Northwoods Sporting Journal, January 2022

Me & Joe Help Boy Scouts Build A Shelter January 2022

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* Falling T hr ough T he Ice * Ice Fishing Tips * M a i n e ’s O l d e s t B u ck Hunter * Camps, Cottages & L a n d Fo r S a l e

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Shadowing A Buck Hunter

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January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 3

Good Enough?

Ideas for this column frequently come from readers, Facebook friends and emails. This column is the result of a Facebook posting. A Facebook friend

you, are you proud of your dog’s work? Is your dog trained to the level that he’s a pleasure to hunt with?

Let’s review the basics for being good enough.

recently posted that his dog wasn’t perfect but it was good enough. What exactly is good enough?

In my opinion, good enough should be determined by the owner of the dog. However, that determination should take into consideration a few factors.

One factor is pride. If you invite a friend to hunt with

A good enough dog should be obedient. If you call your dog, he should respond immediately. In dog training, it’s referred to as recall. Nothing is more frustrating to both you and a guest than constantly screaming your dog’s name. That becomes tiring for all involved. Another obedience factor is the heel

command. If your return to the truck requires walking on a road, you want your dog to stay right next to you…that’s heel. Another command is whoa. You can save your dog’s life or serious injury if they’re obedient to the whoa command. If your dog is head-

On Point

by Paul Fuller, Durham, N.H. sure in teaching whoa, then the dog might sit to please you. We’ve never encountered the problem with our shorthairs, however, I have seen it happen with setters.

dog to sit, the same result can be obtained by simply having the dog stand still.

Another command a good enough dog should understand is stay. We use Another command a good enough dog that command every day.

After we collar up the dogs should understand is stay. We use that for their daily run, we comcommand every day. After we collar mand stay. They must stay up the dogs for their daily run, we in their position (either sit or stand still) until released. command stay. ing toward a busy road, you If this concerns you, devel- Stay also applies when you command whoa. If your op the command to mean open the car door or open dog is about to encounter stand still. Whenever you their truck crate door.

(Enough cont. pg 27) a porcupine, you command would normally want your whoa.

Let’s discuss the command sit. There are many professional pointing dog trainers who feel sit should not be taught. They feel that when you put pressure on a dog to obey a command, the dog will sit 1681 Bennoch Rd, Old Town, ME to please you. An example would be if you use whoa East Off I-95 Exit 197 when your dog goes on point. If you’ve used pres-

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On The Cover

Me & Joe Help Boy Scouts Build A Shelter - Pg 16 The New Marlins - Pg 33 Shadowing A Buck Hunter - Pg 17 Falling Through The Ice - Pg 6 Ice Fishing Tips - Pg 34 Maine’s Oldest Buck Hunter - Pg 57 Camps, Cottages and Land for Sale - Pg 66

Contents

3. On Point - Paul Fuller 6. Basics Of Survival - Joe Frazier 7. The Gun Cabinet - John Floyd 9. Women In The Woods - Erin Merrill 10. “A Hiker’s Life” - Carey Kish 11. Muzzleloading Afield - Al Raychard 12. Northwoods Sketchbook - Mark McCollough 13. Native Fish Talk - Bob Mallard 15. The Northwoods Bow Hunter - Brian Smith 16. The Adventures Of Me & Joe - Bob Cram 17. Shadowing A Buck Hunter - Brian Connor 18. Outdoor Sporting Library - Jeremiah Wood 20. Aroostook Woods & Water - Mike Maynard 26. Ramblings From T8-R9 - Benjamin Rioux 28. On The Prowl - Justin Merrill 32. The Buck Hunter - Hal Blood 33. Guns & Ammo: A Guide’s Perspective - Tom Kelly 34. The Maine Woods - Matt LaRoche 36. View From The River - Laurie Chandler 37. The Bird Perch - Karen Holmes 38. “Just Fishing” - Bob Leeman 39. Old Tales From The Maine Woods - Steve Pinkham 40. What’s In Your Woods - Bud Utecht 41 The Trail Rider - Rod Fraser 42. Maine Outdoor Adventures - Rich Yvon 43. Northwoods Voyager - Gil Gilpatrick 44. Warden’s Words - Game Warden Kale O’Leary 46. The Tyer’s Corner - Hugh Kelly 47. Fly Tying - Joe Bertolaccini 48. Kineo Currents - Suzanne AuClair 49. Question Of The Month - Josh Cottrell 50. Vermont Ramblings - Dennis Jensen 51. Outdoors In Vermont - Gary W. Moore 53. Green Mountain Report - Bradley Carleton 54. New Hampshire Outdoors - Peter St. James 56. Maine Tails - Jonah Paris 57. Mass Wanderings - David Willette 58. The Singing Maine Guide - Randy Spencer 60. Against The Current - Bob Romano 61. Outdoors In Maine - V. Paul Reynolds 62. Anticosti - Mark Cote 64. Marsh Island Chronicles - Matthew Dunlap

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

The Sportin’ Journal The Outdoor Paper For “Maine Folks”

The Northwoods Sporting Journal is the Northeast’s most comprehensive and readable monthly outdoor publication. Published at the trailhead of Maine’s sprawling North Woods, the Sporting Journal prides itself on being an independent voice for the region’s outdoor community for more than 28 years. Some of our writers are seasoned and specialized outdoors people who will share their know-how and insights; some of our contributors are simply lifelong outdoor people with interesting stories to tell.

Our aim every month is to capture the essence of Northern New England’s remarkable outdoor heritage by stirring memories, portraying outdoor humor, and sharing experiences and outdoor knowledge. We also keep our readers up to date with late-breaking outdoor news and hard-hitting editorials about fish and wildlife issues.

Anyone who loves to hunt and fish, or simply finds the Great Outdoors a treasured place, is more than likely to find some special connections amid the pages of the Northwoods Sporting Journal.

www.sportingjournal.com

Main Office Phone: (207) 732-4880 E-mail: info@sportingjournal.com Fax: (207)732-4970

Vol 29 Issue 1 is published monthly by Northwoods Publications, 57 Old County Rd. North, W. Enfield, ME 04493 Periodical Postage Paid at W. Enfield, ME. and additional mailing offices.

The Northwoods Sporting Journal (ISSN#1548-193X) Postmaster: Send address changes to: Northwoods Sporting Journal, PO Box 195, W. Enfield, ME 04493 Northwoods Publishing Group Victor Morin - Susan Morin - Diane Reynolds - V. Paul Reynolds Publishers - Victor Morin Jr. - V. Paul Reynolds Editor - V. Paul Reynolds Director of Marketing - Victor Morin Assistant Editor - Josh Reynolds Associate Editor - Donna Veino Graphic Arts Manager - Gayleen Cummings Subscription/Distribution Manager - Alicia Cram Operations Manager - Annette Boobar Webmaster - V. Paul Reynolds General Sales Manager - Victor Morin Jr. Sales Department; Thomas Schmidt, Paul Hatin & Michael Georgia Regional Advertising Manager - Jim Thorne The Northwoods Sporting Journal invites submissions of photographs and articles about the Maine outdoors.

Manuscripts should be sent with a self-addressed envelope to: NORTHWOODS SPORTING JOURNAL P.O. BOX 195, W. ENFIELD, MAINE 04493 The Northwoods Sporting Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited photos or manuscripts. Photos submitted without a stamped, self-addressed envelope will not be returned.

All rights reserved, 2022. Written permission must be obtained from the Northwoods Sporting Journal to reprint any part of this publication. Any errors or omissions in ads or editorial matter will be corrected in the next issue of NWSJ. The views and opinions expressed by our monthly columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.

Women In The Woods - Pg 9

By Erin Merrill

Other Great Stories & Information

Maine Outdoor Adventure - Pg 42

By Rich Yvon

8. Editorial/Letters 14. Outdoor News 24-25. Photo Pages 41. Trading Post 66. Real Estate

Cover Photo:

Cover photo by Tom Kelly.

What’s In Your Woods - Pg 40

By Bud Utecht

Warden’s Words - Pg 44

By Kale O’Leary

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 5

Page 6

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Basics Of Survival

Falling Through Ice

go along.

Besides ice grippers/ creepers/traction spikes

by Joe Frazier, for your shoes, you should Bangor, ME also have rescue spikes in In M a i n e , w inter 25 foot long rescue throw your pockets. Lag screws means frozen lakes and rope, a tarp, a couple warm or landscape spikes work lots of outdoor recreation. blankets from the second well. You need two about Anytime you are on a pond hand store, a snowmobile 5 inches long and half an or lake, there is a chance If you fall through, try to plug your you could fall through the mouth and nose before you hit the ice. Here are some tips to help get you home if that water. The shock of the cold water will make your body try to inhale. happens.

Most people who ice suit, a spare pair of boots, inch in diameter. Tie some fish carry their gear in a chemical hand warmers, string or cord around the sled. A couple things to and a thermos of hot drink end and safety pin the other add to your gear list are a or soup. I’ll explain as we end of the cord inside your pocket. The cord should be a little longer than your arm. If you fall through the ice, you can grab the spikes and use them to help you claw your way onto thicker ice. Gripping wet ice without a tool is impossible.

If you are walking FORT KENT POWERSPORTS and you hear the ice start Sales • Service • Parts • Sportswear Sales • Service • Parts • Sportswear to crack, instantly drop to your butt, then lay flat with your arms and legs spread to distribute your weight.

Crawl back to the ice you walked on, then get to a 377 Caribou Road, Fort Kent, ME safe area.

Phone (207) 834-3607/3659 Fax (207) 834-6287 If you fall through, www.fortkentpowersports.com try to plug your mouth and nose before you hit the water. The shock of the cold water will make your body try to inhale. If you are in deep water, drop anything in your hands and get back up through the hole you broke through. It will be a different color than the surrounding ice. Kick your feet and try to build momentum. Put as much of your upper body on the ice as you can, kick your feet to raise your lower body, and roll away from the hole.

If you have rescue spikes, use them to help you get away from the edge of the hole and onto the ice.

Once you are onto the ice,

St John Valley

January 2022

go back along the steps you made to get there. Ice you have walked on before is most likely safe enough to walk on again.

Once you are in a safe area, take all your wet

bright colored rope with a loop tied in the end can be thrown to help pull them out. If you get close to them, you risk falling in as well.

No ice is ever total-

Ice immersion survival gear. clothes off. The water in them will pull heat away from your body fast enough to still kill you. Expect violent shivering and loss of fine motor skills. Wrap up in the blankets and then the tarp from your sled.

You must get dry as fast as possible. The tarp is a great wind break.

Use chemical hand warmers to get your hands working again. Put on your spare hat, extra clothes, and boots as soon as you can.

SLOWLY drink the thermos of hot chocolate for the sugar, calories, and warmth. I add butter and chili powder in mine.

You need to be careful to not reheat too fast.

The cold blood from your extremities can be forced back to the heart too quickly, causing irregular heartbeat or death. Don’t sit close to a large fire and don’t blast the heat in a vehicle.

If you attempt to rescue some one who has fallen through, slide a pole or your sled to them to grab and pull them to safety. A

ly safe. There are many reasons why it might be strong in one spot and very weak a few feet away. If you decide to risk driving a vehicle on the ice, plan what you will do if it breaks through. Always drive slow, seat belt OFF and all windows down. If the vehicle breaks through the ice, you only have a few seconds to escape. Children should be taught to go out the windows as well, not try to open the doors. Do not drive vehicles close to each other. Vehicles cause waves in the ice and can cause the ice to crack. Do not leave a vehicle parked in one spot for more than one hour, move it to a different area to avoid stressing/cracking the ice.

Winter in Maine is fun, but being on ice carries risk. With proper gear and prior planning, you can increase the odds of your survival if you fall through.

Joe is a Husband, Father, Writer, and Marine.

Joefrazier193@gmail.com

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Rainy Day Rifles

If you are a big game hunter and more so, a northern Maine big game hunter, you have been afield in some pretty nasty weather. I’m referring to those days when the forecast calls for gusty winds and rain, or perhaps the new climate buzzword known as the wintry mix.

You know the days I’m talking about. More than once as I was drinking my first cup of coffee at 4 A.M. and peering through the kitchen window, rain or sleet pelting the glass and wind whipping through the eaves, the thought of pulling one of my finer hunting rifles from its warm and cozy slot in the cabinet and exposing it to the best (or worst) weather Maine has to offer made me cringe.

Enter the rainy day rifle. I spoke with my close friend Harley, long-time hunter partner and all around gun guru about his thoughts as a former gun shop owner and FFL dealer. Here are his top three recommendations for an affordable new rainy day rifle.

Browning AB3 You may be surprised to a Browning rifle on this list; they are known for high quality, precision rifles. However, with the

introduction of the AB3, Browning has entered the budget rifle market by streamlining manufacturing while drawing features from both of their most popular rifles: the A-bolt and X-bolt. In fact, X-bolt fans will be glad to see the same barrel quality in the AB3 – constructed from cold-rolled steel, free-floated and featuring buttonrifling for precision. The 60 degree bolt-throw is another feature you don’t see often in budget class guns.

This enables quick cycling of the action without interference from a scope.

The matte blue barrel and action offer high resistance to corrosion and minimal reflection. Add the matte black composite stock with textured gripping areas and you have a serious foul weather gun. Expect to pay between $450 - $550 at retail.

Howa GAMEPRO 2.0 Howa is well known by insiders for making great rifles. You may have even owned one and didn’t realize it; Howa has been a behind the scenes manufacturer for a few more well-known firearm brands over the years. The GAMEPRO 2.0 scoped package offering may seem

a little salty pricewise at first, but a closer look at the rifle makes this gun a great value. Partnering with Hogue, this Howa rifle features a pillar-bedded Overmolded stock and recoil pad – perfect for slippery hands, comfort and precision. This rifle boasts both a cold hammerforged threaded barrel and a two lug, forged one piece bolt. The two stage trigger is adjustable from three to five pounds and a Nikko Stirling Gamepro 4-12X40 Scope sits atop the gun.

This rifle package is retailing around $630 and is ready to hunt bad weather out of the box.

Ruger American I’ve handled a lot of rifles similar to the Ruger American in price point and features. Some felt

Page 7

The Gun Cabinet

by John Floyd, Webster Plantation, ME clunky, didn’t shoulder well or just felt plain cheap.

The first time I shouldered the American, I let my hand slide along the synthetic forearm and brush the detachable box magazine – I was pleasantly surprised.

There was no rattle from an ill-fitting magazine common in budget guns; a huge pet peeve of mine in a hunting rifle. From the free-floated barrel, an integral bedding block system, adjustable trigger and cold hammer-forged barrel, Ruger nailed it with this gun. The 70 degree bolt throw is a little more than I would like but Ruger’s decision to equip the rifle with a factory-installed,

one-piece Picatinny scope base makes up for it. I love the tang safety and the three lug bolt locks in tight.

For a rifle in the $400 $460 retail price range and the features it boasts, it is a hard inclement weather gun to beat. It’s also the one, chambered in .30-06, that hangs on the rack as my personal rainy day rifle.

John is a Registered Maine Guide, an NRA Certified Instructor and is the owner of Tucker Ridge Outdoors in Webster Plantation, Maine. He also works as an outdoors writer and can be reached at john@ tuckerridge.me or on Facebook @writerjohnfloyd

Page 8

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Hunting Rights: Maine Leads Like so many voters who try to stay informed, articles about the pro and con of the high-profile CMP corridor referendum monopolized most of my attention. Pulling the curtain behind me at the polls, I was prepared – or, at least, so I thought. Referendum question Two, money for highways and bridges, was a shoe-in. A given, it required little homework. These highway bond referendums always pass handily.

Anyone who votes against these highway funding issues is spitting into the wind.

What about Question Three, the Right to Food? Frankly, this one caught me unprepared. For whatever reason - my own negligence or lack of media coverage - the far-reaching implications of this state Constitutional change were not known to me there in the Ellsworth polling booth. Taking my time, a careful read was in order before filling in the circle on the ballot.

In reading it, my assumption, misguided perhaps, was that the Right to Food measure was to simply protect the backto-landers, who want to grow cannabis, special mushrooms, herbs or what have

No Turkey Tagging To the Editor: I’ve hunted turkeys ever since the days of the lottery system. I’ve killed them with recurve bow;12 gauge duck gun, but my passion is chasing spring gobblers with my 12 gauge

you. Despite my conservative law-andorder bent, it has long seemed to me silly to jail people for growing things in their back yard, whatever the crop.

Question Three got my vote.

And guess what? Unknowingly, in supporting Question Three ,I also by sheer good luck simultaneously cast my vote to give Maine hunting rights state Constitutional protection! The Constitutional amendment as worded, protects my right “to harvest food of my choosing.” According to David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine (SAM), Maine is the first state in the nation to enact such a Constitutional provision. He expects other states to follow suit.

Trahan also observes that this “new right establishes reasonable boundaries to protect us (hunters) from animal rights activists.” Apparently, there was a lot of opposition to this constitutional amendment, not only from the Farm Bureau, but a number of animal rights organizations.

Ironically, a number of previous attempts to add hunting rights to the state

muzzle loader. The IF&W has done a great job in their introducing the wild turkey to Maine. However, I’m disappointed that there was no way to tag this fall’s birds [even by phone]. I would just like to know what overall kill was this fall. I’m also concerned

Constitution have failed over the years.

And, for what it is worth, the legislative debate leading up to this recent protection clause further defined and reinforced the definition of the word “harvest”to mean hunting and fishing.

This is all good. In retrospect, though, given the groundbreaking implications of Question Three it really deserved much more media coverage than it got. Still, this may not have been a bad thing, for obvious reasons.

Much of the credit for this proposal goes to State Senator Hickman of Hallowell and State Rep. Faulkingham from Winter Harbor.

Hunting rights aside, this Constitutional right to raise and gather our own food may be timely, given fast-rising inflation and supply chain issues. Maine is at the end of the national supply chain. And, as Sen. Hickman pointed out, “Maine is the most food insecure state in the nation.”

raised his ire.

His belief on polls is almost funny as they are famously inaccurate.

He might be half right on the NRA but they will be David Wardwell changed I am sure before Penobscot the lawsuits get done. He also noted that the Pew Editor’s note: The Research poll showing that story of the Hinckley Buck the majority of Americans is available 24/7 on our still support many forms website, www.sporting- of gun control is a way off journal.com target.

As an old Maine Yankee I am hopeful that the Wake Up Call? publishing of this letter was meant to show our To the Editor: The November issue Maine sportsman the rabid letter from the Connecticut anti-gun left’s rhetoric out writer was one that got this there to wake them up. old Maine Yankee’s atten- Personally I would close tion. It was the Gun Cabi- the Kittery bridge to all net article that apparently such WOKE folk from about poachers. One last note: could you run the Hinckley Buck story again sometime? Thanks and keep up the good work!

- VPR

Connecticut. What they believe is not worth the ink of the NSJ..

George A. Fogg Auburn

Grace in the Woods To the Editor: I really enjoyed reading V. Paul Reynolds article this morning, Grace in the Deer Woods, in the Northwoods Sporting Journal.

Also, I always love catching him on the Maine Outdoors Podcasts.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.

Holly Wooldridge Lyman

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Reflecting On My Grand Slam

When I was drawn for my moose tag, I set the goal of going for my grand slam. I had only hunted turkeys in the spring once, so I needed a bear, moose,

As soon as she knew I wanted to get my grand slam, Staci (My Mainely Girl Adventures) was determined to help me get my bear. She and her husband

morning, he might have been more emotional than Dad and me.

And for almost 20 years, my Dad has taught and tolerated me in the woods. He has been my hunting partner from day one. We have built impressive tree houses to hunt from, hung numerous game cameras, watched a

Page 9

Women In The Woods

by Erin Merrill, Portland, ME is the absolute best!

Throughout the year, I will share stories about each of these hunts. Each was a new experience for me, not only as a part of the slam, but the methods and locations that I hunted. If you can not wait, you can head over to my website

the first place. I am lucky to have such an incredible community and am grateful for their help and encouragement. Now, on to a new year to hunt and new goals to plan.

Erin is a member of the OWAA and the New

As soon as she knew I wanted to get my grand slam, Staci (My Mainely Girl Adventures) was determined to help me get my bear. She and her husband put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen.

The author and her Dad with a big bull. turkey and deer between September and November.

In the morning of November 6th, I tagged my deer and completed the slam. But, I did not do it alone. My Mom watched the kids while I went into the woods looking to punch my deer tag. My husband took over the school pick up and drop offs schedule and ran the house while I was away at moose camp.

My friend Jeremy at Fit To Hunt went to work and helped me customize a training program that would get me into shape for miles of walking through choppings in search of my moose.

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put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen.

They started the bait sites and then taught me how to set the trap, adjust the trap and eventually, trap a bear. Thanks to her, ¼ of my slam was done by September 3rd.

Wayne Bernier, the owner and legend of Allagash Adventures, believed that we would get a moose when we were not so sure.

He was willing to drive, walk and call from sun up to sun down every day and he hiked a lot of miles trying to push something towards us. When Dad, Wayne and I walked over to that bull on Saturday

lot of deer and turkey in the fields and woods. Every trip out results in some sort of new story or lesson. He taught me how to be confident with my rifle. We shot the moose together and he was in the woods when my turkey and deer were shot.

There is no one I would rather go hunting with. He

and read them now.

My success was truly a group effort. Without the help of Staci and Wayne, I would not be able to write this article. Without my family watching the kids, I would have had to do a lot more juggling and without my Dad, I would have never started hunting in

England Outdoor Writers Association. She is a senior writer for Drury Outdoors’ DeerCast and is the President and co-Founder of the non-profit group Women of the Maine Outdoors.

You can read about Erin’s adventures and contact her at www.andastrongcupofcoffee.com

Page 10

Northwoods Sporting Journal

“A Hiker’s Life”

by Carey Kish, Mt. Desert Island, ME There are 11 trails 100 miles or longer in the United States with the designation of “National Scenic Trail.” Of these, the second longest is the Pacific Crest Trail, which extends 2,654 miles from Mexico to Canada. The Continental Divide Trail gets top honors at 3,100

the trail in the mid-1970s when I read “The High Adventure of Eric Ryback,” in which Ryback, the first person to hike the entire PCT in 1970 when the trail was largely incomplete, described his journey. Soon after my first AT thru-hike fresh out of high school in 1977, I bought the “Pacific

January 2022

Pacific Crest Trail: Dream Trip!

ish the grueling hike.

California hosts 1,700 miles of the PCT, with another 450 miles in Oregon and the final 500 miles in Washington. The trail wends through seven national parks—Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Lassen, Crater Lake, Mt. Rainier and North Cascades—as well as 25 national forests, four national

Range, which it follows past Oregon’s Crater Lake and Mt. Hood and then Washington’s Mt. Rainier to Canada. The trail’s lowest point is the crossing of the Columbia River at

backpack, REI Magma 10 sleeping bag, Sea to Summit Ultralight sleeping pad, Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 tent and Lowa Renegade boots. My base pack weight is 20 pounds,

Soon after my first AT thru-hike fresh out of high school in 1977, I bought the “Pacific Crest Trail Hike Planning Guide,” but that’s as far as the dream got. Until now. miles, while the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail is third.

This hiker plans to tackle the entire Pacific Crest Trail in one continuous push, starting at the outpost of Campo on the Mexican border, 50 miles east of San Diego. I’ll journey northward through the wilds of California, Oregon and Washington, and with a lot of sweat and toil and no small amount of good fortune, my plan is to reach the Canadian border in six months’ time.

The PCT has been on my bucket list for a long time. I first heard about

Crest Trail Hike Planning Guide,” but that’s as far as the dream got. Until now.

The PCT used to be a fairly lonely endeavor, but just as Bill Bryson’s celebrated book “A Walk in the Woods” helped spark a thru-hiker boom on the AT in the late 1990s, so too has “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed accounted for a recent increase in PCT hikers. Some 50 hikers a day from March through May will head north from the border wall.

