Whether you hunt or fish, the July issue of The Maine Sportsman is packed full of great articles. Of course, if you do both, it’s a virtual cornucopia!
For instance, there are not one, but two articles about fishing for big sharks, plus a large directory of charter boats and a new listing of saltwater bait dealers.
On the hunting side, we’ve got special features on both moose and bears, plus lots of ads by the best guides and outfitters for both of these specialized hunting activities.
Other features this month include two big game grand slams and an excellent article focused on the boat launch available on beautiful Schoodic Lake.
Naturally, the July issue also has a fact-filled Almanac section, including both sunrise-sunset and tide tables. Our regional reports provide plenty of where-to and how-to information on the top two angling targets of the summer months: smallmouth bass and lake trout.
Summer is a busy time for sportsmen, but taking a couple of hours to read the July issue of The Maine Sportsman is an investment that pays off big in more fun and excitement!
Posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman Categories:General
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.
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.
Posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 by Maine Sportsman Categories:General
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.
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.
Posted on Monday, April 25th, 2011 by Maine Sportsman Categories:General
Whether you hunt or fish, the July issue of The Maine Sportsman is packed full of great articles. Of course, if you do both, it’s a virtual cornucopia!
