Tuesday's torrential downpours gave way to a crystal-clear, beautiful -- albeit chilly -- morning today.
I was in the woods before sunrise, putting out my lone turkey decoy and settling into a dense little thicket on the edge of a clearing. Heard a few gobbles off in the distance, answering my pitiful calling, and even heard another hunter fire off a shot off in the distance.
I hadn't had the opportunity to get out for the start of my wild turkey season on Monday, so today was the beginning. And the beginning reminded me of my last beginning...
Last spring was the first time I hunted turkeys, period, though the spring turkey hunt is nothing like the fall one. Most significantly, toms aren't going to respond to calling and the birds travel in small groups separated, for the most part, by gender as they ready for the coming winter.
I was in a blind off a field on a friend's farm property, and I watched a group of hens move up over the hill hundreds of yards in front of me. They moved around some apple trees, along the edge of the woods toward the field where I was and abruptly turned 90 degrees into the woods. They never came remotely close for me to think I had a chance -- even when I called, they'd look up, disinterested, and resume their business. Soon they were out of sight, and though I knew they couldn't really have gone anywhere, I didn't have the slightest clue where they actually were.
I stayed for hours, finally giving in. I walked the edge of the woods, toward the house, and turned the corner.
What I saw was astounding -- literally dozens of turkeys meandering around the driveway and eating under the bird feeders in the backyard.
They weren't more than 10 yards away from me, and barely moved when I approached.
My friend's mother-in-law came out.
"Isn't it awful?" she said. "They're always here."
Always there, and somehow they seemed to understand that they were too close to the house to be in harm's way.
I laughed.
And then this morning, sitting in that thicket and cursing myself for forgetting my seat cushion, I laughed out loud thinking about that morning.
You're bored. I can tell. I can see it in your face.
You say you're missing something -- the proverbial "it" -- and you want to find a way to challenge yourself and your senses, get out and feel like you're doing something. You're in luck.
It's 7 events designed to, in their words, "test the strength, stamina, and sanity of even the burliest New Englanders." From surfing icy Maine coastal waters to watching a Formula 1 race in Montreal, this list has it all. And, if you're going to do the loop, you're bringing me along. Remember, after all, you read about it here first, right?
“Spring fever is nasty this year,” said Drew Simmons, editor-in-chief of WickedOutdoorsy.com. “It doesn’t need to be warm, just get me out of the house.”
The criteria for the listing was simple -- it measured the ratio of discomfort versus reward and the likelihood that your wife/girlfriend wouldn't go even if you promised her a luxurious spa trip on the way home.
Without any further ado, here's the calendar. You've been warned...
* Surf Maine: The Kennebunk-based Aquaholics Surf Shop offers surf lessons starting April 1 with all the necessary equipment provided. Before you say, “that’s not manly, that’s just crazy,” you should know your instructor will be a woman.
* Ski Tuckerman’s Ravine: The quintessential backcountry skiing and riding spot heats up when warmer temps arrive in New Hampshire. With a variety of seriously steep terrain, the adventure begins with a 3-mile hike from Pinkham Notch, followed by a ton of hiking, just to reach a few minutes of glory. Definitely not for beginners.
* Raft the Dead River: As this winter’s record snow pack turns from white to whitewater, the local whitewater guides at Northern Outdoors in The Forks are expecting the Dead’s legendary rapids to be the biggest in the resort’s 32-season history.
* Blast Vermont turkeys: Home to New England’s most robust turkey population, Vermont will declare open season on these wild birds from May 1-31.
* Hang with 'Larry the Cable Guy': Sitting through Larry’s 2-hour comedy set at the Cumberland County Civic Center will require bravery, strength, and endurance.
* Catch stripers on the fly: Hosted by the Martha’s Vineyard Rod & Gun Club, the annual Fly Rod Striped Bass Catch & Release Tournament is never canceled, forcing eager anglers to fish through rain, wind and bad early season baseball.
* Formula 1 racing in Montreal: F1 fans from all over the world will bring their mullets to Montreal on June 8 to see some of the world’s most talented drivers race for the checkered flag. Oh, and Cuban cigars are legal in Canada.
The state's wild turkey hunting season opened at the crack of dawn this morning, so naturally I spent the last several days doing nothing but talking, thinking, discussing and researching turkeys.
Turkey calling, in particular.
See, it's easy enough to pick up a slate call and make a sound that -- at least to our ears -- sounds like a hen calling out in the middle of the woods. How easy? Well, my 2-year-old daughter grabbed the striker and the call when I wasn't looking and started making the raspy noises.
But there's more to it than that, as serious turkey hunters can attest. There are sounds that are alarming, sounds that are soothing and sounds that are sociable. Knowing the difference means the difference between bagging a tom or going home empty-handed.
Found a great video on YouTube this weekend, one that explains the basics for turkey-calling beginners. It may be somewhat elementary, but it simply and quickly explains the difference between box calls, strike calls and mouth calls. It explains which are better in varying situations and lets you hear what it's all supposed to sound like.
And, as I said before, knowing what sounds right to a turkey is of utmost importance.
So you like the classic look, the incredible durability of the traditional wood-canvas canoe?