The pack will thin dramatically, however, because as with the AT, less than 25 percent will ultimately fin-

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monuments and 48 federal wilderness areas.

The first 700 miles of the PCT are through the deserts of southern California, where waterless stretches of 20-30 miles and 90-100-degree temperatures in the Mojave will contrast sharply with snow and ice at 9,000 feet on Mt. San Jacinto. The 500-mile section through the Sierra Nevada is the crux of the hike, with the likelihood of deep snow and rivers swollen with snowmelt, plus a dozen high mountain passes, including Forester Pass at 13,153 feet, the PCT’s apex.

In northern California, the PCT swings west around lofty Mt. Shasta to connect with the Cascade

The author’s backpack that sustained him on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Cascade Locks, 180 feet above sea level.

Perhaps the most stunning PCT statistic is the cumulative elevation gain and loss en route, a mindboggling 489,418 feet of climbing and 488,411 feet of descent. It’s no wonder why I’m planning a moderate average of 15 miles per day.

With the exception of LEKI trekking poles and MSR Pocket Rocket stove, I’ve almost completely swapped out my gear. The major items include an Osprey Atmos 65

but that’ll swell with food, water and extra Sierra snow gear. I’ll receive 19 resupply boxes mailed from home to remote locations and will buy groceries at stores the rest of the time.

I expect to spend $6,000 on the six-month walk.

Carey Kish is editor of the AMC Maine Mountain Guide and author of the AMC’s Best Day Hikes Along the Maine Coast.

His new book, Beer Hiking New England, will be available in Spring 2022.

Let us know your opinion send letters to the Editor to: NWSJ P.O. Box 195 W. Enfield, ME 04493

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Maine’s Crossbow Future

In 2020 Maine governor Janet Mills signed into law LD 27, “An Act to Allow the Use of Crossbows for a Limited Time.” Prior to this legislation crossbows were generally legal during the firearms deer and bear seasons but the new legislation basically allows the use of crossbows by all legal-age hunters during the regular archery

hunting with crossbows has proven quite popular. In 2019, before the new regulations kicked in 927 resident crossbow permits were purchased.

Non-residents purchased 216 crossbow permits.

Add in the other miscellaneous crossbow permits purchased and the total number was 1,161 in 2019.

In 2020, the year the new

The big issue as I see it will be whether crossbows will still be allowed during the October archery season and whether all hunters will be able to hunt with crossbows during the expanded archery season regardless of age. deer and both spring and fall turkey seasons. The fall season was previously closed to crossbow hunters. It also included certain limitations or allowances depending upon whether a hunter is 65 years of age or younger.

The new crossbow legislation also included a three-year sunset provision. It’s the key words, “limited time” in the title.

In essence, the new regulation further opened the door to crossbow use, something long overdue, but it was also a litmus test of sorts and provided an opportunity to see what the results of opening that door wider would be. I assume, and I’m only guessing, to see if crossbows would be used in any increase poaching or other illegal activities, an increase in hunting accidents and most importantly what impact they might have on wildlife populations, primarily deer.

Well, the sky didn’t fall as many opponents to crossbows so often preached and predicted.

But what has happened is

regulation commenced resident purchases increased to 2,746, nearly tripling that in 2019. Non-resident purchases increased to 380.

All totaled 3,210 crossbow permits were purchased in 2020. I don’t know if the increase is due to new recruits to archery hunting or hunting in general, whether older folks who for health or physical reasons had to give up archery hunting jumped back into the fold or whether the new regulations simply offered increased hunting opportunities. Whatever the reason the interest in hunting with a crossbow remains high and seems to be increasing as long as the opportunity to use them is there.

The three-year sunset provision comes to an end in December 2022. At that time any and all data and impacts will be reviewed and assessed and any of the old dire predictions proven true or disproven.

The question is, what will happen then? Will decision makers elect to have the current regulations made permanent, perhaps with

a few tweaks, or will they be shelved altogether or opportunities taken back to what they were in 2019?

According to most in the know Maine deer are doing extremely well and there is no evidence and little chance of crossbows severely impacting the population, especially considering the allotment of any-deer permits have been increasing annually for the past few years and in 2020 were at a record high. When it comes to bear and turkeys we have plenty of both, more than enough according to some folks so there’s no worry there either.

The big issue as I see it will be whether crossbows will still be allowed during the October archery season and whether all hunters will be able to hunt

Page 11

Muzzleloading Afield

by Al Raychard, Lyman, ME

with crossbows during the expanded archery season regardless of age. As the past two years and most likely this year as well will prove there’s room in enough in the October woods and expanded zones for all of us. In the end I think the powers that are smart enough to agree and the current crossbow regulations will be made permanent if not expanded on.

But I would like to see some changes in the licensing. Currently a resident crossbow permit costs $26, not including agent’s fee.

On top of that an archery or big-game hunting license is also required adding another $26, respectively.

That’s not only costly for

some in these challenging economic times but it’s also not fair. If someone wants to bow hunt bears or turkeys with a crossbow it gets even more costly yet to bow hunt in October, or bears or turkeys all that is required in an archery license and appropriate permits.

Why not make crossbows inclusive with the archery license? It’s only fair. If the folks at IFW want to keep tabs on how many of us are hunting with crossbows it can easily be answered by asking when purchasing our hunting or archery license as it is when asked if we plan to hunt migratory birds.

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Sporting Journal Northwoods

Northwoods Sketchbook

Retirement

wet-behind-the-ears biologist, I naively thought that

by Mark McCollough, I would spend my career Hampden, ME working with animals. The reality is that wildlife biolI’m hanging up my up with a new introduction. ogists manage people, not spurs, calling it a day, being Maybe it will be, “Hi, I critters. Our profession is shown out the door, put out am Mark and am recently to pasture, stepping down, rewired…” exiting the stage, entering I greatly enjoyed my my sunset years. Yikes, career in Maine. I came all these euphemisms for from western Pennsylvania

trying to preserve nature whenever we can. Left to their own, animals would do just fine. Biologists know that Homo sapiens are an animal, not “special” or different than any other,

Although I have been offered jobs in Alaska and elsewhere, I stayed in Maine, not just because of the moose and loons, North Maine woods, and picturesque coast, but mostly because of the people. retirement are not very positive, are they? After 42 years as a wildlife biologist in Maine, it’s time to enjoy the woods and waters that I labored so long to conserve.

Our profession defines us. “Nice to meet you, I am Mark. I work as a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” Now I will have to reinvent myself and come

to the University of Maine to go to graduate school and never left. Maine is as good as it gets for a wildlife biologist in the eastern United States.

Although I have been offered jobs in Alaska and elsewhere, I stayed in Maine, not just because of the moose and loons, North Maine woods, and picturesque coast, but mostly because of the people. As a

the art and science of solving conflicts caused by the ever-encroaching march of human beings and the harm that we can cause to our natural world – always

and that we need healthy ecosystems if our species is to survive on this stressedout planet.

I have a sign from The Nature Conservancy above

January 2022

my desk, “IN MAINE, OUR ECONOMY IS NATURE.” Maine’s economic drivers – tourism, fishing, and forestry – all depend on a healthy forest and ocean. I enjoyed living in a State where the public appreciated the work public servants do to protect our natural world.

Many wildlife biologists from other parts of the country can’t say that.

I have scarcely felt these many years go round. I’ve worked on successful projects and some not.

My first job out of college was to lead the infamous Maine Caribou Reintroduction Project. Sad to say, there are no caribou in Maine today from that endeavor, but we learned important lessons about how difficult it is to restore a species that was lost from human greed and mismanagement.

I devoted the remainder of my career to preserving the endangered species.

Bald eagles are common again. I would like to think that myself and others at the University of Maine, Charlie Todd and Bucky Owen, played a substantial role in their comeback. But Mainers also deserve much credit for sharing their costly shorefront property to make space for our national symbol. I still pause and thrill at the sight of an eagle soaring overhead with the sunlight glinting from their white head and tail just as I did as a grad (Retirement cont. pg 22)

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

A Call to Arms

Maine’s State Heritage Fish waters represent the purest wild native brook trout waters left in the state. They are selfsustaining and either have

never been stocked, or have not been stocked in twentyfive years or more. In total, they represent far more wild native trout lakes and ponds than exist in all other

eastern states in aggregate.

Maine’s State Heritage waters are a national treasure. Regional draw, and local source of pride.

They are legally protected from stocking, and the use of live bait. This helps prevent competition for food and space, genetic swamping, and the introduction of nonnative fish.

Thanks to the efforts of Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, Dud Dean Angling

Page 13

Native Fish Talk

by Bob Mallard, Skowhegan, ME In 2018, the newly founded Native Fish Coalition approached SAM with a proposal to post informational signs on SHF waters.

Together, NFC and SAM went to then IFW commissioner Chandler Woodcock who approved the project.

NFC raised the money

SAM and NFC logos, custom signs were developed for state-owned land managed by Bureau of Parks and Lands, as well as land owned by the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, each of which adhered to branding standards and

Thanks to the efforts of Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, Dud Dean Angling Society, and others, the State Heritage Fish law was passed in 2005, protecting roughly 275 never-stocked lakes and ponds.

Society, and others, the State Heritage Fish law was passed in 2005, protecting roughly 275 neverstocked lakes and ponds. In 2013, it was amended to protect waters not stocked in twenty-five years or more, roughly doubling the number of protected waters.

Former Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Ray “Bucky” Owen posting a remote trout pond.

for the signs and hardware with the help in the form of a grant of Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund. NFC assumed responsibility for getting the signs posted, and SAM housed signs and hardware for pickup by volunteers.

In addition to a standard sign that features IFW,

acknowledged the unique ownership. Painted wooden backboards were also made for BPL signs.

As of December 5, 2021, over 450 signs have been posted on roughly 320 waters. Another roughly 100 waters have been assigned to volunteers, with (Arms cont. pg 35)

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 14

January 2022

Outdoor News - January 2022 Edited by V. Paul Reynolds

January. For ice fishermen, this is the best month to fish landlocked salmon. Early March is nicer, but the action is generally slower then. Liberalized togue limits on many waters make for extra opportunity. As you make your plans to fish, don’t forget to check out the names and locations of the many statewide bait dealers listed this month in the Journal. Maine in January can be harsh, but for those willing to be bold with the cold there is much to do in the outdoors. Snowsledders and cross country skiers will be busy enjoying some of the best trails in the country. Our snowmobile trail system stretches from Kittery to Fort Kent and provides incomparable snowsled opportunities.

The toughest among us will keep on hunting: rabbits, coyotes and sea ducks.

Meanwhile, some of us will hunker down near a warm stove, dream of spring and tie up some dry flies with an eye to warmer days, escsape to sunnier climes.

However you get through Maine in January, all of us at the Northwoods Sporting Journal wish you a peaceful and prosperous New Year!

Some Fairfield Deer Contaminated

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, in conjunction with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC), announced today that it has detected high levels of PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances) in some deer harvested in the greater Fairfield area,

and is issuing a do not eat advisory for deer harvested in the area.

After consulting with the Maine CDC and the Department of Environmental Protection, MDIFW harvested deer in the area of several contaminated farm fields in Fairfield and tested them for PFAS. Five out of the eight deer tested were taken in close proximity to fields that had extremely high PFAS levels, and those deer had levels high enough in their meat to warrant a recommendation not to eat more than two or three meals in a year. Three other deer were tested from fields with lower PFAS levels that were two miles away, and these deer had lower PFAS levels but still high enough to warrant a recommendation to eat less than one meal per week.

After discussions with the Maine CDC, and out of an abundance of caution, the Department decided to place a do not eat advisory for all deer in the area of the Fairfield sites, even though PFAS levels were lower in deer further away from the site with the highest concentration of PFAS. This advisory area encompasses multiple farm fields that have been contaminated by high levels of PFAS through the spreading of municipal and/or industrial sludge for fertilizer that contained PFAS. Deer feeding in these contaminated areas have ingested these chemicals, and now have PFAS in their meat and organs.

“Recent testing of deer harvested in the area show elevated levels of PFAS in both the meat

and liver of deer,” said MDIFW Commissioner Judy Camuso. “We take the elevated levels seriously and advise people not to eat deer that were harvested in these areas.”

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been used for decades in a variety of household and consumer products, including non-stick cookware, carpet, waterproof clothing, and food packaging products such as pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags.

Known as “forever chemicals” since they are very slow to break down, PFAS persist in the environment and are found in soil, water, plants, and animals. Over time, exposure to these chemicals have been known to increase the risk of some types of cancer, elevate blood pressure during pregnancy, can cause liver and kidney problems, and can impair the immune system.

PFAS in the Fairfield area were first discovered through the routine testing of milk samples, which revealed high levels at a Fairfield dairy farm. Since that time, increased testing has revealed multiple fields, farms, wells and waters in the area that have elevated high-levels of PFAS. The Fairfield advisory area begins at the Carter Memorial Bridge in Waterville where Route 137 crosses the Kennebec, heads north up the Kennebec River past Waterville and Skowhegan, to the Eugene Cole Bridge in Norridgewock (Route 8 and 201A), then south from Norridgewock along Route 8 into Smithfield to

the intersection of Routes 8 and 137, then south on Route 137 until it crosses the Kennebec River on the Carter Memorial Bridge.

Hunters who have already harvested a deer in the area are advised not to eat the deer and to dispose of the deer in their trash or land-

fill. The department will offer those who harvested a deer in the advisory area an opportunity to take an additional deer in the 2022 hunting season. Hunters should call the department at 207-287-8000 for more information.

If you have questions about possible health effects from eating deer harvested in the advisory area, please contact a toxicologist at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at 866-2923474 (toll-free in Maine) or 207-287-4311.

The Department plans to continue to work with the Maine CDC, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry concerning PFAS and testing. The Department will continue to test deer, and other wildlife in the area and beyond, to try and de-

termine the extent of PFAS in Maine’s wildlife.

Maine joins New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin as states that have issued consumption advisories concerning PFAS and deer. New Hampshire and Wisconsin’s advisories are for non-consumption of the liver, and does not include meat.

For more information on PFAS, please visit the Maine DEP PFAS informational page (https://www.maine.gov/ dep/spills/topics/pfas/index.html), or the Maine CDC informational page (https://www1.maine. gov/dep/spills/topics/ pfas/Maine-CDC-PFOSPFOA-Exposure-Factsheet-09.23.2020.pdf) If you have more questions please contact the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife at 207-287-8000, or IFW.PFAS@maine.gov The Department has also developed a frequently asked question list that you can view at https://www. maine.gov/ifw/huntingtrapping/hunting-resources/deer/index.html. ### Frequently Asked Questions and Answers regarding the “Do Not Eat” deer advisory in Fairfield, Maine (printable map attached) What is the “Do Not Eat” advisory?

On November 23, 2021, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (MECDC) issued a “Do Not Eat” advisory (News cont. pg 52)

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Finding Wounded Game

It was a difficult November losing my Dad and Step Dad a few weeks apart. On November 15th, it was raining and we considered sleeping in. The rut was starting and we knew

pointer chased a fawn into the field then ran out into the field. I grunted and he stopped at 140 yds for broadside shot. The 129 grain 6.5 Creedmoor tore his heart in half and he

and thanked God for all of the hunting memories with Dad. Spend lots of time in the outdoors with your family and friends.

If you hunt for very long, you will miss with bow or gun or, even worse, make a bad shot on a big game animal. Sometimes it is a non-lethal shot and the animal will survive. In

Page 15

The Northwoods Bowhunter

by Brian Smith, Machiasport, ME month later, hound hunters treed and shot him noting that the wound had already started to heal. I have also made some bad shots on deer for various reasons, but have made all possible

I found the arrow and saw dark blood and gut on the shaft. It was a cold night and I didn’t want to push the deer, so decided to come back at daylight to search with help.

2013, I arrowed a bear that a friend had wounded at my bait site the year before.

The boar had a limp from a The author with recovered game. broad head passing through they would be moving so died on the run. Dad was his front leg elbow that had I geared up and went to always up early and was healed but was otherwise her stand. Joyce told me to the first one I would call healthy.

In 2007, I shot low shoot if a big one presented after shooting a buck or a shot. bear saying “I’m proud of and arrowed a big boar At 6:25 a.m. a big 8 you Son”! I said a prayer through the brisket. A

effort to find them or make sure they did not die. Never assume you have missed or a bad shot is not lethal.

You owe it to the animal to make every possible effort to recover it, or determine that it will survive. You may need to call one of the certified game trackers with their dogs that find

hundreds of big game animals every year.

One cold November afternoon I was hunting in a ladder stand on one of the islands in the expanded zone. I was wearing a thicker jacket for warmth but forgot my arm guard to hold the sleeve tight to my arm. A fat 6 pointer came down the trail and stopped broadside at 30 yds. I had to stand up and turn hard right before drawing my bow. When I released the arrow, the string hit my left sleeve and the arrow veered hitting the buck back in the liver/gut area. I knew it was a bad shot and waited a half hour to climb down at dark and look for my (Game cont. pg 30)

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Page 16

The Adventures of Me and Joe

January 2022

Children of the Storm

by Bob Cram, (Alias T.J. Coongate) Medway, ME

On that clear, cloudless winter day me and Joe walked down the town of Mooseleuk’s single street across a thin layer of crunchy snow. We were headed for the Mooseleuk Mercantile to pick up some live bait for ice fishing.

In front of the Mercantile a group of young boys were gathered around a rotund, rather vacant looking man whose round, rimless glasses gave him the look of a somewhat startled owl.

“Morning Silas.

Morning boys,” I called as we neared the group. The seven boys of Mooseleuk’s Boy Scout Troop chorused an enthusiastic greeting.

Their Scoutmaster, Silas Portly, focused in on me and Joe after a moment of uncertainty and then beamed at us.

“Good morning, gentlemen! And a fine morning it is! A great morning for a hike!”

“That where you boys are headed?” I asked. “Out

for a mid-winter hike?”

The boys shouted a noisy affirmative and Silas Portly nodded emphatic agreement, his double chin wobbling merrily. “That we are! That we are! We’re hiking to Spring Pond. Pogey Sorghum has agreed to let us use his trapping cabin for a couple of days of ice fishing. The boys will have a great time!”

With shouts of goodbye the little group moved off down the street in the direction of the Spring Pond trail.

As we waited for Eben Ramdown to count baitfish into our pail, I noted Joe watching through the window as the Boy Scouts disappeared around the corner.

“How come you’re always so quiet around those boys and Silas, Joe?” I asked him. “You always act awful unfriendly.”

Joe shrugged uncomfortably. “Never was around kids much,” he answered gruffly. “They’re

HELP US FIND

The elusive Northwoods Sporting Journal’s moose Marty.

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Find Marty somewhere in the Northwoods Sporting Journal (Hint: he will be located in one of our ads) Send us the page number he’s on and you could be a WINNER! Win a FREE Northwoods Sporting Journal Marty Hat. We will draw one winner from all correct entries submitted each month. We will announce the winner in the next issue.

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Name

always so loud and scatterbrained.” An’ that Silas Portly; he ain’t much of a scout leader.”

“Maybe not, but he’s an excellent school teacher and he’s really dedicated to those boys.”

“I guess so,” Joe agreed grudgingly. He looked suddenly thoughtful. “Know what the motto is of the Boy Scouts?”

I looked at him. “’Be prepared’. Why?” “You notice none of them kids, or Silas neither, had so much as a pack.

And they weren’t dressed

particular warm, what with a storm comin’ and all.”

“Probably everything they’ll be needing is in Pogey’s camp.” I paused and glanced out the window at the blue sky and bright sunshine. “And what do you mean about a storm?”

“Be stormin’ by afternoon,” Joe said absently as he picked up the bait pail.

“Gonna be a good one.

That’s why I figured them fish would be bitin’ today, what with a big storm comin’. Well, I guess ol’ Silas knows what he’s doin’.

Let’s go get some fish.”

As usual, Joe the weather prophet was right.

By mid-afternoon a raging blizzard had moved in from the northeast. We sat in the lee of a tarp stretched between two poled over the deep hole just off Caribou Point on The Lake Where The Woman Drowned. We had enjoyed excellent fishing, but it was beginning to slow down. We’d kept two bit togue for smoking but hadn’t had a bite in half an hour.

“Let’s pack her in and head to camp,” Joe said (Me & Joe cont. pg 19)

Marty

Shown actual size

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(Marty was found on pg 5)

Address City

“But we still need heat,” Silas noted, shivering uncontrollably. “How can we build a fire in here without getting smoked out?” The seven scouts looked expectantly at Joe, as though assured that he had the answer to everything.

State

Phone I found Marty on page

Zip

Entries must be postmarked by 1/17/22 to be eligible for this issue.

If you just can’t get enough of reading our Me & Joe Adventures, check out the All Outdoor section of our new Northwoods Sporting Journal website:www.sportingjournal.com You’ll find an ample supply of Me & Joe stories to keep you checking for a long time.

January 2022

By Brian Connor Rick Labbe is the most unassuming, kindest hardcore deer slayer you will ever meet. At 5’8” he doesn’t have the imposing frame of a lumberjack—which is a job he did plenty of before building a successful construction company—but what

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Shadowing a Buck Hunter

A young doe stamps her feet at Rick’s presence. he lacks in build he more Rick Labbe for Big Woods than compensates for in Bucks as he hunted the lean, efficient, boundless third week of rifle season energy, and an incredible in northern Maine. The first intuition for navigating the morning of the hunt, Rick woods—not unlike a white- downed a bowl of Appletail deer. And although he jacks cereal and a cup of has hunted and killed virtu- tea, and we set out from ally every animal in North his camp in Rockwood for America, with the walls the hills in Jackman that he of his camp looking like a has hunted his whole life, 19th Century taxonomist’s where he not only knows studio at an elite univer- every rock and tree and sity, tracking whitetails on brook, but seemed to know snow in his native northern each buck that roamed this Maine seems to be his abid- vast tract of wilderness ining passion. tersected by logging roads.

I was assigned to film Rick kept his head

fresh enough track, but tings, such that one would before he finished his sen- need to sacrifice speed for tence he slammed on the quiet, or quiet for speed, brakes, the Toyota skidding as one made their way to a halt at an intersection through the woods. Rick with another logging road. does not need to make any “That’s what we’re looking such compromises, and the for,” Rick said, his eyes result is phenomenal. He wide as he leaped out of flew through the woods the truck. speedily and quietly, his The track was “smok- slim, efficient frame glidRick Labbe with some ing fresh,” and belonged to ing through dense, low a big buck—a 225-pounder spruce bogs and hilltop of his mounts.

by Rick’s estimation— Christmas trees as he folout the open window of one that Rick had tracked lowed a track that at times, his custom antler-livery two years ago and shot I couldn’t find if you gave 2006 Toyota Tundra, with at and missed last year (a me two hours and a team of 350,000 miles on it, staring down at the tracks on the Rick kept ahead, obliging me when I side of the road yet somehow steering us perfectly would ask him to stop and explain this along as we careened down sign or that for the camera, but clearly the logging roads at 30 single-minded in purpose and eager to miles per hour, my knuckkill that buck. The smell of buck musk les as white as the freshly hung in the air, and Rick repeatedly told fallen snow we’d received me we were only minutes behind it. the night before. Expertly triple-tasking the driving, rare miss judging from the wildlife biologists. I know I the search for tracks, and photo of Rick next to a was doing a bit of crashing conversing with me for massive wall of 52 trophy through the woods as my film B-roll, Rick steered buck mounts hanging in 6’2” 225-pound frame tried the truck up and down a his camp, which is only to keep up. A lean whitetail, section he knew held a a fraction of his lifetime I am not. good buck. take). I helped him kick Ric k k e p t a h e a d , We stopped and got snow across the tracks in obliging me when I would out to look at a few decent the road to hide our prize, ask him to stop and explain buck tracks, but they were and then we launched into this sign or that for the filled in with a dusting of the woods. camera, but clearly singlesnow, maybe two or three He and I think many minded in purpose and hours old, so the search hunters tend to think of eager to kill that buck. The continued. Rick started to speed and silence on the smell of buck musk hung in explain that we may need track or in the woods as two the air, and Rick repeatedly to search for hours for a diametrically opposed set(Hunter cont. pg 29) Huge Selection Of Ammo

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Outdoor Sporting Library

by Jeremiah Wood, Ashland, ME

One of the most remote places in the world, the Brooks Range in northern Alaska is a special one. It’s 700 or so miles of mountains, with peaks up to nearly 9,000 feet elevation, represent a picture of

River on the other side of the divide. Sometimes the two groups traded, sometimes they fought over territory and killed each other on sight. It was a hard life, with constant movement in search of food a prerequi-

Alaska’s Brooks Range

Its distance from population centers and difficulty of freighting supplies via river barge so far up rivers with inconsistent flows made the area uneconomical. Most of the miners and traders left, while a few stayed on, living with the natives, starting families, and trying to survive in beautiful but poor country.

