Discussing bears, bass keep sportsmen busy

In saying this business of outdoors writing can be hazardous to one’s health, understand that I’m not referring to accidents and mishaps that may occur while hunting and fishing for column fodder. To the contrary, the hazards are clubhouses, grange halls, community centers, camps and the like where meals served at sportsmen’s breakfasts, lunches, dinners, suppers, banquets and the like are flavorful, plentiful and fattening. Making matters worse is that practically every month on a rod-and-gun scribe’s calendar has at least a couple of club dates circled and marked, “dinner meeting.” With that it can be said that an outdoors writer who has a weight problem or a troublesome gall bladder or perhaps a hiatal hernia or high cholesterol should be compensated with hazardous-duty pay.

I got to thinking about that after digesting the month of May. It began with the Penobscot Salmon Club’s annual “opening day” breakfast of ham and eggs, baked beans, home fries, biscuits, doughnuts and coffee. A week later, I stretched my belt with more of the same belly timber served at the Veazie Salmon Club’s breakfast. Then came the Bucks Mills Rod and Gun Club’s annual Warden’s Night dinner on May 21, where, without exaggeration, the kitchen crew put on a roast beef dinner that would convert a vegetarian.

No sooner had the dust from that soiree settled when I set a course for the Airline Snack Bar in Beddington. There, a buffet dinner to benefit the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine’s campaign to defeat the forthcoming bear referendum was held on May 22. Owing to the ambrosial offerings, it was obvious that few people in the serving line were counting calories. However, when the money was counted, a check for $1,000 was placed on SAM’s plate. Seeing that as cause for celebration, I topped off my meal with a piece of graham cracker pie no less than three inches thick.

Fortunately, I don’t have to count calories and carbohydrates. With my appetite, I’d be as voracious as a sow bear with new-born cubs if I had to measure what I ate. Additionally, thanks to my forgiving genetics I’m not concerned about cholesterol. Food, however, isn’t all that’s served at the all-you-can-eat events sponsored by sportsmen’s clubs and organizations. The reference, of course, is to the generous helpings of information offered at such gatherings. Therefore, when I sit down to a table lined with guides, game wardens, biologists and outdoors addicts of all descriptions, I pay close attention to the dinner conversation.

Such was the case a couple of weeks ago at the Bucks Mills Rod and Gun Club’s food-fest, where, not surprisingly, the bear referendum was discussed in depth and with deserved disdain. Practically all of the wardens at the dinner had responded to bear complaints this spring. Moreover, some of the situations they described confirmed my belief that it would be only a matter of time before a marauding bruin mauled or killed someone hereabouts.

Although the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is publicly opposed to the bear referendum, policy doesn’t allow wardens or wildlife biologists to publicize their opinions on the controversial initiative. Biologists are permitted to provide scientific information to the public but wardens may speak only in accordance with the DIF&W’s position statement. There’s nothing stopping me, though, from expressing my opinion that the referendum, which will prohibit bear trapping, baiting and hunting with hounds if enacted, is aimed at crippling Maine’s symbolic hunting heritage. And wouldn’t that be an impressive feather in the hats of the Humane Society of the United States and Fund for Animals, the national anti-hunting organizations funding the referendum. The publicly proclaimed goal of both organizations is to ban all hunting and trapping, nationwide. Moreover, if the anti-hunting initiative is successful, it will deprive DIF&W of its only effective means of managing Maine’s bear population.

From the beginning of this anti-hunting absurdity it has been clear that the defeat of the referendum will depend largely on providing the public with information regarding bears and bear hunting. A recent SAM poll showed that a surprisingly high percentage of Maine residents were unaware of the state’s bear-hunting seasons, let alone hunting methods. Therefore, with the hope of providing insights that the uninitiated may find helpful come Election Day, my July column will appear as a two-part feature article regarding the referendum. The first part will appear on July 3, the second on July 5.

Admittedly, when it became obvious that the bear referendum would be placed on the November ballot, I wasn’t sure that it could be defeated. But I am now. To say the response – not only in Maine but from across the country – to SAM’s bear campaign fund-raising efforts has been and continues to be astonishing would be understatement. Simply put, sportsmen are realizing they must defend and protect their hunting heritage or lose it.

That mind set was evident at the Airline Snack Bar. Before the dinner bell was rung, wildlife biologist Tom Schaeffer and warden Phil White provided appetizers of factual information and answered questions regarding bear management and “nuisance bear” complaints. Guides Lance Wheaton and Alvah Harriman, whose respective lodges are located handy to the salmonid and smallmouth bass strongholds known as East Grand and West Grand lakes, explained the recreational and economic ramifications the referendum would have on the state and its sporting communities, if enacted. Suffice it to say, the Maine Professional Guides Association, Grand Lake Guides Association and others throughout the state have cast tens of thousands of dollars into the bear-campaign’s brimming pool.

It matters not, of course, whether you’re at a fund-raising event or a funeral, when talking with guides at this time of year, the topic of conversation isn’t long in turning to fishing. I wasn’t surprised, therefore, when Alvah Harriman said to me, “Tried the bass yet?”

