Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
Summertime and the Fishing is Great!
June is the best fishing month of the year and this issue of The Maine Sportsman has everything you’ll need to land a trophy.
This is also the month we start enhanced coverage of salt-water fishing, bringing you not only a charter boat directory, but a list of salt water bait dealers too. The featured article reports on the newly revived angling for ground fish. Cod, haddock, pollack and more are out there in the briny deep in vastly improved numbers.
Naturally, this month many of our writers focused on where and how to catch trout and salmon, everywhere from tiny brooks to the state’s biggest lakes. June is the best month to fly fish for trout and there’s plenty of where-to, how-to information inside the issue.
You’ll also find all our usual features too: tide table, sunrise/sunset times, Wildlife Quiz and much more. We also bring you more photos and stories about sportsmen who have taken trophy fish and game. More and more we are getting wonderful reports from our readers about their successes while hunting and fishing.
There’s a delightful tail about how bubble wrap came to the rescue of an injured smelt fishermen in this issue that will bring you a chuckle or two.
All in all, June is a wonderful month to be a sportsman and a great time to read The Maine Sportsman.
Categories: General
Posted on Monday, April 25th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
May is an exciting month for sportsmen in Maine no matter what their choice of outdoor activities and this issue of The Maine Sportsman reflects all those opportunities.
Our columnists have done a superb job of giving you the where, when and how to fish for brookies, landlocks, lakers, browns, perch and bass. They’ve also provided excellent coverage of where to find big spring gobblers. This is first-rate info, told by people who spend time outdoors and know where to find fish and game.
Of course, that’s just the start of the great offerings you’ll find in the May issue. For one thing, our coverage of salt water fishing hits high gear once again. This month we’ve added a new saltwater bait dealer directory to go with our charter boat directory. Capt. Barry Gibson has a super article on fishing with soft plastics for striped bass and writer Cathy Genthner provides an in-depth look at problems affecting this great game fish.
Our annual bowhunting section runs this month and you’ll find an unusual article that says you can score on whitetails even if you only have one good tree stand location.
April is also when we start covering ATVing again and this month you’ll find an excellent feature on the ways clubs can win grants to build more trails.
We top that off with all the usual features that make The Maine Sportsman must reading every month – everything from a coastal tide table to a wildlife quiz.
Yup, May is an exciting time to be a sportsman and you can read all about it in the pages of The Maine Sportsman.
Categories: General
Posted on Monday, March 28th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
April Sports Start Leisurely, But Action Escalates Toward Month’s End
In the bottom third of Maine, early April can look like more of winter or can show plenty of the first unmistakable signs of the new season, depending on the year.
In the North Country, though, early April usually looks like full-blown winter as snowmobiles race through towns to get to gas pumps. Even with lots of snow, no one can miss the crystalline, grayish snow and much longer days well in excess of 12 hours.
Anglers in the South Country crowd around the few open-water areas and hope for lightening to strike – lightening in the form of early season angling action.
Before spring run-off kicks off, anglers may take brook trout and brown trout from brooks and small streams. These waters swell over the bank quickly in rains and subside equally as fast, great April hotspots, particularly near month’s end.
After April ice-out in the bottom half of the state, anglers do well, trolling ponds and lakes for landlocked salmon, brown trout, rainbow trout and even brook trout. The still-water crowd bundles up like ice anglers and haul up the biggest salmonids of the season – long before leaves unfurl.
Crows and woodchucks do not draw an army of hunters as deer and grouse do, but a handful of these varmint hunters do get out this month and have great fun, often with zero competition. Folks with crow shooting on their minds often resort to calls, decoys and blinds, but ’chuck enthusiasts rely on spotting those distant brown dots in short grass.
Major highways with breakdown lanes see a major increase of bicyclists, who spend big money on the sport. Each year, we see more road bikes and fancy biking pants, shorts and shirts – colorful garb for higher visibility.
White-water canoeists live for spring run-off, and they have dumped money into Kevlar canoes, wetsuits, fancy PFDs and other items to keep the sport safe. For pure dedication, canoeists equal bicyclists in the pursuit of happiness, but alas, in recent years, bikers far outnumber canoeists, duck hunters, archers and bear enthusiasts. Some sports in Maine are lagging.
