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For generations, Maine’s hunting traditions have been passed down in a time-honored way. A father takes his son afield for a short hike. He talks about animal sign and trees and habitat. Gun safety is discussed at length.
Then, at some point in what is often a lengthy apprenticeship, the father and son share a special day in the woods, hunting together for the first time.
Greg Russell of Medford grew up that way and learned to love deer hunting by tagging along with his dad, Gordon.
A couple of weeks ago, the Russells got the chance to renew that hunting bond in a way many wish they had, when they had the opportunity.
This time, the son was the proud teacher, the father the eager student.
This student just happened to be 94 years old and hunting wild turkeys for the first time.
“Mom died last year, and he got hanging out with me at the house,” Greg Russell said.
Greg Russell, an avid turkey hunter, began to brainstorm and decided that his dad might enjoy a day or two in the turkey woods.
“I said, ‘He and I ought to try that,'” Greg Russell said.
Come spring, they did just that.
Gordon Russell, who’ll turn 95 next month, retired from a job with a General Motors supplier in 1971 and returned to his native Maine.
He admitted on Thursday that he’d begun to think his hunting career was over.
“I’d rather deer hunt,” Gordon Russell said, thinking back on all the enjoyable times spent in the Maine woods. “I couldn’t deer hunt now because I can’t walk.”
Gordon Russell doesn’t get around as well as he once did, but his eyes still light up when he tells stories about the mischief he got into when he was younger.
Like the times he and his friends came up with an inventive way to hunt partridge back in the 1940s.
I’d tell you more, but Gordon and Greg Russell swore me to secrecy.
Rest assured, however, that the elder Russell now respects all fish and game laws.
“I’ve got no choice,” he said with a laugh.
“He couldn’t outrun the wardens any more,” Greg said, finishing the thought.
Earlier this month, after rising at 3:30 a.m. – “Hellish early,” Gordon Russell called it – Greg Russell took his dad to a field he had permission to hunt.
Getting his dad to the blind was no chore, he said, because he also had permission to take an ATV into the field.
“It’s too hard to [sit on normally], so I just set him on it side-saddle and drove him right down,” Greg Russell said.
Then, ensconced in a ground blind, the Russells waited for their birds.
It took three days before Gordon Russell finally shot a turkey, but the duo had plenty of interesting moments.
A couple of times, Greg Russell reported with a laugh, Gordon nearly toppled from his folding chair as he craned his neck to watch jakes walk past the blind.
One big gobbler immediately got Gordon Russell’s attention, and he hoped to be able to shoot it.
“That first one that came in, he looked to be that wide,” he said, holding his hands two feet apart. “He looked as tall as a man, you know? He was a big bird. I bet he weighed 20 to 24 pounds.”
That bird proved too wily and never sauntered within shotgun range. But the jakes did, and on the third day of the hunt, Gordon Russell bagged one.
He says the bird weighed 17 or 18 pounds. His son gently corrected that number to about 13 pounds.
Either way, both were happy.
“He said he wanted that big tom. That was a big tom,” Greg Russell said. “But for his first turkey, you take whatever you come by.”
Gordon agreed, but couldn’t forget the bird that got away.
“I’d liked to have that big one,” he admitted. “He was a big fella.”
Gordon Russell now sports a Boston Red Sox cap with a pair of turkey feathers attached to it, and said he wouldn’t mind trying the sport again next year.
But he can’t stop thinking about the deer seasons he used to enjoy so much.
“I’d get a big one and [Greg] would say, ‘Daddy, why can’t I shoot one of those big ones?'” Gordon Russell said. “He’s shot a lot since then.”
Those were special days, Greg Russell said.
“[I’ve got] a lot of deer hunting memories. We used to hunt everything. We’d go hunt partridge, but everyone likes to hunt deer. That’s the Maine tradition.”
A tradition, he said, that might need to be revisited come fall, when the mornings are crisp and leaves crunchy, and when dreams are filled with big-boned bucks.
“Maybe we’ll get him out deer hunting this fall,” Greg Russell said softly, as his father smoothly directed his walker down a ramp, toward a waiting vehicle. “Maybe.”
Legere: Water levels still high
Dan Legere spends much of the spring and summer on flowing water, guiding fly fishermen in the Moosehead Lake region.
According to the proprietor of the Maine Guide Fly Shop, too much water has been the curse in the Greenville area lately.
Legere writes a periodic fishing report that lets folks know what’s happening in his neck of the woods.
Here’s some of what Legere had to say this week:
“There is no problem finding running water these days. It’s been oozing out of the ground everywhere,” Legere wrote. “It’s been a sad state of affairs for all the moving water lovers, which includes me.
“There is a ray of hope over the horizon,” he wrote. “With the beautiful weather of the last couple of days and the rainless forecast for the upcoming weekend water levels have started to recede. The East Outlet has come down from a high of 10,800 [cubic feet per second] at the beginning of the week to [Thursday’s] flow of 6,280 cfs. Still a far cry from wadeable levels (2,500 cfs) but on the way down.
“The same goes for the Penobscot below [Ripogenus] Dam. The Roach River on the other hand is close to summer flows at 105 cfs. There probably won’t be fish in the lower pools but the upper pools around Kokadjo should be holding a nice bunch of salmon,” he wrote.
Legere’s advice: Dust off the canoe or float tube and look for some still water to fish. There, he says, anglers can find just what they’re looking for.
“The small ponds are ripening up with excellent catches reported on some of the smaller ponds,” he wrote. “With the great temps of the last few days and more to come, the first of the mayfly hatches are due to start. When they do, it’s bankers hours for awhile with hatches starting in late morning after the sun warms the water a bit and lasting all afternoon, quitting just in time so you won’t have to miss happy hour back at the campsite.”
The always-helpful Legere even included some advice on tactics and fly selection.
“Blue dun, Adams, Hendricksons,” he wrote. “Double-team ’em by tying on a hare’s ear or pheasant tail dropper about 18 inches behind the dry [fly]. Before the hatch starts, use sink-tip lines and a dragon fly nymph along the sunning shoreline. Brookies will be cruising the dropoff, gobbling the dragon fly nymph, prowling for the now active mayfly nymphs.”
One thing I’ve learned by sharing a boat with Legere is this: If he says something will work, he’s probably right.
Good luck fishing, and have a safe holiday weekend.
John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.
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