September serves up several seasonal attractions

Like teal tumbling into decoys, September’s flock of announcements arrives quickly and without warning. So, allowing that we’ll be looking at this month’s tailfeathers all too quickly, let’s draw a bead on a couple of forthcoming events important to outdoors addicts.

Now that the first shots of the 1998 hunting season have been fired, the dates of the Bangor Gun Show, Sept. 11-13, are timely and appropriate. Established by Bangor Daily News Charities 20 years ago, the popular show that is now the property of the Penobscot County Conservation Associaheld, as always, at the Bangor Auditorium.

Word from PCCA president Charlie Rumsey is that more than 90 gun dealers from all corners of the country have reserved tables. The show’s “starting gun” is a dinner and preview for dealers on Friday evening. The doors will open to the public 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets – adults $5, NRA members and law-enforcement officers $4, no charge for children under 12 accompanied by an adult – can be purchased at the door.

If you’re in the enviable position of replacing a deer rifle that’s shot loose or, perhaps, looking to trade a couple of guns and most of the Christmas Club money for a smooth-handling 20-gauge L.C. Smith or Parker, rest assured you won’t regret taking the trail leading to the Bangor Gun Show.

Speaking of guns, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation – and in spite of the anti-gun efforts of Bill Clinton and his congressional clones – interest in the shooting sports, including hunting, has increased significantly among women. And that, kind reader, is a magnum charge of good news for gun owners. You can bet your moose permit that the verbal volleys will be fast, furious, and on target when women take aim at protecting the besieged Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Considering the mayhem common to metropolitan areas nowadays, it’s understandable that rank-and-file city dwellers believe the only reason for owning a gun is to commit a violent crime. But to penalize responsible, law-abiding sportsmen and gun owners nationwide for the acts of incorrigible criminals and a few deranged individuals is unconscionable and unreasonable. Blaming guns for crimes is like blaming cameras for pornography – or Clinton blaming Ken Starr for turning the presidency into a parody of a soap opera.

Make no mistake about it, “Slick Willie,” the most anti-gun president this nation has ever produced, and congressional members of his stripe have their sights set on banning private ownership of guns in this country. And don’t for a second think they’re shooting blanks: On Dec. 1, the Clinton administration intends to impose, via the Brady Law, a national gun tax and gun registration on the American people. To avert that, the nation’s 65 million gun owners must put their collective political clout on the firing line by contacting their congressional delegations. Remember, gun-owner apathy is the anti-gun crowd’s greatest asset.

As for the notion that access to guns increases the incidence of violent crimes: with the possible exception of Alaska, Maine has the highest gun ownership, per capita, in this country – and one of the lowest crime rates. Go figure.

If you’ve ever thought about making a serious stab at being in two places at the same time, Sept. 12 would be the day to do it. Aside from the Bangor Gun Show, on that date you can make tracks to the Fish and Wildlife Expo and Forestry Fair. Co-sponsored by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Small Woodland Owners’ Association of Maine, the 9 a.m.-3 p.m. event will be held at the Leonard’s Mills Forest and Logging Museum on Route 178 in Bradley.

You may know the Leonard’s Mills museum is a replica of a 19th century logging camp. Among its many exhibits are a water-powered sawmill, blacksmith shop, logging tools, and a raft of lumbering artifacts from Maine’s storied era of tall trees and tough men.

Understand, however, that the word “museum” will take on a different meaning during the expo and fair. Accordingly, demonstrations, tours, displays, and information on a variety of subjects will be offered by the DIFW and SWOAM. Members of the department’s Game Warden Dive Team, for example, will be on hand to demonstrate their equipment and involvement in search-and-rescue operations. Likewise, wardens, biologists, and other DIFW personnel will explain law enforcement and regulatory procedures, hunter safety, landowner relations, fisheries- and wildlife-management programs, not to mention the many inconspicuous ways in which the department serves Maine’s outdoors-oriented people.

A stop at SWOAM’s tent will put you in touch with more than 20 organizations that provide information regarding ice storm relief, taxes, woodland management practices and low-impact forestry. To perpetuate Maine’s rich logging history, the forestry fair will offer demonstrations of how logs were “twitched out” of the woods with horses, the uses of traditional logging tools and equipment, plus homemade devices created by observant and innovative woodsmen. Tours of the adjacent Penobscot Experimental Forest, highlighting 40 years of forestry research, also are scheduled.

In addition to there being no gate fee for this increasingly popular outdoors event, door prizes and a raffle will be drawn throughout the day. Judging from the educational aspects of the expo-fair alone, though, I’d say you couldn’t walk away without winning.

Like September, the Bangor Gun Show and Leonard Mills Fair are signals that summer has officially ended. But the first month ending in “ber” also announces the arrival of hunting season. Bear hunting and the expanded archery season for deer are now under way and, come Tuesday’s dawn, Maine’s special Canada goose season will take wing.

Feel the fall.

Tom Hennessey’s column can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at: www.bangornews.com.