“A couple of days ago,” I answered. “I didn’t expect they’d be spawning but I managed to catch a few on fly-rod poppers. It looked to me like they were in pre-spawn stage … just moving into the shallows. I think this cold, wet weather will set them back , though.” Nodding, the veteran guide concurred, “They’re just starting to move into the shallows down at West Grand. I had a pretty good day with the landlocks yesterday, though, hooked and released 13 on streamers. The way the wind’s been blowing there hasn’t been much chance to fish. I’ve been doing a lot of turkey hunting, though. Man, that’s more fun than deer hunting. As soon as the season’s over I’ll get serious about bass fishing. Come on down and fish with me some day. It should be about right in another week or two.” Amen to that. When male bass are guarding spawning beds they don’t look at a popper long before climbing aboard it.

Alvah had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. In spite of having been raised among anglers who wouldn’t rig a rod for anything but landlocked salmon, squaretails and togue, I became addicted to bass fishing before I was old enough to sign a fishing license. Paying no mind to admonishments such as, “Why’re you wastin’ your time on those trash fish?” I’d either hitch-hike or get my grandfather to drive me to bass ponds handy to home.

Truth be told, though, it was the late “Bootch” Jameson who got me hooked on the habit-forming smallmouths. Time has yet to tarnish the images of those June evenings on Hatcase Pond when, sitting in the bow of Bootch’s quietly sculled canoe, I cast plugs and poppers to bass best described as belligerent. Those outings were piscatorial circuses, pure and simple. Immediately following strikes, often so sudden and explosive that they startled me, the broad-finned brawlers would leap and cartwheel and tail-walk in shallows darkened with reflections of spruce and pine.

So there you have it. The reason why, at this time of year, my fishing boat is a canoe and my tackle a fly rod and a boxful of popping bugs. But as I’ve written many times, there’s more to fishing than catching fish. With that I’ll say the ambiance of bass fishing is as infectious as the action common to the sport. Yes siree, for as long as I can ease my canoe into a rock-rimmed cove and hear the bird choir heralding the birth of a new day, I’ll figure I’ve been blessed. Before fishing, though, I’ll pause to admire the aesthetics of purple-spiked pickerel weed sprouting in shallows smeared yellow with pine pollen, and wonder if those colors would clash in a painting.

Later, while waiting for the ripples ringing a cast popper to unripple, I’ll listen contentedly to the drumming of a partridge, the baritone chanting of bull frogs, the laughter of loons, and the violin-like voices of pines humming songs written by the wind. Wistfully, I’ll squint at ospreys hovering and eagles soaring in skies flooded with sunlight and respectfully I’ll smile at a snapping turtle that, after rising to the surface only a few feet from the canoe, submerges without leaving a wrinkle of wake; and I’ll wish the perfumes of lilac and apple blossom would linger through the summer. Actually, I probably spend as much time observing and analyzing and studying and wondering as I do fishing. That’s OK with me, though, because if I focused entirely on fishing I wouldn’t feel the earth move. Understand, however, that I’m not averse to having my preoccupations interrupted every so often, sometimes quite often, by the explosive strike of a bass, which startles me now as much as it did at Hatcase Pond a long time ago.

To me, bass fishing is as symbolic of springtime as bird hunting is of autumn. Speaking of bird hunting, regardless of whether the season at hand is the dead of winter or summer in full bloom, hunters who keep dogs that point, flush and fetch are ever mindful of fall. So I seized the opportunity to ask Lance Wheaton, who guides bird hunters, if he found enough partridge and woodcock to warm the barrels of his clients’ shotguns last fall. “We had plenty of birds,” he said. “How’d you do?”

“There was a lot of ground between them where I hunted,” I answered. “Nothing like it used to be, that’s for sure. Especially woodcock. Now I’m wondering if this spring’s bird crop will be set back by this cold, wet weather.” Nodding, the affable guide, who is a member of DIF&W’s Advisory Council, allowed, “I’d sooner see it warm and dry, but we’ll have birds come fall. Think about coming down around the third or last week in October. Bring your dog. We’ll find some birds and, who knows, we might even hit a couple.” And so came another offer I couldn’t refuse. When I offered each guide a limited-edition print in return for his invitation the feeling was that we had all bagged a limit.

Speaking of prints, a copy of my recent deer print, “Dawn Departure,” is currently displayed at the Airline Snack Bar as a donated raffle item to benefit SAM’s bear-campaign coalition. Raffle tickets are $5 for one, $10 for three. The retail value of the print is $100. A shot at the raffle is a shot at defeating the referendum.

Thanks to Dr. Bill Horner, the Bangor surgeon who separated me from my gall bladder back along, I no longer deal with heartburn and indigestion. For that reason, my intake of antacids is minimal and the occupation of outdoors writing is no longer as hazardous to my health. Provided, of course, that I pace myself in the marathons of meals served at sportsmen’s club meetings and fund-raising events. Accordingly, after attending the recent benefit dinner held at the Airline Snack Bar and seeing firsthand the commitment of Maine sportsmen to defend and protect their hunting heritage, I drove home feeling comfortably full and completely confident that the anti-hunting bear referendum would be defeated.

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net.; Web site address: www.tomhennessey.com.