Despite all of the changes, the Brooks Range today is surprisingly similar to its historic state in many ways. lonely beauty in a harsh arctic environment.

For generations the Range served as a contact point - a hazily defined boundary - between the inland Eskimos who migrated from the coast to hunt its vast herds of caribou and numerous mountain sheep, and the Koyukon Indians who survived on fish, moose and caribou along tributaries to the Yukon

site for survival. But these people pretty much had the place to themselves.

Then came the Gold Rush. In the early 1900’s, spillover from the Klondike rush filtered into the Koyukuk and Kobuk river drainages. White men from the Lower 48 came in droves, dug in the creeks, staked claims, and started towns.

But the ground carried little pay, and lots of overburden.

Missionaries, explorers, geologists and others came to the area in small waves over the decades, marveling at its beauty, learning from the people and seeking treasure in the ground. And finally they found it – oil on the North Slope, in unbelievably large quantities. The discovery would change Alaska, and the few who occupied the Brooks Range, for-

ever. Land claims had to be settled, roads built, infrastructure put in place. Suddenly folks who had been living off the land, mostly untouched by the outside world for generations, were thrust into modern society at a rapid pace. They were all at once landowners, corporate shareholders, recipients of regular mail, air service, education, healthcare, instantaneous communication and constant entertainment.

Despite all of the changes, the Brooks Range today is surprisingly similar to its historic state in many ways. The land may be chopped up into segments of State, Federal and Tribal ownership, but the vast majority remains undeveloped and open for inhabitants to pursue game.

Scattered villages remain, most supporting

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populations that can be counted in the dozens. The place is still remote. Store food is so expensive that most of the villagers still rely on area fish and wildlife for sustenance. Fortunately the caribou still outnumber humans by a wide margin. Locals no longer take months-long seasonal journeys in search of food, but modern snowmachines and ATV’s allow them to cover more distance and get back home Sunday night and have the kids in school Monday morning.

Not much of the area is developed, but some is, and some of the ground holds potential for future mining activity on a much larger scale than ever before. At the same time, a large portion of the land has been preserved, most notably the Gates of the Arctic National Park, America’s second largest park and its least visited, having been set aside to provide opportunity for wilderness recreation and traditional subsistence uses.

William E. Brown’s 2007 book “History of the Central Brooks Range Gaunt Beauty, Tenuous Life” tells these stories and many more in brilliant, entertaining detail. With a focus on human history of the area, Brown also describes the land, its challenges and features, and how it shaped culture over time.

And the numerous maps and features help provide a fascinating view into a commonly forgotten past.

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January 2022

Me & Joe (Cont. from pg 16) finally. “I fell like a hot cup a’ tea.” We packed our gear on the tote sled behind Joe’s long-track snowmobile, climbed aboard and headed for our camp on the lakeshore a mile away.

As we neared the camp, I noticed through the driving snow that a snowmobile sat in the yard and a lamp glowed from the window. We pulled up in the lee of the camp and Joe glanced at the strange sled.

“Game warden,” he noted as we stamped our feet on the porch. Pinch Brody turned from tossing a chunk of rock maple into the ramdown heater as we entered the camp.

“Make yerself ta home, warden,” Joe said as he dropped the two togue into the sink. Warden Brody ignored him.

“Got a serious problem, boys. I thought you might be able to help me.”

He closed the fire door and dusted sawdust from his hands. “I just came from Pogey Sorghum’s place. I been on a two day sweep of the district and I stopped

by Pogey’s trapping cabin yesterday. She’s burned flat. Don’t know if he left a fire burning or what, but they’s nothing left but a pile of ashes.”

I glanced at Joe and saw my own concern reflected in his eyes. “Silas Portly took the Boy Scouts in to stay at that camp this morning, warden.”

That’s what Pogey said. I checked with some of the parents. Seems that Silas took a two-way radio with him in case of trouble.

Milt Cufflink’s boy is with them and Milt has the other

Northwoods Sporting Journal radio. He’s been trying to reach Silas for a couple of hours, but they’s no answer.”

Joe went over to the shelves and began throwing things into his big brown ash pack basket.

“The way this snow is piling up and the wind is driving it, they won’t be able to get back along the trail,” I said worriedly.

“They didn’t take much with them. I think they planned on everything necessary being at the cabin.” “ I k n o w, ” B r o d y agreed. “I’m getting together a bunch of men with

snowmobiles and tote sleds to go in to Spring Pond and get them out before this gets worse. You two are my first stop. I’ll see how many more I can get. We’ll meet at the Mercantile.”

Joe picked up the pack basket and headed for the door. “We’ll head in right now. I got a bad feeling this is gonna get worse and those kids may need help before you can get a party organized.”

As Warden Brody cranked up his sled and headed for town, we loaded the pack basket, several tarps and various other

Page 19

things into Joe’s tote sled.

In a matter of minutes we were motoring through thickly drifting snow toward Spring Pond.

The trail had become a nightmare. The deep snow was dry, with no bottom to it. Several times the snowmobile became stuck and we had to dig it out.

Four times we encountered trees blown across the trail by the shrieking wind and had to cut them out of the way with an ax. Finally, after what seemed like endless hours of effort, we approached the shore of the pond.

A crumpled mound of snow was all that was left to indicate where Pogey Sorghum’s camp had stood.

And crowded into the front opening of Pogey’s lean-to woodshed were the huddled figures of the seven scouts and Silas Portly. On the ground in front of the lean-to, a small fire guttered and flickered in the driving wind and snow. The scouts and their leader were pinched and shivering in the deepening cold.

“Th,th,thank God you’ve c,c come!” Silas said through chattering (Me & Joe cont. pg 23)

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Aroostook Woods & Water

Winter Camping: Ughhh

I really, really don’t like sleeping on the ground anymore.

by Mike Maynard, But then I saw another Perham, ME video, where an old dude, such as myself, strings up I found myself wan- camping. dering around YouTube the It still looks like so this really cool hammock, other day, looking for a spe- much fun -that whole win- and has a blissful night’s cific Davie McPhail tuto- ter survival bit, but I’m sleep under the stars. “Hmrial, when I stumbled onto I do remember, now, that at the time, some ‘bushcraft’ videos.

I watched a few of them, we thought the bleaker the conditions, and found myself trapped the more austere, the better it was. We in Mr. Peabody’s way-back were idiots, of course. machine, returned back to the days when we did much 100% certain that part of mmmm,” says I. If I keep the same ourselves; though my life is past history. watching these videos, I our edges were rougher. We Especially the part about may talk myself into buydidn’t have the word ‘bush- sleeping on the cold, hard ing a hammock. And sleepcraft’ in our vocabulary ground, crappy sleeping ing bags have come a long back then; we just called it bags, and wet, frozen feet. way; although I’m partial to -40 below bags that are long and wide and weigh 20 pounds. Comfy, sure, but not the best thing for backpacking.

Winter has just gotten here and already I’m chomping at the bit; I want out. I want to do all these things I see the kids doing, things I used to do without a care given to where and on what I was going to lay my head down upon.

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January 2022

Youth is like that. Consequences? “We don’t got no stinking consequences!”

Now, we suffer from bad knees and hip dysplasia and we’re all on the fast track to Feebleville. Oh, I’m not that old, or feeble; I just

ther. It would have been cool to have an antler handled 6”x1/2” rod and that perfect knife to carve off a fountain of sparks with; de rigueur sport for the backwoods hoi polloi.

Throw in some char cloth

You need a good reason to sleep on the cold ground, no matter how good the sleeping bag.

(Photo by V. Paul Reynolds)

feel like it at the moment.

Wrassling too many cords of wood into the cellar will do that to you when you’re on the back nine of your 50’s. (I’m not a golfer so I hope I used that analogy correctly) I remember that we never had those big fero rods to start our fires, ei-

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or fatwood resin and we would have been bushstylin’. I’m told that it is now a requirement for all serious bushcrafty-types to carry a hand-forged knife; optimally, one risen from Scandinavian mythology.

A knife smithed out of ancient Viking ore, a magical steel, born of the fiery loins of a Valkyrie as she flew across the cold winter skies on her fiery winged horse.

(I could take the whole Valkyrie thing more seriously if she hadn’t named her horse Brunnhilde).

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Camping (Cont. from pg 20) more simple fare. We had Kamp King Rough Riders, or Camillus Scout Survival, folding jackknives (I still have both of them!). At the time, I thought they were much cooler than those flashy Swiss Army knives.

We did have the magnesium fire starters, though.

We’d carve off more magnesium than we needed and hit it with a match, just because we liked the show when the whole pile spooled up and threatened to take our eyebrows off.

We bought the mag sticks at an Army Surplus store so we knew that made us legit, serious backwoods savvytypes. We were probably just as guilty of being as clique-y as the modern bushcraft kids, we just did it for a whole lot less money. Unfortunately, where the new kids win out, is the food department. We didn’t eat anywhere near as well as they do now. We ate the way you’d expect teenagers in the 70’s to eat: Spam in a billycan, smothered in B&M baked beans, or trout on a stick.

Haute cuisine, washed down with PBR and the smell of woodsmoke as it wafted over you. Now, you get to drink double IPA’s and chocolate Stouts while you cook on your titanium pocket stove.

We never travelled too far. Mostly we’d do day trips to frozen rivers, where we’d sit on an icy rock, inviting piles, and brew camp coffee over a fire while trying to thaw the ice out of our guides.

I say ‘piles’ like I knew what they were at the time.

I didn’t. I just remember old people saying stupid stuff like, “Don’t sit on the

Northwoods Sporting Journal ice, you’ll get piles!” I had no idea what piles were and I’m pretty sure I never asked, either. Every now and again we’d get brave and do the winter overnight thing -usually after enough time had passed from the last frostbite adventure that the memories were just a myopic badge of honor.

I do remember, now, that at the time, we thought the bleaker the conditions, the more austere, the better it was. We were idiots, of course. Have you seen what an Everest expedition bag costs? A true -60 below bag will set you back to the tune of about $1,700.00! I

sewed two old, ratty wool blankets together to make an inner bag for my crappy outer one, and it worked surprisingly well, heavy, but warm. I understand when they say that youth is wasted on the young, but damn, the kids sure look like they’re having fun these days. And, as usual, I’m jealous.

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January 2022

to try to repopu- North Woods preserve. I asked him where he was you in a heartbeat. Enjoy Retirement Brunswick late diminished popula- As my favorite supervi- headed with his collection every day of your career.

(Cont. from pg 12) student four decades ago.

Working for both the State and Federal wildlife agencies in Maine, I had opportunities to conserve wildlife from freshwater mussels to mayflies, sandpipers to salmon, and butterflies to Blandings turtles.

I spent my last day in the field sewing the dust-like seeds of eastern prairie fringed orchids – perhaps the most endangered species we have in the state.

Last week I sent seeds of hope collected from Maine’s endangered Furbish’s lousewort to New

tions there. Species like the lousewort and Katahdin arctic butterfly are found nowhere else in the world.

Endangered species biologists are entrusted with conserving these species for future generations. I hope that my successors will do the same.

The surveys and studies that I did sometimes lead to much bigger conservation successes. Land was protected to preserve the riches of biological diversity from the vernal pools of Mt. Agamenticus to the mudlfats of Lubec to The Nature Conservancy’s

Aroostook County

sor, Alan Hutchinson, told me shortly before he died, “Mark, you can do no better for conservation than to permanently protect the land.” I’m glad that I was able to work with conservation partners like the Forest Society of Maine, the Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, and the network of land trusts that quietly go about preserving open space and wildlife habitat in our back yards.

Many years ago, I encountered a gray-haired angler in a Bangor hotel parking lot where we were having a wildlife meeting.

of fly rods, waders, and fishing tackle. “I’m off to the airport in the morning to go salmon fishing in Alaska,” he said. I commented, “Wow, I would like to be retired like you!”

He looked at me askance and replied, “I would much rather be young again like you.” Yesterday, I was cleaning my office and preparing to leave. A 20-something coworker popped his head in the door and quipped, “I hear congratulations are in order. How I would like to be retired like you.” I hearkened back to my conversation with the old angler. “No, you don’t.

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I hope the young biologist with a spring in his step is enthused to pick up where I left off…

Mark McCollough will “rewire” from his home in Hamden, Maine.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Me & Joe (Cont. from pg 19) teeth as we slogged through the snow to the woodshed.

“The camp is gone!” We tried to make it out to the trail, but the snow is too deep and….”

Joe quickly interrupted. “Okay, help is on the way Silas. In the meantime, we’ve got to get these kids some better shelter.” He turned to me. “Get a pile of fir bows, as many as you can. I’ll cut some poles.”

Enlisting the aid of several scouts, I moved into the surrounding woods and began lopping fir bows off in rapid succession, the boys carrying them back to pile beside the lean-to.

Meanwhile Joe cut several long poles and he and Silas propped them up at an angle sloping out for the front of the lean-to.

Kicking the remains of the

small fire into the snow, Joe brought the tarps from the tote sled, and we quickly spread them over the sloping poles, tying the edges to the sides of the lean-to with stout cord.

Inside the roomy enclosure we’d created the boys spread fir bows for us to sit or lie on. The tarps rippled and flapped in the high wind, but after we banked the bottom with snow, no hint of wind entered the protected area.

“But we still need heat,” Silas noted, shivering uncontrollably. “How can we build a fire in here without getting smoked out?” The seven scouts looked expectantly at Joe, as though assured that he had the answer to everything. “ We l l , ” J o e s a i d thoughtfully, “the camp’s burned down but the stove should still be all right.

Let’s have a look.”

Me and Joe searched around in the rubble of the camp in the gathering gloom of the evening and located the little ramdown cast iron heater Pogey had used. Carrying it into the shelter, we found the Pogey

had extra pieces of stove pipe in the lean-to. Piecing some lengths of it together, Joe propped an opening between the tarp and the top of the woodshed roof with a couple of pieces of wood and ran the stovepipe be(Me & Joe cont. pg 31)

Page 23

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Successful Hunters 2021

Josh Cottrell of Old Town, a member of the 52 year old deer camp, the Skulkers of Seboeis, bagged this ten pointer during the week of his group’s hunt in the Lakeview area. The large whitetail tipped the scales at 216 lbs field dressed. (Photo by V. Paul Reynolds)

Adam Hamels 10 point 264.5 lb. buck shot in Byron on November 1st 2021.

Joyce Smith, wife of Sporting Journal columnist Brian Smith bagged this coyote in early November, with 200 yard shot to the neck.

Tom Robinson, Jr. of Benedicta bagged this “county buck” in one of his back fields. The handsome buck was a 12 pointer.

(Photo by Ryan Robinson) Richard Kendall of Craig, Colorado, a loyal reader of the Sporting Journal, bagged this 5 X 5 bull elk late this fall not far from his hometown.

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Scott Reynolds of Islamorada, Fl, a member of the 52-year old deer camp the Skulkers of Seboeis, bagged this 185 lb 8-pointer in the Millinocket area. (Photo by V. Paul Reynolds)

Ajay Landry, 17 of Gorham, NH, bagged this big black bear with a muzzleloader this fall.

The bear dressed at 409 lbs and was Landry’s first big game animal. His mom, Michelle Chapman, proudly reports that the bear was taken at 10 yards! She also bagged a smaller bruin.

Jim Delong with his grand slam!

He is 72 yrs old from Monticello.

Michael Chickering of Portland bagged this 216 lb 11 pointer in Kennebec County early in the season.

Page 25

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 26

Ramblings From T8-R9

by Benjamin Rioux, Millinocket Lake With guiding season behind me, now is the time where I typically start the long process of cleaning out fly boxes and retiring flies that don’t pass muster for the upcoming season.

Once the old guard is retired to the trash bins, the process of replenishing fly boxes commences and carries well into the early stages of April.

Fly tying can be therapeutic, which I reckon is why a great many serious and not so serious fly fishermen gravitate to it when fly fishing isn’t possible.

Lord knows we don’t do it to save money instead of simply buying flies – I have a treasure trove of fly-tying materials that fill a room in my house that can dispel that theory. Capes and

Tying Through The Dark Months

and I’m sure we all have a few secret weapons we Hackles in every length and guard close to the vest, but color, flash, marabou, and by and large the lineups we threads to tie everything bring to start the season are from Prince Nymphs to very similar at their core.

Blue Devil Streamers all My mind tends have their proper drawer or bin where they live to wander during among similar materials in the winter months, a variety of colors, shapes, as most minds and sizes appropriate for tend to do during a litany of different patthe heart of the terns. And it is with those snowy season in materials and in that room that I spend many offseason northern Maine. hours filling my fly boxes for the upcoming guide My mind tends to wander during the winter season.

The list of patterns months, as most minds tend typically includes about a to do during the heart of the dozen tried and true stand- snowy season in northern bys that I tie in bulk, along Maine. And while scouring with another dozen or so over the countless materipatterns I’ve had varying als at my disposal one night levels of success using in recently, I got to thinking specific conditions. Every about just how necessary guide has their favorites, all these different patterns

are that I spend countless hours tying. Fly tying has continued to evolve over the years as most things tend to do, with more complex patterns that feature multiple articulated sections, mixtures of natural and synthetic fibers, and

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lifelike eyes and leg materials that bring a level of realism to artificial bugs and baitfish that we could only dream of even ten years ago.

Whether or not these more complex patterns are any more effective is subjective, and I’m sure a logical case can and has been made from people on both sides of that argument. What I do know at my very core is that I can tie a dozen wooly buggers much faster than I can tie a dozen gamechangers, and it hurts the heart and the pocketbook a lot less when you (and by you I mean you, the guest) lose a bugger to a sunken log or an overhanging tree.

My point here is that while many advancements in fly tying have led to more durable and attractive patterns, I often find people get so hung up on the pattern they are fishing that they ignore virtually everything else they could and should be doing to (Tying cont. pg 27)

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Tying

Enough

(Cont. from pg 26)

(Cont. from pg 3)

catch more fish. Maybe they aren’t presenting the fly at the correct depth, or retrieving their pattern in the correct manner.

Maybe they are standing where they should be fishing, wading too aggressively, or casting shadows where they shouldn’t be casting shadows. Like I stated in a previous article, maybe the streamer they are fishing is too large to imitate the natural baitfish present in they body of water they are fishing. All of the things above, in my opinion, are more vital to success on the water than how complex or perfect tied your pattern is.

Fish eat pretty flies; fish eat ugly flies. Fish eat when they are hungry, and on most days are far less picky than most people think. I’ve caught cutthroat trout in saltwater out in Nevada using Grey Ghosts and other Maine Patterns originally tied for eastern trout and salmon, and I’ve caught brook trout on remote Maine ponds using midge patterns and foam beetles originally tied to catch western cutthroats.

Don’t overthink your fly selection, because it is seldom the most important piece of the puzzle.

We’ve covered obedience for the good enough dog; now let’s cover field work. The discussion about steady to wing and shot has been going on for decades.

Where does a good enough dog fit into this discussion.

Those who do not want a dog steady to wing and shot feel they want a dog that chases and will put them right on top of a shot bird before it has a chance to run if just wounded.

The argument is that a dog that chases will give you a

Ben is an avid fly fisherman, registered Maine Guide, and the Marketing director for Libby Sporting Camps. When he’s not exploring T8-R9 in search of new water, he can be reached at ben@libbycamps.com

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much better recovery rate than a dog that is steady to wing, shot and drop. The proponents of chase are primarily pheasant hunters.

Pheasants have a reputation for taking a lot of lead and still running after being shot.

The opponents of chase say it’s dangerous for the dog. Dogs that take lead are usually dogs that are chasing. Your author’s position is that a dog that is good enough should be steady to at least the flush.

This eliminates much of the danger. The really good dog is steady to both the

flush and shot. In my experience, the breeds that are known for their tracking skills, such as the German shorthaired pointer, will usually recover any shot bird even if the dog remained steady to flush, shot and drop. Bottom line is teaching your dog to remain steady to the flush is good enough. If you really want a dog your friends will rave about, go the extra distance and teach steady to flush, shot and drop.

Let’s not forget the point. You can’t teach pointing…it’s genetic. Any pointing dog with decent

Page 27 genetics will point birds.

It may take a little longer for some dogs but they will eventually point birds.

That’s good enough.

It all comes down to the owner. If you want a stylish dog that everyone raves about, train for the really good dog. If you’re happy with good enough, then that’s good enough.

Paul and his wife, Susan, produce and host the Bird Dogs Afield TV show. All episodes are on their website: www.birddogsafield.com. Contact: paul@birddogsafield.com

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 28

Baiting Bobcats

On The Prowl

by Justin Merrill, Cherryfield, ME ‘Skittish’- what animal do you know that exudes this type of behavior?

My thinking organ tells me that all felines display some sort of jumpy, edgy, wary, or restless acts. None

January 2022

of bait? All questions I set out to answer upon the arrival of bobcat season. I’ve seen tracks and scat left behind by bobcat, seen cats others have killed, heard stories of bobcat sightings,

bag of tricks.

One day while browsing through my favorite retail store I happened upon an intriguing product. I tried it out by putting some of the contents in a plastic bag that I tied on a branch six feet off the ground and found its like catnip is to a cat. This bait like stuff,

This bait like stuff is supposed to make a predator believe rotting flesh will be their next meal. Does putting bait in a bag and

er the better) and put them in plastic bags to tie up in branches in my chosen hunting locations, smear blood on nearby trees, and

They can and do use their nose. If you choose to try this method for killing bobcats, don’t be surprised to find a ‘catwalk’ to and from your bags of meat and you will. other than the bobcat really defines ‘skittish’. Have you ever seen one cat let their guard down? I didn’t think so. I’ve spent many of winters trying to figure out the bobcat.

How can I get close enough to kill a bobcat?

What types of predator calls? What types of decoys or attractants? What types

and rarely do I ever see a bobcat for myself. I have once almost stepped on a sleeping bobcat. I’ve called in some using various distress calls. These elusive felines do know how to safeguard themselves from exposure. Although bobcats are extremely skittish, they can be killed. I am about to share with you my

sealed in a bag, I bought from a retail store popular among sportsmen. Look online or call around to all your local sporting good stores for predator bait in a bag. Strange as it may seem, there is such a thing.

I’ve found one brand but you may find several options for packaged predator bait.

The author with a cat he baited.

(207) 487-3338

put out some attractant scent. Don’t forget to poke holes in the bag to allow time release. Contrary to some people believing cats don’t use their sense of smell for hunting, bobcats do possess hundreds of more olfactory neuron receptors in their nasal passages than that of a lot of other mammals. They can and do use their nose.

If you choose to try this method for killing bobcats, don’t be surprised to find a ‘catwalk’ to and from your bags of meat and you will.

