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 […]
outdoors in maine
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
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 […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
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 […]
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Outdoors in Maine: The moose hunt
For many Maine moose hunters lucky enough to get drawn, a moose permit is a once-in-a-lifetime affair. Such was the case with my middle-aged friend Greg Goodman, who has been trying for that permit since he was a young man. Knowing that I had had some experience in the moose woods (and perhaps that I […]
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Outdoors in Maine: Bird hunters: Stay safe, wear orange
It probably should please me that in more than 50 years of upland bird hunting and big game hunting, I have been shot only twice: once, long ago, while duck hunting at Merrymeeting Bay, I took a BB shower from another hunter across the water; later, while fussing with my lawnmower behind my Hampden home […]