The slate is clean as we start another year anew. Nobody knows what lies ahead, even as friends and family offer seasonal salutations that wish us well. As we look ahead with hopeful expectations, it doesn’t hurt to check the back track. For the Maine sportsmen and women, 2017 was, like most years, marked by […]
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Outdoors in Maine: Ice safety requires knowledge and caution
Each year about this time, the Maine Warden Service urges us to use extreme caution before venturing out onto any ice that may be covering Maine’s waterways. This is timely advice. Two winters ago, three night-time snowsledders all perished in one night on Rangeley Lake when they and their machines broke through thin ice. This […]
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Outdoors in Maine: The curious case of Emerald Shiners
The tired old joke goes like this: “How can you tell the difference between a partridge and a grouse?” You know the answer, right? If it’s shot on the ground, it’s a partridge; if it is shot on the wing, it is a grouse. Well, now there is a new twist along the language line […]
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Outdoors in Maine: Is closing caribou hunting in Canada political or biological?
Given the fact that the native communities in Quebec and Labrador apparently have not had their caribou harvest quotas decreased by government closures, some are questioning whether the sport hunting ban is as much political as it is biological. Starting the first of next year, the sport hunting of migratory caribou will be indefinitely suspended […]
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Outdoors in Maine: A success story of the 'comeback' variety
When it comes to the quality of the sport fishery, once-fabled fishing lakes like Branch Lake, Green Lake and Beech Hill Pond have had their ups and downs. When I was a kid, Branch Lake was a red hot game fishery. Beech Hill gave up a record lake trout that has never been bested. In […]
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Outdoors in Maine: Giving gifts for the sportsmen
Sportsmen love their toys. Of course, they prefer to consider these toys as indispensable tools for the outdoors. Sometimes the best gift one can give to an outdoorsman is a tool or device that he might not either think to buy for himself or feel comfortable buying. For example, my late mother-in-law always had an […]
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Outdoors in Maine: The low-budget elk hunt
Author’s note: This is part three of a three-part column series about my recent Colorado elk hunt. Let me be up front: Even a low-budget elk hunt involves expense. But if you are one of the many deer hunters who have dreamed about an elk hunt in the Western US, it may be within your […]
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Elk hunt, part 2: The trail food search
Author’s note: This is part two of a three part column series about my fall elk hunt to Colorado. Over the years, in pursuit of elk, my sons and I have made a number of backpacking hunts into the Routt National Forest in Western Colorado. There is a lot of careful preparation for trips of […]
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Outdoors in Maine: Hillary, the horse with an attitude
Half way down the mountain a creek crosses the road. Approaching the creek, I could tell that the dirt-covered ice was making this horse skittish. At the creek’s edge, Hillary put on the brakes. Author’s note: This is part one of a three-part column series about my recent elk hunt in Colorado. Not until I […]
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Outdoors in Maine: A visit to Nine Mile Bridge
This abandoned steam shovel rests in the woods not far from where Nine Mile Bridge once spanned the St. John River. (Photo by V. Paul Reynolds) Although Henry David Thoreau’s book about his venture into the Maine north woods, “The Maine Woods,” is one the well-known books of its genre, “Nine Mile Bridge,” by Helen […]