It’s the darndest thing but with the bait high up in trees the coyotes seem to not waist their time trying to get something they can’t reach. Coyote tracks will appear once and I might not see coyote sign near the bait for weeks after.

Coyotes are attracted to this bait stuff and can be killed if a hunter is in position when a coyote shows up.

The good news is bobcats will climb trees. This was

8-5 M-F • 8-1 Sat • Closed Sun

(Bobcats cont. pg 39)

tying it up in a tree work?

Sure it does. I’ve found that meat scraps saved purposely for predator bait works the same way. I take frozen meat scraps (bloodi-

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Hunter (Cont. from pg 17) told me we were only minutes behind it. At one point we left a spruce bog and came out into some hardwoods. Rick signaled me to slow down and pointed to a big maple tree, where the buck had paused to eat some old man’s beard that was growing on the bark.

As I turned on the camera and asked him to repeat what he had told me for the sake of capturing this teachable moment on film, a big doe leapt away at 15 yards. In a split-second Rick had swung his Remington 7600 on the deer, determined it wasn’t our buck, and got out his grunt tube. The feeling that this big buck was in the immediate vicinity hung in the air, as Rick tried to call him in back toward this doe group.

As we stood there in tense silence, completely still, a young doe walked up to us at 6 or 7 yards and stared at us curiously, trying to figure out what we were, and gently stamping its feet, before running off into the hardwoods.

We continued on the track, Rick effortlessly weaving his way through the woods as the buck took us up an old “twitch trail”— clearings in these woods where loggers had been at work years before—where we pounded through dense, waist-high mountain ash.

As we approached a clearing toward the top of the mountain, Rick swung his 7600 up in a heartbeat as I fumbled with my Canon XA-11, desperately trying to capture the kill-shot on film. But all he’d seen was a tail, as the buck leapt into some softwoods, did a J-hook to briefly check

Northwoods Sporting Journal us out, then walked back down the mountain at a good pace. We were still hot on the track, and there were fresh moose tracks near where we’d jumped the deer, so Rick was fairly certain the deer didn’t know what we were.

After we crossed our tracks going up, we followed the buck into dense spruce. I confess that my big frame and relative lack of fleet-footedness may have cost us this next opportunity, because after emerging from that snappy, twig-filled spruce into some hardwoods, we came across the buck’s smoking fresh bed, at the edge of a big patch of mid-size maples, which would have given Rick a perfect running shot on the jump. Rick generously offered that it may have been that the buck winded us.

We followed the buck for five or six more hours.

It was cruising, showing no signs of needing sleep or feed as it crossed three

more logging roads, and even Route 201, the main two-lane blacktop artery into Canada, checking on doe groups. The snow began to melt and fog rolled over the hills in the afternoon, drenching my clothing and my camera, which began to give me error codes that I couldn’t shake it out of. At nearly ten miles, my body began to give me error codes too, mainly in my left hip, and I started to fall behind.

My mellow, Adirondack still-hunt style was a walk in the park compared to Rick’s tracking. He sped on in single-minded determination.

There were times following Rick where I felt like I was following a sixteen-year-old, the way he showed no signs of fatigue and even seemed to speed up as the day went on. At 58 years old, he has the fitness of someone not just half his age, but a quarter his age, and a champion athlete on top of that. After

Central Maine

Page 29

clawing my way up another mountain, following Rick’s tracks now, desperate for an ice pack and some ibuprofen, I finally found him sitting on the track on the side of the mountain. It was 2 o’clock he said, and we’d come 10 or 12 miles. It would be another two miles back to the truck, so we’d call it a day here.

As I sat in Rick’s camp that night nursing a beer and my sore hip, I reflected on one of the most physically challenging, exciting, and profound educational experiences I’ve had in my life. Like these 200-pound super bucks they track here in the big woods of northern Maine, Rick is a rare breed, a potent mixture of athleticism, intuition, and hard-earned experience.

But above all what I found most inspiring, and what is likely his strongest

asset, is his determination. Just before he had sped off that afternoon, we had stopped briefly. He told me this is when most guys would quit, which I told him I certainly agreed with. But not Rick, quitting just isn’t in his blood. And although Rick wouldn’t be able to get back on that track the next morning due to a business obligation that would keep him out of town until later that week, his succinct tracking philosophy that he imparted to me that afternoon rang in my head.

“Never let the bastards win,” he had told me, before speeding off down the track out of sight into the woods.

Brian Connor lives in Brooklyn, New York.

He hunts deer a lot in the Adirondacks.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

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Game (Cont. from pg 15) arrow. I found the arrow and saw dark blood and gut on the shaft. It was a cold night and I didn’t want to push the deer, so decided to come back at daylight to search with help. I knew from experience that gut shot deer will eventually bed down and usually die from the wound. At dawn, my uncles and I started up the deer trail but did not find much blood. We spread out in the open softwoods and started working up hill. We found the buck

dead about 200 yds from where I shot, laying on a ledge facing back toward the trail. My arrow had nicked the back of the liver and passed through the stomach but was lethal.

We were thankful that there was no meat spoilage due to the cold night.

Here are some tips from the “Today’s Bowhunter” Guide used in the Bowhunter Safety Classes: A successful recovery requires the following: 1.

Proper shot placement 2.

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ery process. 4. Knowledge of tracking and reading game sign. 5. Attention to trailing details, including sign such as blood drops, partial tracks and bent twigs. 6. A stick-to-it, never-give-up attitude. 7.

Multiple recovery strategies, especially if the trail is lost temporarily. 8. Patience! We also have had success doing grid searches when the blood trail disappears.

I have been involved on searches with Suzanne Hamilton and her amazing Dachsund “Buster”. After many hours on several of the tracks, we determined the deer was not mortal-

ly wounded. On various others, Buster found the dead deer after eye opening tracking jobs. You can find the list of Licensed Dog Trackers on ME IF&W website. They and their incredible dogs will track deer, bear and moose for you usually for a nominal fee or gas money. You will be impressed.

Tracking and recovery of game is often referred to as “The Second Hunt”. Some get as much satisfaction from the search and recovery as they do the hunt. It requires patience, attention to details and understanding of game habits.

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January 2022 experience and the best way to learn is with a veteran hunter. My late Game Warden Uncle taught me to track not only game, but lost persons that we found both alive and deceased. It is a challenging but rewarding endeavor.

Brian is a Retired Maine State Police Detective and NRA Field Representative. He a Life Member and 1st Director at Large of the Maine Bowhunters Association. He was chosen MBA Bowhunter of the Year in 2005 and 2008.

He is a Life Member of the NRA, long time member or the Sportsmans Alliance of Maine and serves on the SAM-ILA Board. He can be reached at bowhunter@ mgemaine.com

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Me & Joe (Cont. from pg 23) tween them. In minutes we had a fire crackling in the stove and the little shelter began to grow warm.

Ducking out into the storm, Joe returned shortly from the tote sled with his old, battered, single mantle Coleman lantern. Soon not only heat, but light was reaching into every corner of the improvised enclosure. The scouts sprawled on the mat of fir bows we’d spread on the ground, hands and feet stretched toward the warmth of the stove.

Freddy Boomchain, one of the scouts, came over to stand beside Joe as he fed more wood into the stove. “How’d you know ta do all this?” he asked, stretching his hand out to encompass the little enclosure.

“Didn’t,” Joe answered, looking down at the curious boy.

Freddy was indig-

nant. “Whaddya mean, you didn’t? You did it, didn’t you?”

Joe smiled. “I mean I didn’t know exactly what I’d do. Look, it really helps to know somethin’ about the woods, but most of what we did was common sense. You jest have ta use yer head for somethin’ other than a hat rack.”

Freddy looked a little uncertain, and the other scouts were now listening avidly to the conversation.

Joe looked carefully around at his small audience.

“Okay, we knew the camp was burned down so we knew you’d need certain things. You’d need shelter from the storm, you’d need warmth, you’d need light, you’d need food. We brought the tarps to make a quick shelter. The fir bows keep you up off the cold, wet snow. The camp might be burned down, but

a cast iron stove don’t burn up, so we could savage it for heat. You use yer head an’ you can think yore way through most anything.”

The scouts, joined by Silas Portly, nodded in solemn understanding.

“But what about the food?” Freddy asked suddenly.

“Oh, yeah,” Joe replied. “C’mon with me.”

He and the youngster disappeared into the storm, then quickly returned with Joe’s big steel frying pan and the two togue we’d caught that morning. Soon the smell of cooking fish was drifting on the air.

“How come you’re boiling the fish in water?”

Freddy questioned, peering into the big pan.

“Togue is oily. You skin it, then poach it in water with a few spices, the oil floats to the top. Leaves the meat flaky and with a

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more blown down trees and drifting snow. “Mayhap you best wait ‘til mornin’, warden,” Joe said into the radio. “We’re all right here an’ I ‘spect this storm will blow itself out by dawn.”

As Joe served up helpings of the steaming togue, I noted casually: “You know, Silas could really use some help with this scout troop.”

Joe paused with fork in mid-air and scowled at me suspiciously. “Well,” he said finally, “I guess somebody’s gotta take a hand, ‘fore he kills’ um all.”

I smiled as Joe went back to handing out fish, bantering with the boys as they beamed up at him. It looked to me like the Boy Scout Troop of Mooseleuk, Maine would be prepared for anything from here on out.

better flavor.”

“Oh.” “You boys get some o’ them big blocks of wood out of the lean-to. We’ll use ‘um to sit on when we eat.”

As the scouts scrambled to the task, Joe turned to the Scoutmaster.

“Heard you had a twoway radio, Silas. What’s the matter, is it broke?”

“I guess so,” Silas frowned, handing the offending instrument to Joe. “I can’t get it to make a peep.”

Joe examined the radio, then looked up with a grin. “Silas?”

“Yes?” “Batteries are in backward.”

“Oh. You know, I never could get straight just how they go in.”

Within a short time, we were talking to Pinch Brody and the rescue team, who were being held up by

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

year to deer hunt on snow and it doesn’t materialize.

I guide the first two weeks of the season so I can have three weeks in hopes that I may get a few snowy days to track on. Well, going into Thanksgiving week, it looks like there may be snow for Friday, so I may get my first real chance to get after an old toe dragger. I’ll be bringing along a cameraman with hopes of make another great film tracking. It looks like I

skid trail about a hundred yards up the ridge. There was no chance to get a rest and he has never shot beyond 50 yards, so I didn’t really want him to chance wounding her. That’s when he said, Papa I don’t really want to shoot a mother with two babies anyway. I told him that he was a sportsman and would be rewarded for that. I know when I was a kid, we never thought about that, but Rylan is a thoughtful and big-hearted kid and I’m proud of him.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the kids should be able to shoot any deer and that’s how they get experience.

I’ve seen a lot of photos with youth and their deer and I’m happy for all of them. That’s what carries on the tradition. All kids are different, and their trophy should be their choice just as an adults should be.

I hope Rylan get another chance before the season is over, but if not, he has had some great experiences.

Next month, I’ll have the final report on the season.

Good luck on the trail!

Proud Papa

The Buck Hunter

by Hal Blood, Moose River, ME Deer season is underway, and the third week of the season has wrapped up. once again mother nature has shortchanged the north country with snow. Around the Moose River valley other than a few dustings the third week, the only snow that stayed around was in the highest mountains. This always crowds hunters into small areas, making it fairly certain that if you find a track, someone else will cut you off. Things have been going good at the lodge and the hunters have seen a lot of deer, shot some and had some close encounters and mishaps. It always nice to be in camp with deer hunters with the passion for the big woods and the bucks that roam it.

I guided the first two

weeks of the season. I’ve guided both hunters for three years now. They both have been coming to learn how to track and with no snow the first two weeks, we had to shift gears and do some still hunting and hope two points might connect. My first week client Roger, shot a buck both

All kids are different, and their trophy should be their choice just as an adults should be. the other years he came, and was holding out for a big boy, but we couldn’t make it happen. My second week client Jere, has yet to shoot a buck with me, although we’ve had a few close calls. It’s his second year without tracking snow.

I know it’s disappointing when after waiting for a

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there making memories.

I’ve had a chance to get my grandson out a few times in search of a deer. He has a doe permit, so he has told me “brown is down!”.

We’ve seen some deer, but they’ve been on the move. He’s only twelve, so a standing shot is what he has been waiting on.

Well, that chance finally came. I took him tracking on one of the dustings we had. We picked up a track right of and followed it up

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might be toting my Woodman Arms muzzle loader along with me.

Up to this point, the number of deer tagged in Jackman is up despite the lack of snow. The easy winter last year has led to plenty of young bucks being taken. As usual the number of 200-pound bucks shot has a direct correlation to snow for tracking. Most of the local trackers have not tagged a buck yet, but it should change if the snow falls.

Congratulations to all of you who tagged your buck this year. I have seen many nice photos of bucks on social media taken all over the state. It’s nice to see all the women and youths out

a ridge, where it led us to a bigger track, that looked to be about a 200-pound buck. We tracked that buck for about six hours as he checked doe after doe, before the snow had melted of the southern ridges. Most of the time, the buck was in thick grown-up cuts, full of whips. I kept telling Rylan to keep right behind me, but he kept falling behind.

I finally asked him why and he said, Papa the whips are at your waist but they’re at my face. I guess I didn’t think about that.

After we ran out of snow, we decided to still hunt the cuts back toward the truck. That’s when we spotted a big old doe with two lambs standing in a

Hal is a Master Maine Guide and Author. He lives in Moose River with his wife Deb. Hal can be contacted at hal@bigwoodsbucks.com

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal Guns & Ammo:

The New Marlins

Most folks know by now that Ruger Manufacturing purchased Marlin Firearms in the Remington Bankruptcy proceedings last year. The question has been, when will we see new Marlin products from Ruger, and will they still be

had forged steel receivers and internal fire control components. This will still be the case. Ruger is an industry leader in investment castings and these are used in the Ruger products.

However, the Marlins will continue to have forged

probably noticed that 3 shots is about all you can shoot before the barrel heats up and your groups start to expand. It is necessary to let the barrel cool for several minutes before you repeat the process. The reason this happens is that the process of microgroove rifling creates stress risers in the metal as it is being cut. When the barrel heats

Page 33

A Guide’s Perspective

by Tom Kelly, Orient, ME

barrows full of chipmunks and squirrels, numerous racoons over my coonhounds as well as orienting all of my grandchildren to shooting and some that were not mine. They both have provided many fond

owner/operator of Shamrock Outfitters in Orient Maine with his wife Ellie.

He is a retired police officer as well as a retired manager from two major firearms manufacturers.

He is an NRA Certified In-

Marlins have always had forged steel receivers and internal fire control components. This will still be the case.

Ruger is an industry leader in investment castings and these are used in the Ruger products

The new Marlin rifles.

Marlins. Well, the wait is steel parts. Marlin has traover. The first new Marlin ditionally had Microgroove rifles rolled off the prover- rifling. This type of ribial line in December 2021. fling has been controverThe first rifles made are the sial since its introduction.

1895 SBL. SBL signifying Some folks love it, but Stainless steel, Big Loop. many do not. Handloaders The first rifles will be in the and folks shooting cast lead great .45/70 caliber. These or all copper ammo have will be followed shortly by been the most displeased the mod 1894 in .44 mag- with this rifling method. num and .357 magnum. Good news for new Marlin The iconic mod 336 in rifles. These guns will have .30/30 will be available in cold hammer forged rifling. early 2022, as well as the Why is this good news?

1895 in .444 Marlin.

Let me explain.

The next big question The process of cold being asked is, will they hammer forged rifling will still be Marlins. Well, I produce an extremely acwould suggest that yes they curate rifle no matter what will. Here is what Chris the barrel length. If you Killoy, the Ruger CEO have ever tried to sight in says. Marlins have always a centerfire rifle, you have

up, these stress risers in the barrel heat at a different rate and actually move the barrel causing the group to change. The process of cold hammer forging has just the opposite effect. The cold hammering actually stress relieves the metal and eliminates any stress risers in the metal.

The point of impact (POI) stays the same from the first round from a cold barrel to the last round in the magazine. This is a great improvement. Some folks will say, who cares?

This is a “Brush Gun”, not a target gun. I guess that’s true but what if you could have a “Brush Gun” that could shoot like a longbarreled bolt action. In my opinion, that’s a huge advantage.

Killoy also said that the Marlin Mod 60 .22 L.R. semiauto rifle will again be available early in 2022. The Mod 60 is Marlin’s popular tube fed .22. This rifle was the main competition for the Ruger 10/22. I happen to own both of these .22 rifles and it would be difficulty to pick one over the other. These rifles have both accounted for wheel-

memories. It is great to be able to report that Marlin, a grand old American made rifle company, will be resurrected by another grand old American made firearms company.

structor as well as a Hunter Safety Instructor in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. You can reach Tom at Shamrock Outfitters (207) 694-2473. Please visit our Facebook Page: Shamrock Outfitters and Tom is a Registered Properties and come visit Maine Guide. He is the us on East Grand Lake.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

The Maine Ice Fishing Tips Woods the line and run it from the Matt LaRoche, Shirley, ME

Did you ever notice that some ice anglers seem to be luckier than others?

I think you will find that these “lucky” fishermen have one thing in common - they are always fiddling with their bait, changing the depth of whatever they

are not cooperating despite the fact that we have been checking our traps regularly, trying different depths and keeping the holes free of ice. This is when we need to bring out the proverbial bag of tricks.

One of the most im-

reel over the upright part of the trap, then wrap the line once around the end of the fully extended spring and down the whole. The next part is the most important step in the directions, tie a piece of news paper in the line between the hole and the end of the spring. When the wind blows the paper it will move the line - giv-

One of the most important things you can do is move a few traps to see if that makes a difference and try fishing at different levels under the ice. are fishing with or trying something new. It is a habit that is almost the polar opposite of what a good hunter does - which is sit still.

How often have you neglected tending your tip ups only to find when you finally did go around to check them that the bait was gone or you had a fish on the line that didn’t set the flag off? That would tell me that you should have been checking your traps more often.

Sometimes the fish

portant things you can do is move a few traps to see if that makes a difference and try fishing at different levels under the ice. One tactic I have tried successfully over the last few years is fishing in deep water with bait six feet under the ice. I have caught some nice brook trout and togue using this method.

If you really want to try something different, especially when the lake you are fishing prohibits the use of live fish as bait - try this: Take your tip up out of the water and stick the cross pieces that hold the trap over the hole into the snow next to the hole, then take

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ing the bait movement and making it look quite lively.

On a really cold day this method will not work well because the line will freeze in the hole and not move as it should.

Another method that will often times work when the fish are not biting well is to jig. Take a short fishing rod, stick or even an unused trap and tie a heavy lure on the end of the line and move it up and down.

You can try jigging with a piece of cut bait on the hook or not - I have had luck both ways. I usually start jigging just off the bottom, close enough to the bottom so you are stirring up a little silt or mud

If you haven’t caught anything after jigging in a spot for an hour or so, drill a new hole a hundred feet away and start the process all over again. with the action of the lure on the down stroke. I then work my way up in tenfoot increments until I’m fishing right under the ice.

Togue and whitefish like to inhabit the bottom of our lakes, so I recommend concentrating your jigging efforts in that area.

If you haven’t caught anything after jigging in a spot for an hour or so, drill a new hole a hundred feet away and start the process all over again. If you’re persistent you will eventually be rewarded. There is a bit of a knack to jigging.

When you get the lure working just right, it will make a circle under the ice.

This skill is like anything

else, the more you do it the better you will become.

The headwater lakes of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway (AWW) are a great place to ice fish. There are plenty of native brook trout, togue and whitefish waiting to accommodate those hardy enough to venture out on its frozen waters. Most winters, the biggest brook trout are caught during the first few weeks of the season.

Please go to www. maine.gov/allagash or check in at the Chamberlain Bridge ranger station for current ice conditions on the AWW headwater lakes.

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January 2022

Arms (Cont. from pg 13) signs having been picked up for approximately 75 of them.

While there are currently 581 SHF waters, NFC only has permission to post signs on roughly 500 waters with Baxter State Park, Acadia National Park, Katahdin Woods and Waters, and one land management company making up the bulk of the unapproved waters. This means that NFC and volunteers have posted 64% of the approved waters, with another 20% assigned.

With reporting data available for only 240 of the 319 waters posted, or 75% of the total, volunteers have contributed 780 hours of work and driven over 18,900 miles. While not tracked, they have walked

Northwoods Sporting Journal or hiked numerous miles as well, as most of the waters are away from the road.

Adjusted for the unreported waters, its likely that volunteers have donated 1,000 hours and driven over 23,000 miles.

In addition to NFC board members and volunteers, The Nature Conservancy, Appalachian Mountain Club, and Passamaquoddy tribe helped post sigs on their land. Libby Camps, Cobb’s Pierce Pond Camps, Johnson’s Allagash Lodge, Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust, and New England Backcountry Hunters & Anglers helped post signs as well. Most recently a group of off-road enthusiasts from southern New England braved the cold late fall weather to State Heritage Fish signs have also been posted by former IFW commissioner Ray “Bucky” Owen,

IFW game warden and Northwoods Law star Sergeant Tim Spahr, Maine Audubon Executive Director Andrew Beahm, former Bangor Daily News outdoor editor John Holyoke, and well-known artist Karen Talbot and her husband Ret. Befittingly, the first sign printed was presented to the late George Smith, long time Executive Director for SAM, and the driving force behind the State Heritage Fish law.

Another sign was given to former state senator Chandler Woodcock who was the sponsoring legislator for the bill before taking the helm at IFW. As we get deeper into the project, the waters get more remote and harder to access. It’s akin to a football game where the further you get down the field, the tougher it is to advance. In

past years, volunteers have posted State Heritage Fish signs in the winter, mostly via snowmobiles.

NFC, SAM and Maine’s State Heritage Fish waters could use your help in pushing the ball across the goal line in regard to this huge and important volunteer effort.

As someone who has been involved in posting over 30 waters, I can say firsthand that it is fun and quite rewarding. It’s also a great way to discover new places to fish for wild native brook trout.

If you are interested in helping to post informational signs on Maine’s unique and important State Heritage Fish waters, you can learn more or sign up at NativeFishCoalition.org/ SHF. Signs and hardware are provided gratis and can be picked up at SAM headquarters in Augusta. You

Page 35 can also email us at Info@ NativeFishCoalition.org BOB MALLARD has fly fished for forty years.

He is the former owner of Kennebec River Outfitters, a Registered Maine Fishing Guide, and a commercial fly designer. Bob is a blogger, writer, and author. He is also a native fish advocate and founding member, Executive Director, and Maine Board Member for Native Fish Coalition. Look for his books 50 Best Places Fly Fishing the Northeast, 25 Best Towns Fly Fishing for Trout, Squaretail: The Definitive Guide to Brook Trout and Where to Find Them and Favorite Flies for Maine: 50 Essential Patterns from Local Experts. Bob can be reached at www.BobMallard.com or info@bobmallard.com

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Page 36

Northwoods Sporting Journal

View From The River

by Laurie Chandler Bremen, ME Last summer, I went on assignment for the column. For a few July days, my plan was not to have a plan. With my canoe on the roof, I headed north from Greenville. Beside me was my Maine Atlas and Gazetteer. Its pages were puppy-chewed and coffeestained, with scribbled

Summer Wanderings Part I

this picturesque 1,332-acre lake.

The turnoff to the Harrington Lake boat launch is only a short distance up Telos Road. True to my memory, there were an abundance of raspberries there. I picked berries until I was hot and scratchy, then walked down and jumped

Wide antlers swept up, cascading water, and my heart pounded. I drifted to a gravel bar and worked the canoe up to a quiet resting place. notes on road conditions, campsites, and the best way to get from one place to another. For this trip, it would be my inspiration, as important as drinking water, a good spare tire, or toilet paper.