Well, Jerry Stelmok, who makes them at Island Falls Canoe in Atkinson, thinks anybody should be able to do it.
"You're building something that's very complex when it's finished," Stelmok said this week, "but it's made of about 50 steps that are really very simple, really."
Here they are, according to Unity College senior William Hafford -- who built an 18 1/2-foot Maine Guide canoe under Stelmok's watchful eye this winter:
* 1: Mill out the parts. This includes making all of the structural pieces -- the ribs, gunwales, deck plates, yokes, etc. -- for construction.
* 2: Bending on the form. Maleable white cedar is soaked, heated and bent over the form.
* 3: Attach the planking. Planking is made of ultra-thin cedar, and it is attached to the ribs to give it the first look of a "boat."
* 4: Take it off the form. The canoe is soaked, lifted off the form and the roughly 2,000 tacks are fastened more tightly.
* 5: Canvas the canoe. The canoe's hull is sanded and one sheet of canvas is folded in half, and the canoe is dropped in.
* 6: Filler and other prep. Canvas is sealed with a thick paint-like substance and sanded. Varnish is applied in several coats to inside of canoe.
* 7: Painting. Canoe is painted with 4 coats of paint and sanded in between applications.
* 8: Attach final pieces. Seats, handles, thwarts and other accessories are added for final project.
It's a little strange to be rifling through the water bottles in the cupboards here at Casa de Barrett -- chucking any of the ones with a little No. 7 inside the familiar, 3-arrowed recycling triangle into the trash can.
Because, after all, there are complications with recycling these trendy little beauties.
I don't want bisphenol-A (a chemical used to make the plastic) getting into my system. Heck, I don't even like sugar getting into it -- and I'm pretty sure I know what that does.
What does all this have to do with the outdoors? Well, Nalgene mass produces the hip little liter-sized bottles that were supposed to help us live more "green," the ones that hiking, biking, skiing and snowshoe enthusiasts were impulse buying at the counters of their favorite outfitters.
But they're no good now, and I shudder to think that if -- even at room temperature, as studies have suggested -- chemicals are transferring into my water, what happens when they end up in a big pile at the town dump?
Can I drink the town water? Can I eat the fish I catch out of the town pond? Heck, can I take my kids swimming in that pond?
So go and rummage through the house for signs of ol' No. 7 -- you'll be doing yourself a favor.
THE MOCKINGBIRD: The bird is prolific and loud. It resides, with its spouse, in the hedges at the entrance of the Piggery Road off Hospital Street in Augusta. Heading south, take a left on the road leading to the CARA fields. The birds often perch in the clump of fir trees just past the parking lot on the right. The two are frequently spotted displaying on the Maine State Arboretum fields. The pair have a range of vocals and often mimic other song birds in the area.
If you're an outdoors writer or a Maine guide, the response is the same.
"Wow, you've got a great job!"
But to see a group of 20 aspiring guides, sitting in a lecture hall for 4 days as they study for taking the state's licensing exam for guides, you don't get that feeling at all. Instead, the very palpable thickness hovering in the air carries other feelings -- anxiety, panic, frustration.
Carroll Ware was once on the state's board of examiners, and he and his wife now run a class several times a year. This week, they're at the Skowhegan Community Center -- and the ground they cover is mind-baffling.
It's about a whole lot more than knowing where the best hunting spots are or about the best fishing techniques.
It's about finding lost people. Using a compass without a hint of self-doubt. Knowing where "river left" is.
Yep, being a guide is about a whole heck of a lot more than putting out bait under bear stands. Don't think so?
Had a great phone conversation yesterday with John Chapman in Athens.
Chapman's been feeding deer throughout winters harsh and mild for the last two decades. A member of a national group known as the Quality Deer Management Association, Chapman wants to educate people about feeding deer. Earlier this winter, I wrote a column about the deadly diseases threatening the state's deer herd when humans intervened.
I'll admit, when John told me he wanted to talk about feeding deer, I thought for sure he was going to spend the next several minutes lecturing me. He talked about things like salt licks, bi-carbonate feed and deer yards.
Turns out, he's just as worried about people feeding deer as you and I are.
"If you're going to feed them anywhere near a road, you might as well just throw the bag of feed right out into the middle of the Interstate," Chapman said. "They're going to end up walking across there anyway to get to it."
The Quality Deer Management Association aims to protect existing deer yards, especially ones north of the "snow line" in Maine's northern reaches. Instead of allowing development to simply squash the yards that we do have -- further threatening deer habitat -- QDM wants to Maine's lawmakers to help protect the areas by installing measures that keep deer yards safe.
QDM also wants to educate people about the right ways to feed deer, Chapman said. Not only do people need to be aware of what foods could be lethal in a deer's winter diet, but he also wants people to understand the peril of over-feeding, domestication and mismanagement of deer yards.
"It’s a way of giving back to nature," Chapman said of his feeding, which he says he does only enough to help the population survive and not to fatten them up for hunting season in the fall. "I think (the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife) should organize it. It's a great resource we have, why not protect it?"
Fact: Eastern Mountain Sports is a chain store selling outdoors gear.