Gardening goes hand in hand with fishing and particularly hunting, so folks put the cold-season plants in now. Spinach, kale, Brassica plants and peas (to accompany fresh salmon on July 4th) are important to get into the ground in April as soon as spring edges into the state.
Hiking and backpacking start in April, too, at least for serious folks in these two sports. Car camping picks up more next month.
Landscape photographers create those mood shots and prepare for getting baby critter photos. As the late Bill Silliker, one of Maine’s most prominent photographers, once said, “Cute sells!”
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Categories: Almanac, General
Posted on Monday, March 28th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
The fact that a beautiful brook trout graces the cover of The Maine Sportsman’s April 2011 issue is fitting for several reasons.
For one, this is the annual stocking list issue when we tell you all the places that hundreds of thousands of brook trout have been released for your fishing pleasure.
For another, there is a lot of information about where and how to catch early season trout. We take great pleasure in our trout fishing column this month, since author Tom Seymour explains his “mating earthworms” technique for taking brookies in frigid spring streams.
As usual that’s just the beginning of the practical how-to, where-to information you’ll find in the April issue. Our first-of-the-year feature on ATVs tells you all about the great ATV riding trails located in the magnificent Moosehead Lake Region.
We usually take it for granted, but I want to mention our huge Almanac section for April. It’s got all the standard features such as the tide table, sunrise-sunset times, and fishing and hunting season info, but it also packed with great mini-features ranging from a look at pine siskins to a listing of Maine’s longest rivers.
Once again our regional writers are providing tons of first-hand advice on where you’ll find the best outdoor action from Fort Kent to Kittery. Here’s hoping you’ll take time to see what’s packed into the 80-page April issue.
Categories: General
Posted on Friday, March 4th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman
Spring Springs in Maine’s Bottom Third, But Winter Still Rages in North
In the South Country during March, bird sounds and a smell often arrive before snow melts in fields and along road edges.
Chickadees make a mating call shortly after daylight as do mourning doves – the former an almost sensuous sound and the latter a monotonous coo, coo, coo that awakes us before sunrise. To inexperienced nature types, it sounds like who, who, who, but the rest of us know the true sound.
Meanwhile in the dark of night, a wandering, amorous skunk leaves an odor strong enough to choke…well…a skunk. Sometimes, the smell is so bad that it wakes us from sleep and we can taste it in the nasty air.
One great attraction in the bottom third of the state is this: Each morning at sunrise, we may hear a new bird sound, one not heard for 10 months. It seems like an old friend from long ago.
At 10 a.m., before wind has sprung up and the strengthening sun feels warm, a walk along a field edge feels so pleasant after winter snow and offers two definite spring smells:
1) The rotten odor of last year’s vegetation debris is decaying in the sun’s warmth. A creative mind could say it resembles dry sherry with a little bit of a stink.
2) A southwest wind often wafts a spring odor into this state, an odor that promises warmth and a viridescent explosion soon.
Lots of folks who seldom walk in the outdoors without a firearm or fishing rod wander afield now without anything beyond a walking stick. It’s a great time of year to feel like a Thoreau.
In the North Country, March offers more of winter with snowmobiling dominating the recreation theme. On weekends, lodging spots fill to capacity as folks whoop it up in a hamlet in a semi-wilderness region.
Whether it is north or south, though, ice-fishing attracts myriad participants from Kittery to Fort Kent. Everyone wants to bait a trap or jig these days and do it before the ice leaves.
Along coastal rivers, commercial smelting shacks do a brisk business as people get out before high water and warming temperatures clear the rivers. This is the first ice to go, so folks crowd to tidal water to catch anadromous rainbow smelts heading upriver to spawn.
Varying hare, coyotes and crows attract hunters, but those shooters after long-eared bunnies far outnumber the other hunting participants.
A handful of folks run white-water in canoes or kayaks as soon as snow melts and rain raises flow levels that offer an exciting ride.
One March sport will increase in popularity, a sport that relies on the exact opposite condition that canoeists and kayakers crave. Before the run-off starts, fishing in rivers and streams can be decent. And, the longer the high water holds off, the warmer the water gets. Widespread, open-water fishing in Maine now will result in folks learning how to fish well when snow may still line the banks.
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Categories: Almanac, General