At Kokadjo, I said goodbye to pavement. Cell service went soon afterward. I kept careful track of the forks and turns. One particularly rough section made me doubt my navigation skills, but I soon came to the Golden Road, then turned left onto Telos Road.

Years before, I’d camped overnight at Harrington Lake, on my way to meet my dad in the Allagash.

This time, I could canoe

January 2022

into the lake. Not a soul was around. The cool water embraced me, a baptism of sorts for the days ahead.

Five campsites can be found near the dam, several miles past the boat launch.

I chose one that was open and breezy, with a clean picnic table. After chores were done, I went exploring. Past the campsites was a marshy meadow, where hints of water glistened in a field of green. I got comfortable, sitting against a large pine tree.

A heron flew with deep, unhurried wingbeats, to try his fishing elsewhere.

Some Canada geese, tucked away among the grass, were just a row of heads.

A moose sighting at Harrington Lake.

My imagination peopled a gravel bar and worked back at the boat launch.

I would end up seeing the marsh with other in- the canoe up to a quiet resthabitants, made of shadows ing place. Lying flat, my more moose than people or the gnarled stubs of silhouette was broken by during my two days at Harrington Lake. The people, a branches. The quiet that I clumps of grass. felt was not an absence of Had some purpose couple camping in a tepee, sound, for there was the brought us together, this were quiet neighbors and shushing of the wind and monarch of the forest and left after one night. The second and third moose the faraway drumming of me? a woodpecker. It was the The wet sand began were noisier. The young quiet of the soul, the stilling to soak my clothes, but I bull and later a cow were of the outside world. did not feel the cold. Only both below the dam, where The next morning, when the bull wandered a small brook emerged I rose in the half light of closer and swiveled toward from a tangle of alder. I dawn. Steaming coffee me did I stand and break heard them both before I warmed my hands in the the spell. He stood unmov- saw them.

All in all, the first part early chill. Mist danced ing, regal and powerful. among the twisted shapes I left him then, paddling of my time on assignment of ancient stumps, and a away under a towering had exceeded my expectrio of herons came to stand cliff of rock. Above, tall tations, but I was even sentinel, greeting me with conifers clung to the very more excited for the second hoarse croaks. Thinking of edge. On the rocks close to part, which would take me the day ahead, I determined the water were lichens, in somewhere brand new. to paddle the perimeter of gray and brown and vivid Laurie Apgar Chanthe lake. orange.

I put in at the boat Farther along, the dler is the author of launch and followed the shore dissolved into shal- Through Woods & Wawinging of a spotted sand- low, sandy coves. By now, ters, which provides an piper along a rocky shore of a breeze was picking up. adventurous look at Kashattered gray. The canoe Gathering gray clouds tahdin Woods and Waters glided silently around tiny prodded me to hurry. As I National Monument, and points, my senses tuned to pushed up into the wind, I Upwards, the story of her the hour and the place. At reminded myself to relax, 2015 solo thru-paddle of the lake’s far end, a dark find a rhythm, be patient. the 740-mile Northern Forshape became a moose. Near the dam, the water est Canoe Trail. For more Wide antlers swept up, became too shallow, and I information or to purchase cascading water, and my turned to fly with the wind the books, visit www.lauheart pounded. I drifted to at my back. By noon, I was rieachandler.com

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 37

The Bird Perch

Grebes

by Karen Holmes, Cooper, ME

January of each new year is when I always begin my yearly bird list. On a clear day in January with little wind and lazy swells slapping the coast is when I search for birds wintering along the Down East Maine coastline. Longtailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, Common Eiders, Buffleheads, Common Scoters, etc. enliven our rocky shoreline waters.

Scattered among them are usually two species of Grebes. Both are duck-like divers with thin necks, small heads, lobed toes, and have a sort of tailless appearance. Their plumage is mostly the colors of winter seas, storm-gray and tar-

nished silver. The Horned Grebe has red eyes, a very dark gray crown and nape, white cheeks, throat and

I enjoy watching both Grebe species catch fish. If a fish is too large to swallow, they will throw their heads up and backward to slide the fish headfirst down their widely distended throats. breast. With its straight and slender bill, the head is carried proudly atop the slender neck.

Often found in groups, Horned Grebes seem to

distance to gain sufficient ear tufts sprout from the impetus to launch into temples like horns. the air. So to avoid any Red-necked Grebes intruder, they will dive have very vividly rusty instead with forward leaps red necks, whitish cheeks and swim away underwater and yellowish bills. The for a distance. juvenile babies of both speBoth species leave cies are boldly streaked and our coastal waters to re- striped and are often carturn to mostly freshwater ried atop the adults’ backs. areas in western Canada and Alaska to breed in the spring. This is when Karen Holmes is a their plumages change and show why they are named free-lance writer and reride the waves lightly and proudly. I usually locate accordingly. The Horned tired teacher now living this species easily. But the Grebes throats and sides in Cooper, Maine. She Red-necked Grebe is more turn into a bright chestnut enjoys volunteering for difficult and out comes color. The cheeks become various wildlife projects in my spotting scope to find shiny black and yellowish DownEast Maine. one. It is usually floating alone and has a longer bill and neck, brown eyes and is overall much more very grayish than a Horned Grebe. Each cheek lacks white and is instead a very pale gray.

I enjoy watching both Grebe species catch fish. If a fish is too large to swallow, they will throw their Pellet, Wood, Gas & Coal Stoves • Heat Pumps • Firewood heads up and backward to slide the fish headfirst down their widely disPROFESSIONAL INSTALLATIONS tended throats. Grebes have 2211 Medway Rd. Medway, ME 04460 a difficult time taking off from the water and need a 207-746-5799

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 38

Question & Answer Time

“Just Fishing”

Question: When did the “Northwoods Sporting Journal” first get published, and who is the owner and publisher?

Answer: The very popular Maine magazine was first published in 1992

by Vic Morin of West Levant, Maine. The editor is V. Paul Reynolds. This writer can recall a distribution of the paper to a large gathering of national outdoor writers OWAA, Outdoor Writers of America, attending an annual conference being held in Maine on the University of Maine campus in Orono several years ago. It was the first viewing of the printing that soon became a hit with outdoorsmen.

Question: Who was the first originator and publisher of the “Maine Sportsman” magazine?

Answer: Wendall

by Bob Leeman, Bangor, ME Trembley of Augusta, Maine. He called me one day, at least forty years ago, to ask if I would be interested in writing a column for his new concept. It would cover the “goings on” of the Maine outdoor hunting and fishing scene. Following, was an invite of five or six locally known writers to offer their outdoor columns---at no charge---at least until the publication might secure a respectable footing. All agreed, and did so without hesitation, and soon the new entry into the sporting scene became quite popular around the State of Maine and beyond.

The grapevine revealed this paper was later sold by Mr. Trembley to a group of gentleman.

Question: What is the best way to take a photo of a friend holding up a fish?

Answer: An old vet-

eran photographer told me once, tilt the subject’s hat back and have him look at the fish, not the camera.

The background too, is important.

Question: What is your favorite streamer for trolling for landlocked salmon?

Answer: “Barnes Special” or “Barnsie” for flycasting. “Bob’s Red and White” for trolling.

Question: What is the best time to gather spruce gum from Spruce trees?

Answer: Late fall is okay, but winter is best.

Question: How long have you been an outdoor writer and some tips on getting into the game?

Answer: I was asked to write an outdoor column for Bangor’s Community Observer”, a weekly publication in about the mid 1960’s. That graduated, over the years, into newspaper columns statewide, eventually into magazines and books, TV shows, and

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radio. Best advice: Get an English Literary education, write some sample columns, and approach editors in your outdoor background, and get lucky.

Don’t expect to get rich.

Most, not all, writers do not expect to retire early, unless, of course, you write a novel that hits the jackpot, or get a job on a “daily”.

Being a photographer and/ or an artist helps in this “avocation”.

Question: Who were some of the most popular outdoor writers in Maine?

Answer: To name a few---R.O. “Bob” Elliot, Bob Edge, Bill Geagan, Gene LeTourneau, Bud Leavitt, Harry Van der Weide, Tom Hennessey, and Owen Osborne. As a young man, I knew them all, and became fast friends with many of them. When I was still a boy, Bill Geagan was not only a close friend, but a mentor as well. Today, there are a number of excellent outdoor scribes in Maine and New England who have become fine columnists and writers of books and papers.

Question: Is it a good idea to use roadkill animal’s fur for fly tying?

Answer: Bad idea.

Most wild animals and birds have germs, lice, ticks, and even diseases you really don’t want in your fly gear. If you keep a deer tail or other furs, salt it down and plastic bag it.

Keep it away from your clean stuff. Bird feathers found in a chicken coop can be microwaved clean.

All wild bird feathers are a no-no, and most, if not all, are illegal to have in possession.

Question: What are eagles doing when grabbing each others talons and falling through the air?

Answer: It’s mastery and sometimes called cart-wheeling. (Maybe to impress a possible mate.)

Question: What ducks and birds appear to “mate for life?”

Answer: Geese, swans, and mourning doves are known, among others.

Question: What color was the original “Daredevle” fishing lure?

Answer: Red and white. It was originated by Lou Eppinger.

Bob Leeman is a Master Maine Guide, outdoor writer, naturalist, book author, and a co-host of the MAINE OUTDOORS radio program on Sunday evenings from 7-8 p.m. his three books---“Fly Fishing Maine Rivers, Brooks, and Streams”, “Trolling Flies for Trout and Salmon”, and “Salesman Angler” ---are all available in soft cover only, at several bookstores and fly shops, or directly from him. For information, see ad in this publication or call 207-573-1468.

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January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

A Panther Adventure

Robert Walker opened his Trout Brook Camp, at Mackamp, a station on the Canadian Pacific Railroad about seven miles east of Jackman, a superb hunting region, filled with deer, moose and other game. His letter was published in the Maine Sportsman in March

evening and said that he had fired two shots at a panther as he was crossing the railroad about seventyfive yards away.

“I did not find any signs of blood, and I don’t think my rifle shoots where I hold it.”

So that was the end

a set of deserted lumber camps which he had to pass every time he drove to or from the railroad.

These camps had been finally abandoned by the same company only about a week before the time of which I write, and there was a lot of old fish and

“I did not find any signs of blood, and I don’t think my rifle shoots where I hold it.” So that was the end of the panther story, for I heard no more for several weeks.

1906.

“It was reported here last fall, by some of those who were at my camp for the hunting, that a panther was in the neighborhood, but I had not seen signs of panther, but I thought it was a lynx or something of that sort that they saw.

A man from Germantown, Ohio, came into camp one

of the panther story, for I heard no more for several weeks.

Among the men employed by a lumber company having camps about seven miles from my camp, was an “oldish” man who was toting supplies to the main camps, while only about a mile from Mackamp on the tote road was

other waste lying around where it had been thrown by the cook.

I suppose that the cat had been feeding around those old camps, and I also suppose that when he got all he wanted to eat there was a nice sunny place by the door of one of the hovels, where the horses had been kept, and laid down in

Bobcats

check on all laws pertaining to baiting predators before doing any of this.

After erecting a blind fifty yards from my bag of tricks I call the ‘Hanging Bait’, I don’t like to pick up shop until my project gets an ‘A’ for success. I do put faith in my Hanging Bait and strongly believe I will see proof. Hiding in a blind peering out through a cubby hole staring at a plastic bag may seem a waste of time to ordinary people. I believe that you’re not ordinary. You are a hunter. As hunters we are our own kind of unique person. We’re not ordinary, we are outdoorsman and woman constantly reminiscing about our next kill. I always hope for a big bobcat each winter that I can practice taxidermy on.

You and I know just having faith in the Hanging Bait is not enough. As

a hunter I believe in doing my homework to increase my odds. Finding bobcat sign, a prominent place to set up shop, clearing my walking path to and from my blind, and having plenty of bait constitutes as completing my homework.

All this and a Hanging Bait is an effective tool and can help you bag your next bobcat. Hurry, the season ends in the middle of February.

(Cont. from pg 28) confirmed when on a mid day hike to my bait setup, I found that a bobcat or bobcats had gorged themselves. Bobcat tracks and scratch marks also helped confirm this.

Please be advised there are laws on littering and I recommend that you check into this before following my example.

I’m just covering my own ‘bobbed’ tail since plastic won’t decay for hundreds of years. I use a plastic bag and remove it once I shoot a bobcat or when the season ends. You could use rope to tie meat scraps in a tree instead of plastic bags.

You also can erect a platform out of two-by-fours and plywood where putting nails or metal screws in trees is legal. Again please

Justin has a Wildlife Biology Degree from Unity College. Justin is a member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association (NEOWA). His books: “Wild Maine Outdoors – Hunting Tactics, Tricks, & Secrets” and “THE SIT SPOT – Discovering The Forest Near You”, are now available, www.wildmaineoutdoors.com

Page 39

Old Tales from the Maine Woods

by Steve Pinkham Quincy, MA

the sun to take a nap. About ten o’clock in the forenoon, when the toter came along on his way to the new camp, his horses refused to go, and he walked along their heads to see what the trouble was. Just then the panther raised up on its forefeet and let out a yell that scared the horses, and they broke away from the teamster, broke all the harness that held them to the outfit and stampeded, and he was making a 2.40 clip down the road toward my camp when he met a party of sportsmen from here hunting.

“What is the trouble?” they asked him.

“A panther! A panther up at them old camps and he is six feet long!”

Well, I didn’t blame him for running, for I had a good look at the same cat, I suppose, about eight weeks ago. One morning my dog and I started to pick

up some of my traps, and were our way home when, as we were walking on the railroad track, I saw a deer crossing the railroad about a hundred yards ahead of me. It appeared to be quite scared, so I walk toward where it Iie, about that time, but the only thing I carried was a small axe.

I looked to see where my dog was. He was right behind me with the hair on his back standing like the quills of a hedgehog.

I encouraged him and he charged toward the cat and I hollered at the top of my voice, between me and the dog we scared him so that he left. I was about seven miles from my home, and I bet that I didn’t lose any time on the way.

Steve is an avid hiker, paddler and historian, having collected over 26,000 Maine Woods articles to date.

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Page 40

Northwoods Sporting Journal

What's In Your Woods

by Bud Utecht, T4 Indian Purchase Township

Follow The Babes

With over seventy thousand pictures on my iPad, there’s probably not much I haven’t seen. Oh, until the next bunch of cameras ae checked. The pictures certainly bring out people’s excitement about wildlife. Response to huge antlers, giant bear, or otters

find. Moms need to eat in abundance while raising young ones so your mission is to find the food source.

Moose babies seem to be the easiest to find.

Search out small ponds with beaver dams and they will be feeding in them.

Just look for the path that timid with cubs. Stream banks and beaver dams are Moose babies seem to be the easiest awesome starting points. to find. Search out small ponds with Also on the edges of rebeaver dams and they will be feeding in mote ponds will get you a plethora of babies. them. Just look for the path that A sow and cub visit resembles a pasture. my camera quite regularly playing in the snow are so resembles a pasture. Deer on a ridge and she always fun to see. Nevertheless, are pretty easy to capture messes with the camera. when the babies light up in the feeding areas as The sow has cut the strap the screen they are always well, but another place you off, spun it around the tree, met with jubilation. The may find them are shallow and tilted it so the pictures excitement in seeing all the streams with moving water. come out kitty cornered. little spots on a young deer They like to wonder up One day she ravaged the or the gangly legs of a calf these streams and some- camera and, when finished, moose are certain to ensure times play in them. These she started to walk away. the game camera purchase shallow streams are usually Worthy of mentioning, she great places to get pictures is a beautiful white face is forgiven.

Unfortunately if you as the deer don’t seem to bear, unlike any I’d seen are a hunter, the places pay attention to the camera before. Well, when she you find the babies are not and they are in the water strode away after playing where you find the antlers, during the day. with the camera one day, Bear aren’t a problem she inadvertently stepped well until later that is. Fortunately though, if you’re to capture on camera, as on the cubs head. This looking for babies they they will find the cameras, scene caused the cub to roll usually are not that hard to however tend to be more over and the sow looked

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT!

At camp, this guy and his gundog - after a morning of chasing pa’tridge - found a comfy place to spend some time with their favorite read, the Northwoods Sporting Journal.

Where do you read your copy of the Sporting Journal? At camp, in the boat, at the ice shack? We’d love to see a photo of you with your copy of the Journal at an unusual place. If we like it, we will publish it in the Journal. If we select your best shot for publication, we’ll send you an exclusive Sporting Journal hat created just for the occasion. Send your Jpeg photo and a short blurb to vpaulr@tds.net. Please include your contact information, too. www.sportingjournal.com

January 2022

back suddenly, frozen on the game camera, for all to say aawwwwwww!

There is a spot in Western Maine that is simply perfect for moose.

The spot is a swamp completely surrounded by thick spruce. The swamp has standing water in it with very few trees in the open area. Beautiful green grass grows through the whole area right up to the trees.

This spot attracts the mothers and young as there is plenty of sunshine and water and is such a great place I decided to attach two cameras on one tree.

One is on video and the other is on three shot burst mode. One day a cow with twin calves paid us a visit.

The calves posed side by side looking in the same direction to be immortalized by the camera.

The large animals are not the only cute babies to discover on your game camera. Last winter, I cap-

tured a video of a mother lynx and her two kittens which turned out incredible. She is walking through the snow and the young ones are stepping right in her tracks with every step.

I’m assuming this is for conserving energy but no matter the reason they are really cute.

So in the off season go capture some pictures of babies and you will be everyone’s friend at the next human gathering.

Bud Utecht is a Register Maine Guide, sporting camp owner, Browning trail camera dealer, and consultant. His trail cameras are strategically placed throughout the Maine Woods. Feel free to email Bud for trail camera tips or to discuss what’s in your woods. bud@whatsinyourwoods.com

Bud Utecht Registered Maine Guide

Trail Camera Consultant (207) 404-1442

bud@whatsinyourwoods.com

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Page 41

Empty Showrooms

I rode over to my local snowmobile dealership to look at the new snowmobiles to find no sleds in the showroom! It’s December and normally there is a whole lineup sitting in the middle of the showroom.

Where have all the new sleds gone? Wait, what new sleds? If you’re looking for a new ride right now, you

this stuff up.

I spoke to the factory customer service reps at the major manufacturers, and they told me that the snow checked, pre-purchased sleds, are the priority right now. That makes sense since they were ordered last year. I was told they will begin shipping the snowchecked sleds in mid-De-

about whether or not it is time to purchase a new sled. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to do that yet this year. I did check with a number of dealerships that have a few new 2021s available but that number is very low.

On the flip side, if you have a late model snowmobile that you want to

On the flip side, if you have a late model snowmobile that you want to sell, this is a great seller’s market.

The problem is, what will you ride if you sell your sled and can’t buy a new one? are out of luck. Manufacturers have not been able to ship their new sleds to the dealers due to COVIDrelated supply chain issues which have prevented them from getting all of the parts they need to build out the model lineup. If you have already snow-checked a sled last year, you already know that those will be delayed in delivery but are the priority to get shipped.

This is a pretty interesting dilemma. A year of record new snowmobile sales followed by a year of no new snowmobiles available to purchase. You can’t make

cember. Then, interestingly I received a call from one of my friends who snowchecked a new Polaris last year. He said that the dealership told him his delivery is postponed until the first week of March. Ouch! Just in time to miss most of the riding season. I guess he, and anyone else in that situation, can pray for the snow to last into April.

Everyone enjoys learning about the new models that are on the market and seeing what they look like, what it feels like to sit on them, and making an informed decision

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sell, this is a great seller’s market. The problem is, what will you ride if you sell your sled and can’t buy a new one?

We definitely live in an interesting time. With the COVID variants in the news and the continu-

The Trail Rider

by Rod Fraser, Hyde Park, MA ing discussion about what level of restriction to put in place, the riding season is overshadowed again. I hope and pray that we are moving back to a time of complete normalcy soon and that we will all be able to live our lives in a normal manner.

In the meantime, what’s an enthusiast to do? Ride your current sled and possibly snow check a

model for next year. Ride safe, ride right!

Rod Fraser is an avid outdoorsman and twentyyear Navy veteran. Originally from Maine and living in Massachusetts, Rod has written extensively about snowmobiling. visit his website at www.roderickfraser.com

SEND US YOUR CLASSIFIEDS!

LET US HELP YOU SELL YOUR THINGS! Call: 207-732-4880 Or E-mail:

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The Trading Post ANIMALS

MISC

SPORTING EQUIPMENT

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 42

Maine Outdoor Adventure Maine has a tremendous resource for fishing hard water and having winter fun! To have an enjoyable experience on the ice, being prepared is vital. As with any outdoor adventure, pre-trip planning should always involve letting loved ones know where you will be and when you are due to be home.

Always fish with a buddy!!!

Starting a new hobby can be downright intimidating, so having a plan and being prepared could save a life including your own! Even by doing all the right things, accidents can still happen. Therefore, writing about ice safety, even though redundant every winter, is very important indeed. Following the mindset of this article is crucial for staying safe, comfortable, and having fun. Ice fishing can quickly turn into a disaster!

It all starts with the ice! Ice can come in many forms beside just being frozen! The biggest mistake that can happen is to assume the ice is safe.

by Rich Yvon, Bradford, ME When you arrive at the lake and you see people out and about, keep in mind that open, cracked, or thin ice can still exist. Checking ice of its color can tell you allot about the integrity of the ice. Having early snows can insulate ice as well as adding white ice which is half as strong as clear ice. If grey or dirty

January 2022

Ice Fishing Safety

ice thickness. Don’t assume ice is thick and safe because you see footprints!

• Two inches or less – stay off!

• Four inches – is minimum for walking.

• Six- seven inches - for an ATV or a snowmobile • Ten-Twelve inches - for a car and over 14 inches for a small truck. *If the ice is white or looking questionable, the ice thickness requirement should be doubled

•Throw bag/rope (Practice use at home in yard) •Auger, spud bar and tape measure to measure ice and fish •Mentor or guide if new to sport •A fishing buddy

kimo Uplyft breathable floatation assistance to keep you safe. This is a great example of the latest technology available today for winter activity on hard water.

Keeping those

It all starts with the ice! Ice can come in many forms beside just being frozen!

The biggest mistake that can happen is to assume the ice is safe.

white is present, this ice should always be avoided.

The following guide to help gives a safe reference to ice and safety as you go from the shoreline. Using a spud bar can ensure safety as you check ice to your spot. Remember that ice forms from shore first and therefore is the thickest.

When weather warms in April, shoreline melts first which is just the opposite.

Springs, moving water and preexisting ice holes can certainly compromise ice integrity and safety.

Check Your Ice! Always use a spud bar then use an auger to measure

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Upon entering the ice, drill a hole and take a measuring tape to measure the thickness as you go out from shore.

Repeat the process regularly until you reach the desired spot.

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•A form of outside communication •Valid State of Maine Fishing License persons 16 and older, copy of fishing regulations •Porta potty with trash bags – for clean-up of all trash including toiletries/ stool for no trace left behind.

•Waterproof, insulated boots •Ice creepers (worn on shoe bottom) and ice picks (worn around neck)

“FUN on the ice!” (Photo by Rich Yvon) Keeping warm is essential for having fun and not being miserable.

Anyone can go out on the ice to fish, the trick here is to be comfortable as well as safe. Layering your clothes to promote breathability as well as insulation is critical.

Ice fishing is an active sport were moving and possibly working with warm, bulky clothes can work against you. Managing your layering with breathable clothes can make a tremendous difference. The advent of moisture wicking base layers combined with wools or synthetic layers can be adjusted to changing activity levels and outside temperatures. A floating suite like Eskimo’s Legend is designed specifically with 3MThinsulate insulation for warmth and the Es-

hands, feet and head warm is certainly critical to keeping your core warm. Starting with your head, a warm wool or synthetic hat will do the job. Your head loses about 10% of your b o d y ’s o v e r a l l h e a t which is minimal but will certainly contribute to your overall warmth and comfort. Hats that cover ears, are always a concern with the potential of frostbite from cold wind.