Fact: Dennis Morang and his staff in Augusta aren't a bunch of clock-punching paycheck hounds.
They climb mountains in the dead of winter. Snowshoe and kayak, hike and fish, bike and run. And, best of all, they're all devoted community members. It's what makes it so easy to see the local EMS branch as a whole lot more than a place to get a new backpack.
This weekend, people across central Maine will have the chance to see firsthand just how committed these guys are to making the entire outdoors experience here at home even better. Club Day is the store's way to drum up donations and volunteer time for groups like the Pine Tree State Arboretum and the Kennebec Messalonskee Trails. Without money and help, the organizations don't exist.
Morang wants us to join his staff and get out and do something for the outdoors here at home.
"It's for the general public and telling them, 'Hey, get out there,' " Morang said. "This is the playground up here -- we have the woods, the lakes, the trails, all the things we love to do. There's lots of good stuff in the works here, and this Club Day just kicks it all off."
"We just met a few hours ago, but we've been sitting here talking about all this stuff," Hill said.
That worked out great for yours truly, who had heard wild tales of how they fish on Lake Auburn before ice-out. It was worth checking out -- and I'm glad I did. And, to the guys gathered who let me tag along for an hour or so and pass the information along via that superhighway in the sky, thanks a bunch.
Hey, I don't mind swapping stories when it comes to fishing.
I kind of like it, in fact, especially with the angling so slow this time of year and everybody feeling good just to get out. But, boy oh boy, is it ever rough when you feel like you're being accused for not catching fish.
Pulling up in a car, hopping out without a rod in sight and grilling people who are fishing about why they're not succeeding -- well, there's just no place for it.
If the answer includes brutal conditions, an odd species and long odds, I will regale you.
The reply often takes longer than the time to make the photograph. A general rule usually applies: I just walk out my door. Nature abounds along the Kennebec River in Hallowell.
I've spotted foxes, fishers, a bobcat, deer, moles, beaver and otters. Yet the moose along the Kennebec River have eluded me.
The rolling hills and large bogs along the Kennebec River give moose ample shelter. They are rarely encountered and are always challenging to photograph. The Mainers among us understand the critter and the conditions.
George Myers, however, is from a flat land. He relocated from Ohio before assuming the duties of the acting city editor at the Kennebec Journal a few weeks ago.
He told me that biologists at Inland Fisheries and Wildlife were concerned about moose presenting a hazard to snowmobilers. Would I be so kind, he asked, to photograph a moose when I encountered one that day?
I looked out the window at the snow falling. I had not seen a moose in six months. And that one was discovered in Jackman riding in the bed of a pickup.
Before I replied Megan Robinson spoke up. She works as a clerk at the KJ performing a dozen tasks each day that produces the daily miracle called a newspaper. "There's a moose wandering around Sidney," she said. "They saw him an hour ago."
I arrived in Sidney that afternoon and knocked on a few doors. Nobody had seen a moose on the River Road. One kind lady told me as she pointed across from her farm they wander around that field. So I wandered around the field myself and discovered fresh moose tracks in the snow.
I meandered for about a mile in my snowshoes before encountering the moose napping beneath an oak, right along the River Road. I returned to my truck, drove to the moose's bed and photographed it in recline.
George was delighted to learn that the moose was relaxing in a field. A flat land indeed.
Apparently, we should have sugar-coated the whole being lost in the woods and trying to survive thing. The anonymous caller wanted to "teach" me that the public would "learn more" if I had written that in a more "positive manner." I was told that I should have used "stay calm" instead of "don't panic."
Truth is, it was Joe Tyan, the focal voice of the story, who used the words "don't panic." I'm not willing to change around the words of someone passing on his knowledge -- and thus risking changing the tone of his warning -- to make it sound "nicer."
I just won't do it. In my opinion, it would be incredibly unethical.
And when we're talking about matters of life and death, as we are when it comes to wilderness survival, I'm not taking that chance.
Took the boy out fishing today. Well, more accurately, we went out for some casting practice over on Long Pond, near Castle Island Camps.
The conversations between the several anglers there all went something like this:
"Are the fish biting?"
"Well, we've only been here about 10 minutes. But, no."
"That's what I figured."
It's still, obviously, very cold and the water is rushing around at a high level. It's not exactly flood level, but it's still high enough to cause problems.
Mostly, the 4 1/2-year-old in the group spent time trying to "catch" a piece of rope that was sitting at the bottom of the lake. This just in: the rope wasn't biting any more than the fish were.
When we got back to the house, my wife and daughter greeted us at the door.
"Did you bring back dinner?" my wife asked.
"We did if you're looking for saltine crackers and a bottle of water."
Funny, isn't it, how one week before you can catch all you want for a meal while ice fishing — only to not be able to induce so much as a nibble while "open water" fishing just a few days later?
What's that I always say? Never let the facts get in the way of a good story? Well, for the time being, fishermen and scientists may well be on the same page.
Conventional wisdom: "When the alders' leaves get as big as mouse's ears."
The science: "Yep, that's about right."
Maybe I'll wait a few weeks to hit the open water...
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