglers find these big char concentrated into deep holes. They work these places, knowing togue lie there, thanks to fish finders showing them the way.
Black bass move to deeper water along drop-offs near shallow coves, and while on the topic of warm-water species, pickerel crowd weed beds, white perch stay deep as water temps rise and ditto for black crappies, sunfish and yellow perch.
Party boats get big crowds after July 4th as they ply the depths for cod, haddock and more – a great way to get a mess of white, flaky fillets. This sport is social, too, and folks have as much fun talking as they do fishing.
Hunters have woodchucks now. Bear hunters do their scouting in July, and start baiting 30 days before the August 29 start of the season.
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Categories: Almanac
Posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
It’s Green All Right
As summer races toward autumn, fields turn golden and trees take on a ragged look, but in the sixth month, Maine is green all right – as lush as Ireland ever gets, thanks to June rains and cool temperatures.
Fishing offers excitement and more excitement as folks cast to black bass on spawning beds, brook trout in backwoods ponds, landlocked salmon and brookies in rivers and saltwater species such as stripers and mackerel in tidal rivers and the coast.
Kids and general anglers cast to pickerel, pan-fish such as yellow perch, sunfish and white perch now and often eat their catch. And did we say hornpout fishing?
Groundfish are coming back and party boats do a brisk business between June and September as folks jig for cod, haddock and more, often getting a huge pile of fillets while enjoying the camaraderie of fellow anglers.
Automobile camping, canoe tripping and backpacking pick up now as kids get out of school, and reservations at campgrounds make sense to insure a spot for the night or week.
Hunters shoot clay pigeons, rifle targets and arrow butts now, perfecting shooting skills because hunting seasons lie just around the corner. Archers combine shooting practice in the woods with scouting.
Canoeing and kayaking draw lots of participants now, particularly kayaks. These days, nine out of 10 crafts sold at canoe-kayak businesses are kayaks. Who’d have thought that in a state like Maine that calls itself canoe country?
There’s plenty going on all right, including bicycling, hiking, gardening, gathering wild foods and a jillion others too numerous to mention because summer in Maine is a busy place for the outdoors.
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Categories: Almanac, General
Posted on Monday, April 25th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
May in South Country Turns Ireland Lush by 31st
By May 31st, though, landscapes looks as lush as Ireland. Fields of grass ripple in the wind and trees have that lush verdancy that starts to look worn and faded as summer progresses.
In the old days, fishing ruled in May, but these days, a serious, dedicated group has adopted wild-turkey hunting as their favorite sport. Serious anglers cannot understand why someone would bother with hunting when fishing for salmonids and warm-water species offers fast sport. Many anglers love the turkey diversion because it thins fishing crowds.
Once, stripers started arriving in Maine during May, but that resource has run onto hard times. Black bass just get more and more popular, though, as May slides toward June. Bass move to spawning beds, easy targets for anglers.
White perch move onto spawning beds two weeks after ice-out and hang around there for a while, drawing huge crowds to the well-known perching hotspots. White perch are wonderful eating, but serious warm-water anglers swear black crappie are better. This non-native species now inhabits close to 300 waters!
Once, May kicked off serious Atlantic-salmon fishing, but that sport has definitely run onto hard times in Maine and is now an illegal target for anglers. Who would have thought back in the 1970s that this sport would die? It just seemed to be getting better and better then.
Vehicle camping, backpacking and canoe tripping start picking up this month, and it’s often anglers looking for a way to stay near the good fishing. Bugs can be savage now, but fallen limbs (often dry…perfect for fires) litter the ground before the campers use it up. The excess wood and lack of cigarette butts has an appeal.
Bicycling picks up in Maine, and roads with breakdown lanes in the bottom third of the state really attract bikers. Bicyclists like the safety advantage that breakdown lanes offer. Also, pedalers find their way to rural Maine’s remote byways – often narrow roads with little traffic. When bikers meet on back roads this month – which is often – they wonder how one another found such backwoods byways.
Before the grass grew high enough to hide those distant brown dots, woodchuck hunting once attracted quite a few enthusiasts in May. These days, when traveling around rural Maine, outdoors types seldom see a woodchuck hunter. The sport is there, though, for those looking for shooting practice and maybe a meal a la Thoreau.
White-water canoeing in the still-swollen North Country rivers draws a small contingent now, but kayakers outnumber them. Kayaking has exploded in Maine.
Hard-charging gardeners planted peas, onions, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and so forth last month, but by late May, all gardeners have their vegetable gardens planted as the soil warms.
Wild-food gatherers find potherbs and next month, strawberries attract as many pickers as fiddleheads do from late April through part of May, depending on elevation and latitude.
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Categories: Almanac