Hands are always first to get cold, especially when getting wet. I prefer wool lined mittens for all my ice fishing activity. When handling wet fish and terminal tackle, there’s nothing more pleasing than wool lined mittens!

Boots can be wonderful or a curse. Wa(Safety cont. pg 45)

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Gun Safety

The news reports of the shooting on a movie set in October should have got a lot of gun owners thinking about gun safety.

For me it brought back an unpleasant memory that, fortunately for me, resulted in no harm done. However, even at my young age, I did then realize what could have happened and I

a rifle club. I enjoyed target shooting and went to each practice and participated meets with other clubs. At the time of this incident I couldn’t yet afford a target scope so I still used the standard target iron sights.

I was so enthusiastic about shooting that I set up a target in my bedroom to dry-fire and work to perfect

did not make it through to the outside. My secret was safe. But, I vowed that nothing like that would ever happen to me again. I would always check before handling a weapon, or if that wasn’t possible the moment, keep it pointed in a safe direction.

The news reports about the movie set shooting made it sound like several people handled the gun before it reached the hands

Page 43

Northwoods Voyager

by Gil Gilpatrick, Brunswick, ME

I opened each action to check for a load, though I knew there would not be one. You must understand that Dick is my best friend for over 70 years. I would trust him with my life! Still I checked every action. In doing so I also knew that if the situation were reversed

of the Legendary Maine Guide award. He is a life member of the Maine Professional Guides Association, a founding member of the Maine Wilderness Guides Organization, and served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Licensing of Guides

The first shot was not a click, but a “bang”! The rifle was loaded! The shot was never heard by anyone in the family and I never told anyone about it.

Rule One of gun safety: Always treat a gun as though it were loaded, even if you are sure it is not. resolved that nothing like that would ever happen again. I would point out that I owned a gun from my early teens, maybe even pre-teen I cannot remember for sure. I never shot anything I wasn’t supposed to shoot and took reasonable care of my .22 rifle.

Here’s what happened.

I was a teen in high school at the time. I joined

my stance and hopefully increase my scores. I had been to a club practice the evening before and I got the rifle out to do some dryfiring. The first shot was not a click, but a “bang”!

The rifle was loaded! The shot was never heard by anyone in the family and I never told anyone about it. I covered the hole in the sheet rock and checked outside to find the shot

of the shooter. Of course we will never be able to get the full story from news reports, but it became obvious to me that at least three people handled the gun and not one of them checked the action to see if it were loaded. If one had checked, the shooting would not have happened.

I will give an example of how careful I became in handling firearms. When Dot and I were moving to Brunswick I asked my friend Dick Mosher to hold my guns for me until we got settled and I had a gun safe set up. He agreed to do so and held them for a few months. When I finally picked them up

he would have done the from 1996 to 2010. He same thing. is a member of the New Stay safe folks!

England Outdoor Writers Association and is the Gil Gilpatrick is a author of seven outdoorMaster Maine Guide, and related books. Contact him is the first living recipient at Gil@GilGilpatrick.com

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 44

Warden’s Words

by Game Warden Kale O’Leary, Ashland, ME I sometimes get asked in public speaking events or just when meeting with people afield who may be interested in our career, “what is the most important skill to being a good Game Warden?” I know they are looking for an answer that conjures up the men-

captivated and intrigued by the stories of Warden David Jackson who once wrestled a bobcat with his bare hands, snowshoed a Canadian deer poacher from Umsaskis Lake to court in Fort Kent and back, and once returned back from snowshoe pa-

When a Warden encounters a hunter, fishermen or trapper afield, the Wardens ability to communicate begins immediately with the compliance check of licenses, permits or various other formalities. tal pictures of legendary Wardens in red coats and Bean boots that are written about in books like David Jackson or Fred Jorgenson.

I am sure the person asking the question is hoping for me to answer with “hand to hand combat” or “the ability to be self-reliant in a wilderness survival scenario for at least two weeks.” But in my opinion the answer is something much simpler.

I remember being a young college student and reading “My Life in the Maine Woods” by Annette Jackson and being

trol with a bullet hole in his issued Warden cap but never told the story of how it happened. The image of legendary Wardens of the past is an important part of the legacy of our agency, but if I am to answer the question of “what is the most important skill be being a good Game Warden” honestly, and in my own opinion, the answer is something that I’m sure David Jackson possessed, but unfortunately has nothing to do with whether or not you can fight off a bobcat with your bare hands.

The most important

Game Warden Skills

skill to being a good warden? Drumroll please…. communication skills. I know that answer often leaves people wishing for more or slightly underwhelmed, but this is a tool and skill that is critical to being effective at so much that a Warden does.

When a Warden encounters a hunter, fishermen or trapper afield, the Wardens ability to communicate begins immediately with the compliance check of licenses, permits or various other formalities. Checking for a valid license doesn’t take much skill, but what takes that Warden from good to great are the little things, the ability to create conversation that is pertinent and builds trust and communication between sportsmen and protector. Communication skills is also not just the ability to talk and converse with the public, but also the ability to actively listen and pick up on things that are shared from the hunter, fishermen or trapper.

We cannot be everywhere, and often these men and women may have seen or heard something that can be important to us. Trust is built in conversation and can often lead to sharing of

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Often times, when checking a fisherman for example out on the water, I am multi-tasking while keeping communication up with the fishermen. This includes going through compliance checks for boating safety equipment and licenses, all the while engaging in conversation about whether or where

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their camp is located on the lake. Most sportsmen understand that a Warden has a job to do and I have found that asking questions like “mind if I look in your cooler sir?” goes over a little better than “open up that cooler right now”.

I have seen when training new Wardens in my role as a Warden Training Officer, that newer Wardens who lack natural “people skills” or the effective communication skills I’m talking about, often times come off overbearing or too rigid and the public perceives these things immediately. I always try and show new Wardens that we always need to have our guard up as law enforcement and (Skills cont. pg 45)

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Skills (Cont. from pg 44) don’t overlook anything, but be “real”, professional and talk with them like you work with them, not against them.

Another important component of communication comes into play when a Warden has to interview a subject regarding a potential crime that was committed. The term “interviewing a suspect” often brings up pictures from Hollywood movies of two sharp dressed, detectives in a smoky, dimly lit, brick room where one detective is “good cop” and the other is “bad cop”. When a Warden interviews a subject regarding a potential violation, it is often very different. We are often meeting hunters and fishermen on neutral ground, being in the outdoors and have often investigated the scene of the crime and have what I refer

to as “cards” in my pocket, or physical evidence to use as leverage. In some ways interviewing in this form is like playing poker. Playing the right series of cards to get to the truth, which all too often is not readily told by the suspect.

Communication is important in everyday life.

The better the natural communicator that you are, the better you will be at a lot of things. It is a tool that can be practiced and learned but is something that comes easier to certain people.

Being honest, genuine, and upfront has served me well in my profession and is what I view as the most important skill in being a Game Warden.

Kale O’Leary is a Maine Game Warden who patrols the Oxbow district in Aroostook County. He lives in Ashland and can be reached at kale.oleary@ maine.gov

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Safety

(Cont. from pg 42) terproof boots, correct fitment with the proper socks is essential for warm, toasty toes! Keeping your ice trekking safe is a simple as putting ice spikes on your existing boots! If you

Page 45

are looking for an overall solution the Korkers Neo Actric boot with OmniTrax will keep your feet warm as well as your body upright on the ice!

Wishing you all a happy new year and a safe, fun ice fishing season!!!

and operates Twin Maple Outdoors guide service and sporting lodge located in Bradford.. He is a “Certified Yamaha G3 Guide” that runs fly and spin fishing trips with a G3 Jet boat and Stealthcraft drift boat. Rich also guides Maine Partridge, Turkey, Rich is a Registered Moose, Deer hunting and Maine Guide. He owns recreation adventures.

Cracker Barrel

by Homer Spit

Those Running Shots

To shoot or not to shoot, at a running deer, that is the question.

Every deer hunter, no doubt, has a different take on this question. As a younger deer hunter, taking a snapshot at a running whitetail was well within the parameters of my fair chase playbook. Today, not so much. My reflexes and vision are not what they once were. I am aware, too, that the odds of wounding deer generally increase with running shots. In fact, one of the reasons I now carry a single-shot, breech loading Ruger One .270 in the deer woods is precisely to limit my shot options to pretty much standing deer.

What about you? As a deer hunter where do you fall in the running-shot debate? Do you think that low-percentage running shots push the margins of fair chase?

Some deer hunters are just very good at running shots. They are in the minority, however. A few weeks ago in Colorado elk country, one of my campmates, who hunts unrelentingly and always shoots well, was taking a noon break at our campsite. He was “slippered up” and enjoying a cup of hot coffee. His handheld radio crackled, “Anyone at camp? Heads up. A big cow elk is headed full tilt down the creek right toward camp!”

Our man grabbed his rifle, stepped out of the aspen grove in his slippers and squinted into the sun up the creek. Sure enough! A cow elk moving fast and about to jump the creek at well over 300 yards. Pow! Pow! He put the elk down, swapped his slippers for some boots, and was field dressing the elk when we caught up with him. From that point on, he will always be known as the Slipper Shooter.

Our most fabled Maine trophy buck hunters clearly do not avoid running shots.

Insofar as I can tell, neither the Benoits nor the Berniers ever delved too deeply into the ethics of running shots, either in their seminars or in their writings. The late Dick Bernier wrote in The Deer Trackers,” I have always shot with a screw in and aperture and it has never prevented me from being able to locate running game.”

Big Woods trophy buck hunter Hal Blood, who talks as straight as he shoots, minces no words. In his book, Hunting Big Woods Bucks, he writes “If you don’t learn to to make running shots, you may not get many shots at Big Woods bucks.”

Blood says that over the years he has taken his fair share of running shots and has never wounded one – either it was a kill shot or a clean miss. Not a lot of hunters can say this, unfortunately.

Blood does not “lead” his running game. He pulls ahead on an opening and shoots when the deer passes the opening.

At the end of the day, the essence of hunting ethics is how the hunter feels about himself when he leaves the deer woods, all of which makes the running shot question a deeply personal choice. Whatever your ethical boundaries may be as a deer hunter, the most important priorities are to hunt safe, respect others -, hunters and non-hunters alike - and for gosh sakes, have fun and make some memories.

Homer Spit lives on a lake in Maine. He likes to keep a low profile.

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 46

The Tyer’s Corner

by Hugh Kelly, Detroit, ME

This month’s fly is over a hundred years old and was considered a “must have” for years. You don’t see it around much anymore but that doesn’t mean it stopped catching fish. In fact, no less authority than Mary Orvis Marbury included this fly in her book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. (If you’d like to read this book and others like it you can download it from Google Books free of charge). Queen of the Waters is a deadly fly with a unique hackle style called “palmered”- this is a great technique to know about.

palmered Wing – Teal

While you can use other hooks for this fly, I used a Mustad 3906, size 6. This is a heavy hook that will sink quicker than a dry fly hook and has a more traditional look to it. The floss body is burnt orange. But personally, I think this fly should be tied in a half dozen colors. Yellow, bright orange, olive, red and brown all come to mind. The palmered hackle rib is created with hen hackle. Rooster hackle will be too stiff for this fly; you want the fibers to sweep Recipe for the Queen of back toward the bend of the Waters the hook, so use softer hen Thread - Black hackle.

Hook – Standard wet, size Start by tying in the 6-12 floss for the body. The Body – Orange floss black thread will show Rib –Brown hen hackle, through wet floss so try

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January 2022

Queen Of The Waters

winding a white thread over the hook first. Another clever technique is to wrap a silver Mylar over the hook shank and then wrap on a floss body. The

measure this but I thought I’d mention it. Tie off the floss behind the eye and wind the hackle feather forward. Tie it off behind the eye. Use your fingers to

next step is important, tie in the hackle feather by the tip, not the butt. In this way, the hackle fibers get progressively longer as you wind it to the front of the body. Wrap the floss body first. The traditional method is to start the rear of the body directly above the midpoint of the hook point and the end of the barb. I don’t think the trout

roll back the hackle fibers so they are swept back and not sticking out from the body perpendicularly.

I feel this fly works well when it is not too bushy, in other words, spread out your hackle windings a bit.

Five or six wraps should be plenty.

The wing is either teal or mallard breast. I use teal a lot because I like

the darker barred markings but mallard works well and may be easier to find. There are a number of ways to set the wings on this fly and wet flies in general. The traditional method of carefully arched, swept wings looks good, especially in books and in display cases. I have nothing against taking the time to make a beautiful set of wings but I noticed pretty quickly that brook trout have teeth and they know how to use them. One fish can tear those wings up and leave you with a fly that has a barred wing, but not as neat as when it when you first tied it on the leader. I also learned pretty quickly that the more torn up a fly was, the better it fished. There are probably a couple of reasons for that but my point here is that you don’t have to struggle for a perfect wing on this fly. The easiest wing to make is called a rolled wing. Strip off some feather fibers from a teal or mallard breast feather and use your thumb and fore finger to roll the fibers into a wing of the thickness you want. Tie in the wing to be a little longer than the body, snip off the excess and form a head. Cast and retrieve until either you or the fish get tired.

Hugh Kelly has fly fished and tied his own flies for over 40 years. He and his family live in Detroit where he ties flies, drinks Moxie and plans fishing trips. He can be reached at hkellymaine@gmail.com and he writes a fly tying blog at puckerbrushflies. com

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Fly Tying Knots

Thread Knots- For attaching thread to the hook, start with the jam knot where the thread is applied about two eye lengths behind the hook eye and wound forward toward the eye with two wraps and then tightly wound back over itself toward the hook bend to a point vertically above the barb. Standard tying practice calls for wrapping the thread away

fly, the easiest knot to master is a simple half hitch which should be tied two or three times when completing the head. The whip finish can be used to form a nicely tapered head, the only downside being difficult to tie without a whip finishing tool. I prefer to tie it by hand however since it can be used in other situations where the tool can’t, such as tying off a tubular

tightly held. For the overwhelming majority of flies, tails are the very first to be tied on using the following standard materials.

Hackle fibers - are thin barbs that extend out from quills of individual hen or rooster feathers and are used for streamers, wet flies or nymphs that require heavier, softer barbs found near the base of the feather. They can be trimmed close to the quill or stroked down, keeping the tips aligned and easily

Page 47

Fly Fishing

by Joe Bertolaccini, Orrington, ME for tails.

Natural hairs – Consist of bucktail, calf tail, squirrel tail, woodchuck, black bear, fox and many other sources of solid natural hair. It is important to remember that they have naturally tapered tips which should not be trimmed when used for tails or wings, but placed

When thick tails or wings are required, it is better to tie them in several small bunches not larger than the width of a pencil. Many natural hairs contain short fibers or underfur which need to be combed out or otherwise removed prior to being tied on. When working with bucktail, it is best to use the longer, thinner

When finishing the fly, the easiest knot to master is a simple half hitch which should be tied two or three times when completing the head. The whip finish can be used to form a nicely tapered head, the only downside being difficult to tie without a whip finishing tool. from you over the top of the hook, which seems to be a more natural maneuver and consistent with traditional instruction.

The pinch wrap is used to attach materials so that they will remain where intended on the hook, usually on top. The material is placed on the hook shank with a firm grip of the thumb and index finger of your materials hand (left hand if you’re a righty).

The thread is brought up and pinched between the left thumb and forefinger, still holding the material tightly as the thread is pulled loosely over the top of the hook. The thread is then released from your thumb and forefinger as you make a vertical downward pullwhich reduces the tendency for materials being pushed to the sides of the hook. Several pinch wraps can be applied to ensure that the material stays where desired.

When finishing the

body at the bend of the hook as in the Joe’s Smelt fly pattern. Also there is one less gadget to keep track of. It is difficult to explain in writing how to tie the whip finish, so the best way to learn is through hands on instruction by an experienced tyer.

Application of materials – Once again, the most important thing to remember when tying on materials is to maintain a tight grip with the left thumb and forefinger throughout the entire process in combination with the pinch wrap described above. If the grip is loosened just a bit, materials will tend to flare or roll around the sides of the hook. This is especially important when more than one separate bunch of hair is needed in flies like the Mickey Finn and Black Nose Dace. Feather wing patterns including the Gray Ghost and Barnes Special will tend to splay in all directions if they are not

stripped off.

Marabou – Includes soft and fluffy insulating down-like feathers from turkeys or geese that have an attractive pulsating action in the water. They are used on patterns like the Wooly Bugger as well as wings for many popular streamer flies. Fibers from marabou feathers can be removed from their quills in the same manner as for hackle fibers when used

somewhat in alignment before being tied on. This can be accomplished by pulling out the longer hairs and repositioning them by eye so they will have a pleasing tapered look. Hair from squirrel tails are slippery and non-compressible, making it necessary to use several tight wraps to hold them in place. Hair butts should be coated with head cement before they are permanently tied down.

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hairs from the tip of the tail, lightly moistening, compressing them and aligning the tips prior to tying.

Next month we will focus on application of body materials.

Joe has enjoyed fly fishing for over 65 years.

His book, Fundamentals of Fly Fishing, is now available. He can be reached at: brewerberts@aol.com

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Page 48

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Kineo Currents

by Suzanne AuClair, Rockwood, ME

Every era has something that defines that particular time. What we know to be, changes. Same goes for the fishing. There was a time when fishermen here were most concerned over the decline of the native lake trout (togue) population in Moosehead Lake.

Not everyone likes the taste of this big fish, but at one time it was a sup-

Otis Bacon, then regional manager for the Kennebec Water Power Company, operator of the dams at the East and West outlets, at the head of the river on Moosehead Lake. During those days, it was possible to give these things a try without too much fanfare.

The togue were spawning in mid-October along the shoreline, but the water

Moosehead Togue, Trout & Salmon

also benefit brook trout and landlocked salmon, since drawing the water early also increases the length of flowing portions of the streams where trout and salmon bury their eggs.

Also during September, he noted that when the leaves die back, evaporation loss is decreased, so any rainfall causes an immediate increase in stream flows, unless the summer has been unusually dry.

Since the trees don’t need

The change in the management of the lake water levels, combined with an 18-inch length limit, eventually increased the numbers of togue that grew old enough to spawn, and allowed the eggs and young to flourish. per staple, enough so that when the population hit an all time low, fishermen complained, and wanted something done about it.

It took a while, but an answer came. Since togue spawn in shallow rocky areas around the shore, a gentlemen’s agreement was made between my late husband Roger AuClair, first fisheries biologist in the region, and

was being drawn down late into the year, after the spawning season, exposing the eggs. The agreement between the power company and IF&W was that the company would begin its drawdown a little earlier, so that by mid-October the water levels would be down enough to allow the fish to spawn on low water. Roger thought that the early drawdown would

Greenville

January 2022

the water as much as they did when leafed out, the lake level may not drop as much, until late fall or winter. He wrote that in some years, the lake would fill again with the late fall rains. These observations were made beginning in the late 1950s, with agreement to help the spawning in the early 1970s, now almost 50 years ago. But, the cycles of the seasons and of fish life cycles still hold true today. Today, the drawdown agreement, now formalized, still holds.

The effects of the change were not immediately seen, since togue can live for decades and are five or six years old before they are mature enough to spawn. The change in the management of the lake water levels, combined with an 18-inch length limit, eventually increased the numbers of togue that grew old enough to spawn, and allowed the eggs and young to flourish. The togue population boomed.

Flash forward. By the 2000s, fishermen worried over the salmon, which were long and skinny, and had a hard time competing for food. In addition, angling appetite had changed.

Fly-fishing for landlocked salmon had come into its own, catch-and-release enjoying unprecedented popularity. Salmon are not native to Moosehead Lake, but were introduced by federal program at the turn of the last century, as part of a universal stocking program popular at the time, long before much was known about wild vs. stocked fish.

Even so, records show that in the old days, wild brook trout and togue were still the preferred fish locally.

Today’s anglers expect salmon, and good, dancing ones, at that.

In 2008, to help bring the preferred game fish back into balance, current fisheries biologist Tim Obrey made a bold move. Instead of conserving togue, he recommended opening them up to unlimited catch or size for any under 18 inches. Locals also organized an annual winter fishing derby to bring in more anglers. These liberal regulations are estimated to have helped harvest

some 78,000 smaller togue over a two year period.

Since 2010, size and bag limits have been tightened again, and the togue, trout and salmon in Moosehead Lake are some of the best that have ever been seen in recorded history. Very fat and sassy.

Recent data has also indicated that togue spawn anywhere from mid to late October, so IF&W recommended in the 2014 relicensing agreement with the power company that the drawdown be modified to reflect this new data, which still protects spawning but leaves room for the company to have a more gradual fall drawdown.

The 15th Annual Moosehead Lake Togue Derby is being held this year Jan. 28-30. Should be a spectacular time.

Suzanne AuClair lives near Rockwood. She has been writing about the Moosehead Lake region for the past 27 years and produced “The Origins, Formation & History of Maine’s Inland Fisheries Division.” She is an award-winning member of the New England Outdoor Writers Assn.

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 49

Question Of The Month Sunday Hunting: Is There a Worthy Compromise?

By Josh Cottrell Sunday hunting in Maine. It is a popular topic among hunters, especially in the fall. Hunters feel like they are being robbed of a day to be in the woods hunting. Non-hunters believe they are preserving a day to be in the woods not worried about hunters. This topic has been hashed out many times. Why not delve into it again.

I’ve been an avid hunter all my life. Unfortunately I have also been a full time worker all of my life. This is the case for most people. In Maine that means Saturday hunting and maybe a week off if you are fortunate enough to have enough vacation time. I have always said that this is probably what has preserved my marriage.

My wife is fairly patient with my hunting but I am not sure that would be the case if I could hunt Sundays as well. Now that our children have grown I think it’s less of an issue. So I a may be seeking Sunday hunting a little harder.

As a lot of people know, Maine and Massachusetts are the only 2

states in the country that do not have some sort of Sunday hunting. I do believe that our law is antiquated and in need of some updating. It has been brought up many a time but has instantly been shot down. The large landowners of the North are not in favor. They believe that Sunday hunting will bring additional activity on the roads, causing more wear

a silly argument in that Hunting is one of the safest sports in the world. You are more likely to be injured hiking than to be injured by a hunter. However, we need to be respectful of others so we don’t push. I do spend a lot of time in the woods scouting on Sundays. I do this both locally in Central Maine as well as Northern Maine. In 40 years of hunting, I can count on one

expanded archery is popular, these two activities are done in the same areas.

I have watched hikers/ bikers go by many times while sitting in a treestand.

Heck, I remember when expanded first started I sat and watched people play tennis 75 yards away while hunting in Yarmouth. This just shows that people can share the woods without issue.

The argument from the opposing side is that they want a day to enjoy Maine woods without fear of hunters. This is actually a silly argument in that Hunting is one of the safest sports in the world. and tear. Additionally, The Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM) is strongly against hunting. They threaten that their members will post their land if Sunday hunting is allowed.

90% of Maine is privately owned, so without some support from these owners Sunday hunting will never happen. There needs to be some sort of compromise.

The argument from the opposing side is that they want a day to enjoy Maine woods without fear of hunters. This is actually

hand how many people I run into enjoying the Maine woods on Sundays. In my experience you find people on marked hiking/biking trails on Sundays. Very few people walk into an unmarked section of woods and wander around for enjoyment. I haven’t heard many people talk about the wonderful hike they took through a clearcut over the weekend. As you can see, I am painting the picture that hikers/hunters do not share the same woods typically. I understand this is different in populated areas where

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Maine has a wonderful law where if land is not posted it is open to hunting. Yes, you should ask permission, but it is not required. This is very rare, and we do not want to disturb this if possible. But I do believe that a landowner should be able to do whatever they want with their land. If a person owns land in Maine, the state should not be able to tell them they can’t hunt on their land on Sunday. In this same line of thought why couldn’t individual landowners allow hunting on their property

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on Sundays.

