Put in at the small boat launch site located on Route 35 about halfway down the eastern shoreline of Bear Pond in Waterford. Look across the road and you will see a jumble of gigantic boulders strewn about under the towering vertical cliffs of Bear Mountain. These majestic cliffs will tower over you throughout your 3-mile circuit of the pond.

In late summer and autumn, skilled fly rodders in Maine often choose two vastly different categories of flies for trout: 1. Large, dark nymphs and baitfish imitations or 2. micro mayflies and caddises to imitate specific bugs.

Apple-picking time in Maine normally starts around Sept. 9, but the season has begun already this year. When apples ripen, Jolie, my intrepid companion, and I spend part of an afternoon, picking Cortland, McIntosh and sometimes Golden Delicious.

Some 45 miles up scenic Route 27 from Kingfield lies a magical unit of the Maine Public Reserved Lands comprised of five interconnected ponds ideal for kayaking and fishing.

I have written several times in this column about the value and utility of eBird (www.ebird.org). This online resource is a powerful way to share bird sightings with the world at large. eBird can be valuable if you are planning a trip to an unfamiliar location.

Murphy never met a boat he didn’t like. I’m not a pessimist, just a realist. Spend enough time around boats, and something is bound to go awry.

Did someone mention late summer deer scouting?

One recent dawn, still plenty dark with the first sliver of saffron light on the horizon, I opened the front door to let out our yellow Lab to do her morning duties.

Of all the earthly things that please me these days, none surpasses the sounds rising out of the sunset silence, the natural emptiness interrupting nothing on the ocean or the bay’s far coast. The lingering of the grasshopper in the unclipped grass stops me, and I listen for the disordered chorus of the crickets as […]