December 2007 Almanac
This Month: Time to Lay Back, Or Go Full Throttle?
When snow falls in the dark, festive month, it divides the state’s outdoor-sports crowd into two camps. One group looks at December as the busy man’s month, but the other approaches late fall and early winter as a time of lethargy and meditation.
For hard chargers, ice fishing kicks off for everything but salmonids and bass as soon as ponds and lakes freeze, and smelters begin as soon as ice freezes on coastal rivers. A handful of folks hit select rivers and one stream as well as tidal water to cast, and surprisingly, fly rodders make up 98 percent of this group.
After the first layer of snow covers the landscape, rabbit hunters, wild-canine shooters and bobcat enthusiasts hit the woods with a vengeance, and often, spruce-and-fir thickets are tunneled fairylands.
If fishing and hunting for smaller critters isn’t enough, muzzleloaders after deer have a delightful month for hunting, particularly in the bottom third of the state where snow conditions and temperatures strike us as perfect for chasing whitetails.