On one recent afternoon, Bill Woodward of Monmouth was telling me about his commercial bait-fishing experiences that morning, and his excitement resembled a little kid, talking about Christmas.

They come on whistling wings in the gray light of dawn, inundating the estuaries and rocky coastline from central Maine to Cape Cod. The redlegs are coming.

There are a number of things you can do to ensure that your first trip on the sled is a safe, legal and fun one.

It’s serendipitous that New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, given the Maine State Park’s newly announced push to get folks outside and recreating on the first day of the year.

The regular firearms deer season is over, and for some it means the end of another hunting season. But many who still haven’t filled their tags will put away the deer rifle and dust off the old smokepole for the two-week muzzleloader season.

Even though it’s looking like winter in this state, imagine fishing the Atlantic now and feeling confident of catching fish for dinner.

In the last column, I sang the praises of eBird, the website maintained by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. This site serves as the depository for bird sightings from birders and ornithologists throughout North America and beyond.

In order to beat the whitetail deer you’ve got to have an edge. They’re out there, in the woods 24/7. They are intimately familiar with their surroundings and well equipped for survival with their keen eyes, ears and noses. And it’s that nose, more than anything, that will signal your presence more often than not. Fortunately, there are ways to counter that factor.