My proposition and the tack that I think we as hunters should get behind is Landowner written permission to hunt on Sundays. This should address the issues with the big landowners as they can decide if they want the additional revenue of hunters on Sundays. It also should satisfy SWOAM in that their members wouldn’t have to go through the time and expense of posting their land. I am sure that some hunters will bitch about having to get landowner permission or not being able to get landowner permission. I think that this is a small price to pay for the opportunity and a good compromise for all involved. I’m sure many have an opinion on this, so feel free to write into the Sporting Journal with them. Let’s work together to find a solution to this.

Josh Cottrell once wrote an archery column for the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He lives at Pushaw Lake.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 50

Vermont Ramblings

by Dennis Jensen, Vermont Well, let’s have a look back at what the year brought us in 2021.

One of the biggest highlights of 2021 came during the Vermont spring turkey season. While I did manage to tag a good bird, it was what my oldest son Dan achieved that really

our calls, not a single bird would venture any closer than 50 or 60 yards and then just watch. Another thing. The birds did not display. I have found, over the years, that jakes will display and, on some occasions, literally run into our decoys. Not these boys.

January 2022

2021: A Good Year

in the Vermont book as a record tom turkey.

My guess is that the big bird that Dan bagged had scared the wits out of these local jakes, to the point where they absolutely refused to take part in any “hen party” in that neck of the woods.

A back injury really put a hurting on any hope of striper fishing last summer and all I can do now is pray

My guess is that the big bird that Dan bagged had scared the wits out of these local jakes, to the point where they absolutely refused to take part in any “hen party” in that neck of the woods. made the season.

On the eighth day of the season, Dan was set up at the peak of the highest field, at the place where two pastures meet and a narrow break of trees separating the two fields. I was situated at a lower field perhaps 500 yards away.

But I should take the reader back a few days.

Dan and I both had several flocks of jake birds, six in one group, four in another and two birds of a feather.

While the birds came to

Anyway, I was situated in that lower field when, at about 8 a.m., I heard a single shot. From up Dan’s way. And, believe it or not, these are the words that went through my brain: Dan just shot the boss.

I waited for about an hour and then the mystery got the best of me. When I got to him, Dan held up what was clearly the boss: A 20 pound tom with a 10½-inch beard and spurs that measured 13/8 inches.

Dan’s bird will go down

that the injury — a spinal chord injury that has my left leg so troubled that I must walk with a cane.

Bow season was a bust as well. Still, I have a nice ground blind near my home and, at press time, rifle season is in full swing and we are trying to tag the first buck of the year.

Poker and deer hunting I have made the observation, in the past, that Texas Hold’em poker and deer hunting have a number of critical things

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Dan with his Vermont turkey. in common: Both require patience, study, confidence and, yes, luck.

So it came to pass that I traveled to Las Vegas in late October to fulfill a dream of two decades, to play in the World Series of Poker. I entered the WSOP $1,000 buy-in Seniors NoLimit Texas Hold’m Championship and, as it turned out, I did pretty darn well.

With 5,404 poker

players laying down $1,000 each and after three grueling days, several that went for 14 hours staring at cards and trying to survive the odds, I made it to the final table of eight players.

I finished in sixth place and came home with $120,000.

It should be noted that I knocked off at least one professional player and that, in the past, the most (2021 Cont. pg 52)

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Do Our Deer Have Covid?

Scientists now have evidence that Covid is evident in white tailed deer in some states.

Veterinarians at Pennsylvania State University have found the Covid infections in at least 30 percent

sor, New Hampshire Fish and Game said, “There have only been a handful of states that have tested for Covid in wild deer at this point and there are still many questions to be answered. That said, every

The USDA is collecting blood samples in whitetail deer and that more will be learned after this season. of deer tested across Iowa during 2020 according to a study just published.

I wanted to know what was happening in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine so I contacted biologists in the three state’s Fish and Game departments.

Director of Wildlife Mark Scott called me back about 5 p.m right after he got out of the woods and back to his vehicle. He explained that Vermont is doing some testing this deer season and will ramp up in the coming year, working with USDA to attempt to see if Covid is in the state and, if so, will it have an impact.

Deer project lead Nick Fortin pointed out that because testing is just underway, it’s unclear whether any deer here have had Covid. “The concern long-term is that the deer would be a reservoir for the virus.”

Dan Bergeron, the Game Programs Supervi-

state that I am aware of that has looked has found it (although at varying levels).

In light of these findings many states are now beginning to test deer.”

He added, “New Hampshire Fish and Game

is cooperating with USDA Wildlife Services, and Department Biologists have collected blood samples from deer over the past few weeks during our work at biological check stations.

These samples have yet to be tested and we can’t say anything for certain regard-

Page 51

Outdoors In Vermont

by Gary W. Moore, Bradford, VT studying Covid in deer but is monitoring the studies being done in other states according to DIF&W deer biologist Nathan Bieber.

When I spoke with

Bieber said they may have to reevaluate.

He told me he encourages hunters to take precautions when processing wild game by wearing gloves.

He added, for extra protec“There is no evidence that animals, tion, hunters could wear a including deer, are playing a significant mask if they’re near the role in the spread of Covid to people. respiratory tract of a deer Based on the available information, the they are dressing.

According to Ohio risk of animals spreading Covid to State University virolopeople is low.” gist Linda Said, they have ing the status of Covid in Bieber he told me they had detected the virus in deer our deer herd until we get no data yet as they have in Ohio as well as Iowa. the results back. We will done no testing but that it She says there are antibody be partnering with USDA is entirely possible there is (Covid cont. pg 52) again next year to collect some Covid in deer as there more samples to learn more is in so many other states. about the implications of He said the USDA Covid in wild deer. Again, is collecting blood samthese findings are all very ples and that more will be new and there is much still learned after this season.

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Page 52

2021

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Covid

(Cont. from pg 50)

(Cont. from pg 51)

money I ever won in a Hold’em tournament was $400.

So the year was a tough one for an older man who, for many months, has been walking with a cane.

But I will remember 2021 until the end of my days.

studies that suggest Covid infections are high in the midwest and east.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently completed a study that indicates that certain whitetailed deer populations in Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania were exposed to Covid.

APHIS collected a total of 481 samples between January2020 and March 2021 from Illinois, Michigan, New York, and

Dennis Jensen is the outdoor editor for the Rutland Herald and Barre Times Argus in Vermont and a freelance writer. Contact him at d.jensen62@yahoo. com

Pennsylvania. They detected Covid antibodies in 33 percent of those samples.

According to the USDA, although the results indicate that certain whitetailed deer populations in these States were exposed to Covid, they should not be extrapolated to represent the prevalence of Covid antibodies in the deer populations as a whole.

“There is no evidence that animals, including deer, are playing a significant role in the spread of Covid to people. Based on the available information, the risk of animals spreading Covid to people is low.”

January 2022

As an aside, I am happy that Scott and Fortin were out hunting when I called, that Bieber got his deer opening day and that Bergeron expressed envy as he was working and not in the woods. I believe it is important that the biologists responsible for wildlife management are hunters who get first hand experience to add to their scientific knowledge.

Syndicated columnist Gary W. Moore is a life long resident of Vermont and a former Commissioner of Fish and Game.

He may be reached by email at gwmoore1946@ icloud.com or at Box 454, Bradford, VT 05033.

News (Cont. from pg 14) for deer taken in the greater Fairfield area. A “Do Not Eat” advisory is a recommendation to not eat game harvested within a specified area issued in response to a possible health concern.

Why was the advisory issued?

The “Do Not Eat” advisory was issued due to

high levels of the chemical PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid) found in five of eight deer collected near Ohio Hill Road close to fields known to have high PFOS soil levels and high PFOS surface water levels.

In deer from the Ohio Hill area, PFOS levels in meat were approximately 40 parts per billion. PFOS levels were similar in a fawn, yearling, and adult animal.

These levels of PFOS in meat are high enough to warrant a recommendation to eat less than 2 to 3 meals per year.

PFOS levels were much lower in three other adult deer collected in different areas of Fairfield close to fields known to have PFOS in soil. Levels in these three deer were still high enough to recommend limits on eating meat. Out of an abundance of caution and because we currently only have test results on eight deer, the decision was made to extend a “Do Not Eat” advisory to all of the Fairfield area until additional sampling of deer for PFOS contamination is possible.

(News cont. pg 65)

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

The Vexing Vexilar

Page 53

Green Mountain Report

by Bradley Carleton, Charlotte, VT a curse because I obtained it by purchasing it when I should have been using the money for paying off an old debt – to that antagonist, Mr. Thayer. Recently

forgiven and start catching fish again. What it really all comes down to – and I must keep reminding myself of this – it’s not how many fish you catch. It’s how

What it really all comes down to, and I must keep reminding myself of this – it’s not how many fish you catch. It’s how many friends with whom you share a day on the ice.

The first month of the year is, for many people, a time to reflect on their progress or lack thereof.

When I sit and think about everything I wanted to accomplish in my lifetime or compare myself to others for their perceived success, it’s a rabbit hole that no cottontail hunter wants to slide down. To keep things in balance, I look at each season as one of opportunity and the chance that I might

just enjoy what life has to offer each season. I began learning to ice fish 35 years ago with my best friend, Ozzie, with whom I still fish every chance we get.

Each year, we add more equipment to our “equipment vortex.” Last year I finally managed to replace a Vexilar that had fallen off my sled a few years ago. I was sure that I was going to out-fish our favorite antagonist, our friend, Chris

Ozzie reminded me that we many friends with whom used to catch a lot of fish share a day on the ice. long before the addition Vermont’s loons are of that bedeviled piece of thriving with a record 109 Thayer. Chris loves to brag technology. So, my hope nesting pairs recorded in about his talent for fishing. is that by confessing this 2021, the highest since I hope he doesn’t read this character defect to you, my loon monitoring began in (Vexing cont. pg 59) because I’d never say it outdoor brethren, I may be directly to him, but he’s a better ice fisherman than I am. So, with my new Vexilar, I was planning to show him a thing or two.

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Page 54

New Hampshire Outdoors

Northwoods Sporting Journal

The Return of Sportman’s Shows

by Peter St. James, Warner, N.H. Yet another year of boundless outdoor opportunities and hopefully, more ammo. Actually, neither of those comments were sarcastic. They were intended to be more hopeful. But in these days of political interpretation, it’s probably wise to clarify before I’m accused of something.

Marking their return this year after a COVIDinduced absence are the slate of outdoor shows around the Northeast. The Yankee Sportsmen’s Classic will be back in Essex Jct., VT, the New England Fishing and Outdoor Expo in Boxborough, MA, the Springfield Sportsmen’s Show in Springfield, MA, the Fly Fish New Hampshire Show at the Double Tree Convention Center in Nashua on February

January 2022

26 and the NH Outdoor Expo, March 11-13 at the Hampshire Dome in Milford, NH. There are a couple of reasons to get excited about these shows. One, of course, is that they’re a nice mid-Winter break to remind us that there

to the state’s economy.

That’s 2.6% of the state’s GDP. Eight other states got a larger share of the GDP from the outdoors including Maine and Vermont.

So, outdoor recreation is big business. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

In the state, boating and fishing were up 41% in

Marking their return this year after a COVID-induced absence are the slate of outdoor shows around the Northeast. is light at the end of the snow tunnel and that we’ll be back, fishing, hunting, camping, OHRVing and boating before you know it.

The second reason to welcome these shows back is all about the money. (Isn’t everything?) The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis release a study back that said outdoor recreation in New Hampshire contributed $2.2 BILLION dollars

2020, RV camping showed a 14% increase and OHRV riding increased by 5%.

Sure, much of those increases were due to COVID. But while the pandemic may have gotten folks out there initially, hopefully, they like what they see and will stay out there. We’ve been doing it for years.

But, there’s another generation ready to follow in our footsteps. After all, New

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a car accident or 58 times more likely to be injured playing basketball than you are being involved with a firearm-related incident.

But, as we all know, even when confronted by facts, these myths and untruths die hard. We need to continue working on securing and maintaining access to these lands for us and the generations that follow. Winter’s a good time to start having those chats with landowners and local officials. I know it may cut into your other Winter activities but it’s time well-spent that could pay dividends down the road. Man…I’m beginning to sound like my parents.

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Hampshire’s percentage of the population over age 65 is 18.1%. That puts us ninth on the Top Ten list. The Number One state? Maine with 20.6% over 65.

There are some clouds on the horizon though. I’ve spoken with people who are noticing that more land around the state is being posted. Sadly, some of those decisions are based on unfounded stereotypes like it’s too dangerous to be in the woods during hunting season. I’m not sure who those folks are listening to but I hope whoever they’re listening to isn’t responsible for investing their retirement funds! Study after study has shown that what they’re afraid of is a myth.

In 2017 there were over 17 million hunters with firearms according to the NSGA (National Sporting Goods Association), and only 35 injuries occurred per 100,000 participants of which a vast majority were non-serious injuries.

So basically, you’re 130 times more likely to be injured playing football, 62 times more likely to die in

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Hard-Water Tips

Maine Tails

I used to believe that just like sardines, black licorice, country music, and Allen’s Coffee Brandy, New Englanders either love or hate ice fishing. In recent years, however, I’ve realized that my own thoughts on ice fishing have grown a bit more complex. No longer are the lines so clearly cut. Let me attempt to explain: Eventually, when the sportsman’s eyes grow strained at the fly tying vise, the hare woods have dried up, sea duck season has closed, and fireside stories need time to rekindle themselves, “cabin fever” sets in. Ice fishing has become a welcome antidote to this wintertime malady.

I’d rather fish in nearly any other manner than through the ice - and yet, I’d certainly rather fish, than not fish at all. During the winter months, the dedicated New England fisherman is left with an option to scratch the itch: bore a hole and lower a bait. So, as you can see dear reader, “love” is not an accurate verb to describe my relationship with ice fish-

January 2022

spent with friends, family, and the dogs - and so is eating. Consider bringing

By Jonah Paris, along a small propane grill Scarborough, ME and cast iron skillet. Breaking, but neither is “hate.” fast sandwiches, soup or However you may regard stew, venison steaks, and ice fishing, below are four sausage with onions are all tips to maximize your en- hard to beat. joyment on the hard-water Tip #2: Fish approthis season. priate tackle Many nostalgically Tip #1: Pack warm recall the days of assorted drinks and protein You might be sur- Eagle Claw snelled hooks prised at how many for- clipped to a shiny brass go warm drinks in favor snap swivel and tied diof soda, beer, and water. rectly to waxed trap line.

you rig leaders, appropriate hook size is crucial.

For example, using a size 1/0 baitholder is a good choice if one is targeting big bass, pickerel, and pike,

of time allows you to make deliberate decisions on hardware, maximize your time at the lake, and save your fingers the agony of fumbling with knots in sub-

I’d rather fish in nearly any other manner than through the ice - and yet, I’d certainly rather fish, than not fish at all.

Bringing water is important as dehydration - especially in cold weather - is a major concern, but few things can warm a person like a scorching thermos of coffee, hot chocolate, or black tea.

Ice fishing, contrary to popular belief, burns calories as the body attempts to maintain internal temperature. Just like at deer camp, eating well-planned, hot, home-cooked meals on the ice makes the day that much more enjoyable. Ice fishing is a pastime best

Perhaps a few split shots were added to keep the bait down, and a button to mark depth. There is nothing wrong with this humble approach, and the rigging described above has resulted in generations’ worth of success. However, many have opted to utilize newer technology, specifically long fluorocarbon leaders and octopus-style hooks; some of the “smarter” fish, big brown trout and salmon for example, seemingly require a stealthy approach.

Regardless of how

This small togue fell for a bucktail jig.

(Photo courtesy of Jonah Paris.) but would not be practical freezing temperatures. for panfish or trout. Match Tip #3: Get to the the hook to your bait size and target species. Gear lake early The angler is missing affects bait presentation, which then affects catch out on something special if (Tips cont. pg 66) rate. Rigging tackle ahead

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 57

Maine’s Oldest Buck Hunter

“I Can still shoot! And I didn’t get buck fever neither”. Those were the exact words that 100- year- old Bern Bulmer exclaimed to his proud grandson Rick Labbe, right after Rick loaded the 160 pound sixpointer into the truck.

Bern shot his first

back and tells me that he’s ready. I picked Bern up at 3:30 and we went to a spot that I have with a wooden blind that my wife Nancy and my daughters use from time to time. And they’ve taken some nice bucks out

up to the blind with my truck, so that Bern didn’t have to walk too far. And we settled in and talked about hunting. At about 5 o’clock two bucks came out into the meadow, about 100 yards from the blind.

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by David Willette, N. Adams, MA because I didn’t think that Bern could handle a bigger caliber,” Labbe said.

“You got him in the scope,” Labbe asked. “Yup, I can see them good,” replied Bern. Labbe answered

Labbe said. “You got him in the scope,” Labbe asked. “Yup, I can see them good,” replied Bern. deer, a doe when he was 16. That’s 84 years ago.

According to Rick Labbe, Bern has probably killed 25 deer or so. “He probably could’ve shot more deer, but he always had me with him in the deer woods,” Labbe said. “ We’d go up to his camp and Bern would hand me a box of .22’s and I’d go out and shoot them all off. It was great having Bern as a grandfather. We were always hunting rabbits and other small game.”

Bern joined the army and was stationed in Texas where he met his wife, who was half Indian. They settled in Snow Pond, living there first year there in a tent. A year later bern built their house where he still lives. Bern worked hard as a mechanic, (and as a watch repair man), all of his life for a local Ford dealership.

“Boy was he excited,” Labbe said. “I called him around noon and told him that I would pick him up around 3:30. Well, a half hour later Bern calls me

Bern Bulmer, Maine's oldest deer hunter at 100 with his buck. of it too,” Labbe said.

“I picked Bern up right at 3:30, and of course he’s raring to go. It took us a little bit to get to the spot and I had to pull right

We watched them for a while, to calm down Bern’s nerves a little,” Labbe said.

“Geez”, Bern said. “That’s a good one.”

“I brought my 22-250

about 150 yards into the tree-line and tumbled over.

“I watched it flop around a few times, but I knew that it was dead,” Labbe said.

They waited about ten more minutes and Rick went and got the truck to pick up Bern and drive over to the deer. Bern proclaimed those immortal words, “I can still shoot,” right after Labbe loaded the buck into the truck. On the way over to the checking station Bern said, “Boy I had a good time tonight, and I didn’t get buck fever neither.”

Maybe it took Bern Bulmer 84 years of deer hunting to get over a case of buck fever, but you have to admit, the man can still shoot. And let’s see how many of us can say that when we’re 100 years.

Congratulations Bern, you’re an inspiration to all of us youngsters. I cant wait to see the buck that you shoot next year.

back, “Well take the shot when you’re ready.” The 22-250 cracks and Bern David Willette is the says, “I think that I hit him author of the book “Coyote pretty good. His tail was Wars’. He can be contacted tucked.” The deer went at coyote wars@gmail.com

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Page 58

Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

parently he hadn’t seen, or winded me. He was chewing on something, then lowered his head to get more of it, whatever it was. When he picked his head up again, I had a bead behind his shoulder at about 30 yards. I wished it was closer, and I wished there was no brush between me and my target. Still, I’d waited for a chance all through the regular firearms season, and it had never come. Many, if not most seasons afford only one chance. Now, here it was.

Even though I’d just wiped the scope, it was still not entirely clear. Holding as steady as I could, I squeezed off a shot. The buck bolted, but I didn’t move. Most of the deer I’ve harvested have run some distance first. In any event, I had to reload. This is a good thing about muzzleloading. It gives your heartbeat a chance to slow down and your nerves a chance to settle.

After I was loaded, I waited another five minutes before walking. Reaching the place from where the buck made its first jump, I was astounded by how

I wish this tale, and this tail led somewhere better than it did, but the blood ran out, and the tracks took me into some of the worst walking I’ve ever experienced before or since. In those thickets, I remembered an old Jack Perkins trick–to push up my sleeves and walk open-armed through the evergreens. If the deer is still bleeding, you’ll find it on your arms. I didn’t.

My one chance that season came and went.

Was the problem the snow?

Or the brush deflecting the ball from my musket?

Nerves maybe? And did I learn anything? Well, I do use lens caps now, which are a great defense against foggy scopes. But other than that, I still go out in horrible weather, and I still wait for that one chance per season, which hasn’t come yet this year.

The Singing Maine Guide

by Randy Spencer, Grand Lake Stream, ME When I closed the cabin door quietly so as not to wake the wife, it was snowing heavily. Even though it was December, the temperature was warm enough for this to be a wet snow, meaning the flakes were larger. I could barely see the garage, a mere 40 feet away as I headed into the woods behind our log home.

There was some respite there from the whiteout, since the conifer canopy blocked a lot of snow from making it to the ground. As usual, I was wondering why a deer would be out in this mess when a soft, mossy bed under some jack pines or fir would certainly trump the soaking this fool hunter was going to get.

Once on the main trail, I stopped to check the scope on my muzzleloader (it was the first day of the only week open to

muzzleloading in District 19). Sure enough, it had fogged. I did the best I could to clean it with a bandana, but now that was wet, too. I’d try now to carry the gun so that the scope was somewhat protected.

Even though I’d just wiped the scope, it was still not entirely clear. Holding as steady as I could, I squeezed off a shot. The buck bolted, but I didn’t move….

When I was ready to take my next step on the trail, I heard a snap. I looked up the trail where it made a turn. On the left was some early successional growth, thin enough so that I could see the silhouette behind it of a stately buck with a majestic rack.

He seemed unfazed; ap-

One Chance far away he landed. Close to 20 feet! I know what 20 feet looks like because that’s the length of the Grand Laker Canoe I spend a good deal of my life in.

The next jump was shorter and there were drops of blood in between.

My heartbeat shifted gears again. I gazed forward at the path the buck had taken, but saw no brown. Within 60 yards, the jumps transitioned into a trot. The blood was still dropping, but not a lot. In this situation, it’s probably best to slow your pace, but it’s awfully hard to do. I might have even thought I had, but I most likely sped up instead.

I got one more look at what would have been the buck of my lifetime. It was at too great a distance to reliably shoot with a muzzleloader, and, oh yes, the scope was still foggy.

His body was facing away from me, but his head was turned all the way around, looking right at me. He didn’t look to be in much distress at all. I knew from wiser hunters than me, that a wounded deer will go to water, and in Grand Lake Stream, that’s always close at hand.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Vexing

(Cont. from pg 53) 1978, according to the VT F&W and Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE).

“Across Vermont, 77 loon nests produced 125 chicks this year, and 84 of those chicks survived through August,” said VCE wildlife biologist Eric Hanson. “We are very grateful to Eric Hanson and the many volunteers who help monitor Vermont’s nesting loons,” said F&W’s bird biologist, Doug Morin. “The loon has been the flagship species of our nongame work ever since the nongame tax checkoff and conservation license plate programs have been helping to fund these efforts.” “Vermont’s loon project is a tremendous success story,” added Morin. “It’s hard to believe that in 1983 there were only seven nesting pairs.”

Although the numbers have not been released yet, Vermont social media forums have been lit up with some extraordinary whitetails taken this past season.

I know that there are some forums that focus on how the VT F&W has made a mess of the seasons by adding Novice and Mentoring weekends, an extra muzzleloader season, a longer archery season, and allowing us to take four deer in total (with just one being a buck). But honestly, you can always find those who complain about the regulations. But it appears that science has rewarded us with a lot of bucks over 200 lbs. and some amazing racks this year. If you don’t believe me, check out Curtis Smiley’s page, Vermont Big Game Trophy Club on Facebook or Vermont Deer Hunting, or Vermont Deer Camp, all on Facebook. I

guess, it’s all a matter of perspective.

