Midweek Mail: One of the most enjoyable aspects of this job is the mail from outdoor addicts across the state. For the most part, their views, opinions, questions, and suggestions express genuine concern for the conservation of Maine’s fish and wildlife resources and the natural environment that is the state’s greatest economic asset.

Accordingly, Carl Ripley of Waite spent 29 cents to relay his thoughts regarding the growing controversy attendant to ice fishing and driving vehicles onto the ice: “I say leave the five-trap limit alone,” wrote Carl. “Ninety percent of the ice fishermen set up their traps in one spot and leave them for the day, whereas the summer angler can use two rods and cover the entire lake.

“I feel the real solution to help curb overflow of ice fishing is to prohibit cars and trucks from going on the ice (this would eliminate the problem of going through the ice). The way it is now, people can drive to remote places and onto the lakes as we have so little snow these days. A vehicle with two adults and four kids will drive onto the lake and set up 30 traps, which they are entitled to. However, as the wardens will tell you, how can you legally check whose traps are being tended by whom when some kids are so small they can’t tend them – yet they are entitled to five traps.

“It doesn’t take many parties like this to cover the lakes. If we eliminate cars and trucks on the lakes it will lessen the glut that we have now. True, it’s convenient to load your duffel into the truck and drive directly where you wish to go, but the true sport and fisherman will load his stuff on his toboggan and take his snowmobile and go.”

Enclosed in Carl’s letter were three photographs of a doe that coyotes killed after running it onto the ice at West Musquash Lake. I assure you, those photos are gruesome testimony to the horrible death a deer suffers as, literally, it is ripped and torn open by slashing canine teeth. But in spite of that, the photos have educational value in that they are evidence of the brutally harsh and violent realities of nature. Yet, if one appeared in this newspaper, there wouldn’t be space enough to accommodate the letters of protest from the emotional, everything-is-beautiful believers.

“Who says coyotes don’t kill deer?” Ripley concluded. “They chased this poor doe nearly a mile before killing her. The carcass was still warm when we found it.”

The response to recent columns mentioning hunting pressure on eider duck populations has been steady. You may remember those columns drew a bead on the liberal daily bag limit of eiders (seven per hunter) and the final disposition of the sea ducks.

Read now the words of a veteran coastal gunner from Jonesport, Captain Barna Norton: “…After reading your column about eider ducks, I have to agree with you 100 percent. Perhaps there are other things besides hunters that are thinning their ranks – harvesting of periwinkles, mussels, and the dragging of the sea bottom, but the hunters are on the front line. They have always responded to a bad condition in a responsible way.

“I agree the bag limit of seven is too high now. I think two ducks per person and one for the dog would be about right. If we had to go any lower than that it would be best to close the season.

“I think the black ducks have made a great recovery. I have just fed 240 or so in front of my house. I do this only when the weather freezes the flats and they have nothing to eat. We should allow the dog one `black’ too. Without a good dog some wounded ducks escape the hunters, but most of them don’t count cripples as part of their limit.”

It’s always good to hear from Cap’n Barna, who, in his guiding days, knew every black duck in Alley Bay, Eastern Bay, and beyond by its first name.

When I received Dana Holbrook’s letter, the steam was rising from it like sea smoke. Suffice it to say, the South Brooksville lobsterman and life-long eider duck hunter isn’t pleased with the arrival of guided hunts in the Eggemoggin Reach area: “…Up until the last three years, I hardly missed a Saturday of being hunched up on a ledge or island point off South Brooksville or on one of my favorite perches off Sunshine (Deer Isle). This covers 23 consecutive seasons. It was nothing to see 500 to 1000 eiders each trip out, plus we hardly ever saw another gunner.”

In no uncertain words, Dana attributes the area’s decline in eider ducks to the day-after-day pressure of guided hunts and predation by black-backed gulls. “Whatever birds weren’t shot,” he wrote, “were driven to hell out of this bay by guided hunts.” In reference to gulls: “Since they’ve closed the dumps in some of our coastal towns, the `black-backs’ have moved out to the bay. Come spring, they just massacre the young eiders. They even attack the nests before the eggs are hatched. I witness this personally while hauling traps around eider-nesting islands.”

The most disgusting part of Dana’s letter, however, was his description of finding eider ducks on the Deer Isle dump. There, you have wanton waste; and there you have my greatest concern in regard to the increasing interest in eider duck hunting – not so much the amount of ducks shot, but the amount wasted.

Judging from those letters, I’m sure you’ll agree that people who poke around in the outdoors are an interesting and observant group.