And still, there are those who tarnish the reputation of us all. Witness: Corey Martello, 37, from Jericho and Hunter Bessette, 24, from Northfield have been charged with taking deer by illegal means, taking deer in closed season, spotting, and locating wildlife, shooting from a motor vehicle, cocked crossbow in a motor vehicle, failure to stop for

a Game Warden, careless and negligent operation, and attempting to elude in connection with a poaching incident in Underhill. Several State Game Wardens were conducting a deer decoy operation through the late hours of Friday, November 12, in Underhill, in response to multiple complaints of poaching activity in the area. At approximately 11:40 p.m., a truck approached the location, came to a stop in the

Page 59

roadway and illuminated the deer decoy. Shortly after, a passenger fired a crossbow out the window of the truck and struck the deer decoy. Wardens attempted to stop the truck on scene, but it took off at a high rate of speed. Wardens pursued the vehicle for a short distance until they got the truck stopped. Martello and Bessette were both taken into custody without incident, released on conditions, and were scheduled

to appear in Chittenden Superior Court, to answer multiple fish and wildlife, traffic offenses and drug related charges. Shame on those who don’t represent the rest of us.

Bradley Carleton is the founder and Executive Director of www.sacredhunter.org which teaches the public respect and empathy through hunting and fishing.

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 60

Against The Current

by Bob Romano, Rangeley, ME As a young man, I read Hemingway and Steinbeck, Harrison and McGuane. Along the way, the fly-fishing raconteur, Richard Brautigan, brought tears to my eyes while the rabid environmentalist, Edward Abbey, had me

attempting, from time to time to tell a good story when returning home from the Rangeley Lakes Region of western Maine where my wife and I have owned a camp for nearly forty years. It is a part of the country that has not

There and Back Again

ue to dance upon their tails since being introduced in the latter part of the 1800s.

When we first purchased our cabin, I’d cast large streamers and weighted nymphs in a manic search for ever-larger fish.

I wore a vest with more fly

smelt, the region’s principal bait fish, leave the lakes to make their spawning run up the larger rivers, with brook trout and landlocked salmon following closely behind. In the latter days of September, the trout and salmon once again swim

boxes than Samuel Carter had little liver pills and a pack heavy with reels containing lines that sunk at different rates and clothing for the constantly changing northern New England weather. Such angling requires time on the water, especially after the spring thaw. This is when the

upriver, this time on their own spawning runs, providing a second opportunity to take fish measured in pounds rather than inches.

It goes without saying, this is when most anglers are on the water.

But there is another type of fishing that is productive from May when the

On the losing side of middle age, I now seek out those waters too small to gather serious attention from other anglers; those forgotten places. raising my fists in outrage.

In his thought-provoking book, Practice of the Wild, poet-turned-Buddhist, Gary Snyder, mused that “The wild requires…we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home.”

Over the years, I’ve followed the advice of the beat poet-turned-Buddhist,

changed much. The rivers, streams, and ponds surrounding our cabin are about the same as Johnny Danforth and Fred Baker found them when they decided to spend a winter hunting and trapping the land above Parmachenee Lake. The fish are still here.

On average, they are not as large as they once were, but a sixteen-inch native brook trout is not uncommon and landlocked salmon contin-

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January 2022

ice leaves the lakes through the end of September when our season concludes. One that can be employed on the many tannin-stained brooks that slip across the Canadian border, streams that bend and twist through balsam and spruce for mile after mile, some of them headwaters of those larger rivers where the majority of anglers continue their search for trophy fish.

Along these secret rills, I can cast to brook trout without coming upon another angler. To be sure, the fish here are diminutive compared to the trout in the big rivers, a few no larger than my pinkie, the largest fitting snuggly in the palm of a hand. In these narrow ribbons of water, under the shadows cast by a vast conifer forest, I’ve come to appreciate what Thoreau described as “…these jewels…these bright fluviatile flowers, made beautiful, the Lord only knows why, to swim there!”

On the losing side of middle age, I now seek out those waters too small to gather serious attention from other anglers; those forgotten places, where trout live out their secret lives in the lee of boulders, under the branches of spruce and pine, balsam and birch, or as they sometimes do, in a set of sunlit ripples. These are fish that have rarely heard the splash of an artificial fly.

This type of fishing requires the angler to heed the words of the legendary American naturalist, John Muir, who wrote, “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.”

(Again cont. pg 66)

January 2022

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Grizzly Bears

Like the proverbial mountain lion question in Maine, folks who live near the high country in western Colorado are asking:”Are the grizzlies back?”

As with the mountain lion in Maine, wildlife

do. Animal rights activists in Boulder and other liberal enclaves on the Eastern Slope are agitating to bring back the grizzly bear to the Colorado high country.

For obvious reasons, cattle ranchers, hunters,

the Colorado Rockies, if it hasn’t already. In just two years, the Yellowstone grizzly has expanded its home territory by 1,500 miles!

Recently, during a backpacking elk hunt in

Page 61

Outdoors In Maine

by V. Paul Reynolds, Ellsworth, ME bear pillaging in mid-day!

Tents, sleeping bags and sundry gear were all ripped to shreds by an aggressive bear.

We asked ourselves: “Would a Maine black bear

ters were my companions for the next three days.

As it turned out, bonechilling cold and an occasional coyote howl from across the drainage was the only adversary during three

He awakened the big bear from its nap.

The bear slapped the hunter’s bow out of his grip and begin chewing on Wiseman’s leg...

Coloradans are asking, "Are the grizzlies back?" officials in Colorado insist that the grizzly bear was officially ruled to be extinct in that state as of 1953. However, a grizzly popped up in the fall of 1979. Ed Wiseman, an outfitter, was bow hunting elk when he had an encounter.

He awakened the big bear from its nap. The bear slapped the hunter’s bow out of his grip and begin chewing on Wiseman’s leg. Amazingly enough, though badly mauled, the elk hunter managed to save himself by stabbing the bear repeatedly with one of his broadhead arrows. The bear died from its wounds and you can view the apex predator’s skeleton and hide at the Denver Museum of Science.

Colorado was once home to thousands of grizzly bears. Colorado wildlife officials are adamant: there are no plans to reintroduce these big bears in Colora-

and other interest groups want no part of a grizzly reintroduction program!

Not unlike the Grey Wolf, which is migrating into other western states from Montana and Yellowstone, it seems likely that the grizzly bear eventually will find its way back to

Colorado’s Rout National Forest, our group saw more bear tracks in the new snow than we had seen in 20 years of hunting the same area. During the hunt week, elk hunters camped above us returned from a day’s hunt to find their entire tent site destroyed by a brazen

be as bold?” A friend, who is a seasoned Colorado bear hunter, insists that this would not be out of character for a Colorado black bear looking for a free lunch. The friend also believes that an occasionally grizzly bear passes through Western Colorado.

After having punched my elk tag early in the 5-day hunt, I drew bearguard duty for the rest of the week at out tent site. A nearby loaded rifle and a warming campfire not far from my hanging elk quar-

days of bear guard duty.

The author is editor of the “Northwoods Sporting Journal.” He is also a Maine guide and host of a weekly radio program — “Maine Outdoors” — heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on “The Voice of Maine News - Talk Network.” He has authored three books; online purchase information is available at www. maineoutdoorpublications. com. or www.sportingjournal.com. Contact email — vpaulr@tds.net

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Page 62

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Anticosti

by Mark Cote, Rumford, ME Tomorrow is the beginning of the last week of deer season in Maine, and I am in a slump. I have put lots of time in the woods, but I haven’t seen anything that interests me. It is all a matter of timing, I know, but even the best of us can have a hard time fight-

sive head gear.

Just last week, Philippe Lachapelle, Operations Manager for Sepaq, got word that a thirteen point, twenty-six inch wide buck was taken by a hunter at Jupiter 30.

“You should have seen this deer!” Phil ex-

Losing mature deer and young fawns in the same year threw the herd off kilter for a while, but it seems to have corrected itself. ing discouragement. This week has a better chance of making the timing more likely with the rut in full swing. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully it will all come together.

Meanwhile, Anticosti island has seen the best hunting than it has seen for several years. Countless photos have been posted on Facebook group Anticosti Deer Hunters of beautiful mature bucks with impres-

claimed. “It had three drop tines and it looked like a two and a half year old moose! I told the guides there not to touch it until I got there. I wanted to personally cape it so it would be perfect!”

I have seen Phil’s work and I would consider him one of the best, not just on the island. He meticulously prepares trophy deer like a professional taxidermist would.

I asked him how the

January 2022

Anticosti: Big Bucks Taken season was going. Were they seeing an increase of deer after last season’s light hunt due to Covid, coupled with a mild winter?

Emphatically, Phil replied, “Yes! It has been a very good season. So far the snow has held off and there has been a lot of rain.

The deer are still able to feed easily. The longer the ground is bare, the better the chance they have to survive the winter. We have taken some really nice mature bucks with big racks.

It has been a long time not seeing them. Like I’ve been saying for the last few years, what I’ve called the “bubble” is finally gone!”

What he is referring to is, a few years ago there was a pretty substantial winter kill due to a long, harsh winter with high snow totals that lingered longer than average. Normal winters are tough enough as it is, but Mother Nature threw a few late season storms at them when they were most vulnerable. The stress was just too much to manage for young deer and run-down mature bucks that were not able to recover nutritionally after the rut. Losing mature deer and young fawns in the same year threw the herd off kilter for a while, but it seems to have corrected itself.

This time next week I will begin my annual trek to the island with my two youngest children, Katie and Andy, and five other close friends. After the teSend your letters to the Editor to: NWSJ P.O. Box 195 W. Enfield ME 04493

Brian Hobart / Jupiter Le Mer territory

Nicolas Charland / Chicotte territory

Philippe Bélair / Comoran territory dious job of packing, lining tuned…you’re bound to up Covid testing and other hear all about them in the requirements to cross the next edition of Northwoods border, it will be our turn Journal. to go to deer camp and For information about make more unforgettable a stay on Anticosti, call my hunting memories. Stay friends at the reservation desk at 1-800-463-0863.

Tell them Mark sent you!

As always, I welcome your comments at AnticostiMark@gmail.com or info@sportingjournal.com

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 64

Marsh Island Chronicles

by Matthew Dunlap, Old Town, ME The end of one year and the beginning of another gives the sportsman a chance to reflect a bit, then look forward to a lot more. This is especially true around the time of the Christmas season, when we recall wistfully the company of long-departed family members and friends and the joy those memories bring us.

I can remember those blustery, rainy fall days when I would lay in bed in the early morning and listen to the thump-thump-thump of far-distant waterfowlers off Western Bay on Mount

Desert Island. Eventually I’d click on a light and reach for a well-worn copy of the 1968 Shooter’s Bible and find myself shopping for goose guns and pump shotguns, and think some

January 2022

Until Next Year

other magical places.

I’ve gotten to hunt deer in Maine’s legendary cedar swamps, beech ridges, and in the thickets of ancient apple trees from longabandoned orchards. I’ve hunted bear in bogs and moose in Maine’s working forests, using a Penobscot birchbark call gifted to me by a tribal elder years ago.

trapline that the legendary Milton “Skip” Leach taught me how to lay out and maintain when I was just getting started.

This year I was able to get out more than in recent years, thanks to a change in my work life. I fixed up my boat trailer (at sixty-one years old, you might assume the warranty has run

While I didn’t get a trophy photo to put on the cover of this magazine, it was great. Sometimes we focus just enough on what we see and tag that we forget how restorative our excursions into the outdoors are. We simply need to do it. day.

Luckily for me, some day came soon enough.

I’ve hunted up and down the coast and along the Penobscot, St. George, and Kennebec Rivers, among

I’ve called in an aggressive tom turkey, fished for bass on a plug and brook trout on a two-weight rod, and caught many heavy sharks off Maine’s storied coast.

It all started with a small

STACYVILLE SHERMAN • SHERMAN MILLS

out on it) and so was able to get back on the Penobscot River for some fishing and scouting for duck hunting.

I got some bird hunting in and deer hunted more than the last two or three years combined.

While I didn’t get a trophy photo to put on the cover of this magazine, it was great. Sometimes we focus just enough on what we see and tag that we forget how restorative our excursions into the outdoors are. We simply need to do it.

Already the plans are being laid for next year. My brother-in-law is excited to take up duck hunting, and I’m looking forward to getting him on the river.

I may get a new bow, and have already started think-

ing of days to set aside to for fishing in the morning and breaking a few clays in the afternoon. At this writing, I’m already getting materials together to tie some dry flies for spring trout fishing, and I’ve been getting up in the pre-dawn hours before work to do that essential task.

Reflecting on all of these wonderful adventures, and in looking forward to the ones to come, I still take a break from time to time and browse through a Shooter’s Bible. While I have all the guns and other gear I need, I still lack everything I want. What I want most is to just plunge into the woods, unmindful of all daily demands and routines, and just go out and see what I can see.

While my three (!) anydeer permits went unfilled this year, with renewed effort and the renewal that the effort brings, I don’t have any doubt that my luck will change—next year. Just you wait.

Matt Dunlap is a sportsman from Old Town and is a periodic co-host on Maine Outdoors, heard statewide every Sunday night at 7:00 pm on WVOM 103.9 FM, WVQM 101.3 FM, and 1450 AM in Rockland.

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January 2022

News

(Cont. from pg 52) What are PFOS and PFAS? PFAS are humanmade chemicals that are resistant to heat, water, and oil. PFOS is one type of PFAS. For decades, PFAS have been used in industrial applications and consumer products such as carpeting, waterproof clothing, upholstery, food wrappings, personal care products, firefighting foams, and metal plating. PFAS have been found at low levels both in the environment and in the blood of the majority of the U.S. population. High levels have been found in some farm fields in Fairfield with a history of land application of biosolids.

High levels have also been found in well water near these fields and in some surface waters located on or near these fields.

PFAS do not easily break down in the environment and can persist in soils for a very long time.

They can also build up

Northwoods Sporting Journal over time in the blood and organs of wild game, fish, farm animals, and humans that are exposed to these chemicals through the food they eat and the water they drink. Studies of people who were exposed to PFAS have found links between the amount of chemicals in blood and increased cholesterol levels, decreased response to vaccines, increased liver enzymes, increased risk of high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia in pregnant women, and increased risk of kidney or testicular cancer.

Where is the area from which we should be avoiding eating deer?

The Fairfield “Do Not Eat” advisory area begins at the Carter Memorial Bridge in Waterville where Route 137 crosses the Kennebec, heads north up the Kennebec River past Waterville and Skowhegan, to the Eugene Cole Bridge in Norridgewock (Route 8 and 201A), then south from Norridgewock along Route 8 into Smithfield to

the intersection of Routes 8 and 137, then south on Route 137 until it crosses the Kennebec River on the Carter Memorial Bridge.

Why such a large advisory area?

Deer with high PFOS levels were taken on Ohio Hill Road close to fields with high PFOS soil levels and some surface waters with high PFOS levels. Deer usually travel about one to one and a half miles but may travel farther in some circumstances. A MDIFW deer study showed that collared deer may travel up to five miles for seasonal migration. The “Do Not Eat” advisory extends to about five miles around the Ohio Hill Road area following easily recognizable roads and landscape features to provide an extra measure of protection for hunters and their families. The Kennebec River is a significant barrier to daily deer movements, so the advisory does not currently extend east of the river.

What parts of the deer

are safe for me to eat?

None. Do not eat any deer meat or organs taken from within the identified area for the “Do Not Eat” advisory.

Can’t I just cook it to get rid of the PFOS or trim away the fat?

No. You cannot get rid of PFOS by cooking the meat or organs. PFOS is mostly in the meat rather than the fat.

How long will the “Do Not Eat” advisory be in place?

It is unknown how long the advisory will be in place. We don’t have enough information on how deer are exposed to PFAS. Fields with a history of biosolids application still have high levels of PFAS in the soil and some surface waters many years after the last application.

Why did the state test deer in this area?

The MDIFW tested deer in Fairfield areas after consultation with MECDC and Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MEDEP). The initial col-

Page 65 lection of eight deer by MDIFW targeted areas known to have among the highest soil PFOS levels measured in Fairfield. Deer were collected in late October and test results only just became available to MDIFW and MECDC in late November.

Very little scientific information is available on PFAS in whitetail deer. The State of Michigan issued a similar “Do Not Eat” advisory in response to sampling deer near a marsh area contaminated with PFAS. The states of Wisconsin and New Hampshire issued “Do Not Eat” advisories for deer liver based on recent deer sampling.

What animals have been tested for PFAS? To date, only deer and fish have been sampled for PFAS by the state for the purposes of determining if they are safe to eat.

MDIFW will be developing a more expansive sampling plan over the coming weeks to further refine the advisory area.

Northwoods Sporting Journal Offers A FREE DIGITAL COPY to All Active Duty Military Personnel Worldwide!

E CTIV A O Y ET FRE ILITAR M

In these troubled and divisive times for our country, we at the Northwoods Sporting Journal remain proud to be Americans. We still stand for the National Anthem and thank our lucky stars that we live in the land of the free.

And we still salute our military men and women, who have served and continue to serve their country, here at home and in faraway lands. To them we owe our gratitude and appreciation for what they do, and for safeguarding our American way of life, which we value deeply.

As a way of saying thank you, we make the digital versions of the Northwoods Sporting Journal past and current - available online to service people around the world. If you have a loved one or friend now serving on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else, please let them know that they have free access to our digital magazines at: www.sportingjournal.com

Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 66

Again

(Cont. from pg 60) No longer do I feel compelled to wing heavy nymphs past my ear, or make sixty-foot casts until my shoulder aches. Instead, I carry a single metal tin that fits nicely in the pocket of my canvas shirt. Once holding cough drops, these days it contains a handful of flies. For fishing upstream, there are pheasant-tail patterns, ones with parachute wings, and perhaps a few elk hair caddis accompanied by fixed-winged and soft-hackled hare’s ear wet flies if working down.

While casting a rod constructed of cane by the Pennsylvania rod maker, the late George Maurer, my mind is free to be in

the moment, perhaps even to stop time, if only for an instant, as a six-inch brook trout slips from my moist fingers back into the cool current.

With less distraction, this uncomplicated method of fishing allows me to enjoy the creatures found along the edges of running water—the colorful flash of a tiny warbler or the song of the secretive thrush.

I’ll catch myself smiling at the splash of a frog or while staring into the eyes of a bashful toad. Along the way, I’ve seen otters, mink, and beaver and even the occasional deer, black bear, and moose that have lumbered down out of the forest.

Our time in western Maine remains an escape

from the madding pace of modern life. It has allowed me to trod a trail less traveled—the one alongside a stream with brook trout willing to play tag with a bit of feather and fur—and return to tell a tale or two.

Tips (Cont. from pg 56) they are on their way to the lake (or still in bed) when the pre-dawn pink glow hits the ice. Sunrise over a frozen lake, especially following a cold, still, starry night is something to savor.

If one is missing the sunrise, they are probably also missing an epic bite. First light is a prime time for targeting coldwater game

January 2022

fish, as well as crappie and perch. I’ve found that if the flags are going to pop on any given day, they will do so most steadily during the first hour of daylight.

Tip #4: Invest in a sonar machine and jig rods If you have never jigged through the ice using a sonar machine (flasher, fish finder, etc.), a unique “game” awaits you. A sonar machine shifts the whole dynamic of ice fishing. Instead of waiting for fish to swim by the hole, you can actively search them out.

Once you “mark” a fish, the game becomes interactive. You have to “read” the fish and coax it into biting.

Based on the response of the “mark,” you might have to alter your jigging technique or speed, your position in the water column, or the bait itself. In my opinion, the fun, challenge, and especially the frustration, of ice fishing are all amplified when you leave the traps at home and grab your machine and jig rod instead.

Jonah Paris teaches English at a small high school in Southwestern Maine. A four-season outdoorsman, Jonah lives in Gorham, ME with his girlfriend, Ashley, and beagle, Aurora. Jonah can be reached at jonaheparis@ gmail.com

BEST SHOT

Bruce Spaulding of Belfast passes the time in his deer blind with the Northwoods Sporting Journal.

Across

1. Chain pickerel source near Portland sounds gooey 5. --- Goose 8. Very short Naples river connecting Long Lake and Brandy Pond 9. --- Setter, a gundog 10. Stilt ---, a small shorebird 13. --- Dame Mountains 14. Onsite fish store 15. Essential equipment on 4 Down’s products

Down

1. Reservoir source of white perch and smallmouth bass off State Route 11 2. Bracco ---, a hunting dog 3. Piscataquis river and pond chain near Shawtown Township 4. Sporting gun maker 6. Poland source of white perch 7. Common ---, which feeds mainly on cattail 11. Rain or ski, they should keep your legs warm and dry 12. --- Blue Heron (Crossword answers on page 68)

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

January 2022

Page 67

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Lakeville- 52 acre lot with rustic cabin sits at the top of the hill offering breathtaking 180 degree views of area lakes & hills. ATVing & snowmobiling are at your door step on Vista View. Set it up for solar and live here year round. $89,000

Grand Falls- This cabin was landed on this lot two years ago and ready to finish off and use. This 41 acre lot sits high on a hill with great views on Lord Brook Rd. ATV and snowsled from this location. Take a look. $79,000

Prentiss TWP- Sitting on 43 acres in a nice wildlife area, the cabin has been lived in, year round, the past few years right on Rosewood Haven. Put the work into removing the mold, put down a floor & turn this into a nice, little hunting cabin. $49,900

Mattamiscontis TWP- Nice 2 plus acre lot on the Penobscot River. Driveway has been installed.

Enjoy all this water front lot has to offer. $39,900 Mattamiscontis TWP- Nice 2 plus acre lot on the Penobscot River. The lot has a driveway installed. Enjoy all this lot has to offer. $39,900 Carroll PLT- This lot was recently selectively harvested. Driveway in place, a year round road, electric available & a small Tolman Brook at one edge- its too good to pass by. POSSIBLE OWNER FINANCING!! Come look today. $39,000 Lincoln- Nice year round waterfront lot on Folsom Pond. There is a informal road association that has maintained the road. Electricity is at the street. Take a look today. $67,500

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

Page 68

January 2022

CROSSWORD ANSWERS (From pg 66) Across: 1 Sticky River, 5 Brant, 8 Chute, 9 Irish, 10 Sandpiper, 13 Notre, 14 Keepnet, 15 Sight. Down: 1 Seboeis Lake, 2 Italiano, 3 Roach, 4 Ruger, 6 Tripp Pond, 7 Muskrat, 11 Pants, 12 Great.

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#8440-Madison; 0.25 acre, intown lot all ready for your mobile home or new construction.

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January 2022 SELLERS LANE

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Northwoods Sporting Journal

REAL ESTATE

Page 69

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Houlton Office 207-532-4500 Hermon Office 207-605-0556 Scot Walker, Broker

P.O. Box 628 Main Street Machias, ME 04654

SUNRISE REALTY

EAST MACHIAS:This 6.28 acre lot is located on 191 in Jacksonville and connects to the Jacksonville Campground. There used to be a trailer on the lot so there is a spring and septic on the lot.

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MICHIASPORT: This lot is ready for someone to build their dream home on as there is a septic and well already on the lot. If you like looking at the water then this is the place for you with great views across Sanborn Cove. Also just a short drive to get to beautiful Jasper Beach where you can just relax and listen to the waves rolling over the rocks and when you get tired of that you can go to your home and enjoy your own views. A great price for such a beautiful spot. $95,000.

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Steve Johnson ~ Broker Northern Star RES. 207-316-5631

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