Assuming that you’re a senior member of Maine’s rod and gun fraternity, it’s a sure bet that in the plethora of equipment you deem necessary to tag a deer or catch a fish, there is a rifle, shotgun, rod, reel, knife, for sure a paddle, that is your favorite. Understandably, you don’t talk a lot about your favorite bird covers and trout brooks where you can also fill a creel with fiddleheads. But because we speak the same language, let me ask you this: Considering the array of hunting, fishing, and trapping seasons offered to Maine sportsmen, what are your favorite months for practicing your favorite pastimes? Granted, that’s not a question that can be answered quickly. So, just for the heck of it, let’s compare notes according to the calendar.

Owing to the advantages provided by snowmobiles, ATVs, power augers, and the comforts of heated ice shacks, January is my favorite month for fishing on frozen water. Let’s face it, salmon, trout, and togue are easier to catch early in the season. At any rate, I do more ice fishing now than when the likes of you and I strapped on snowshoes, shrugged a pack basket onto our shoulders, and with bait bucket in one hand and a three-joint spud in the other, shuffled to a lake or pond to fend off cabin fever. Could be you towed your gear on a toboggan.

Who could forget breaking a sweat while chiseling holes through thick ice and later crowding a shore fire whose warmth was more psychological than physical? A hot dog and a roll, both charred black on a stick, was as good as lunch got at the time. Thankfully, that time has passed. Today, Jeff and I and whoever else shows up tuck away fried venison, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and home fries cooked on a gas stove in a comfortable ice shack. Admittedly, when I return home I have to hang my clothes in the atticway because they stink of strong onions. How about you?

Without hesitation I’ll say February is my favorite month for rabbit hunting. The reasons being that Ol’ Sol is stepping higher and smiling warmer and longer in his strolls across the sky, and moderating temperatures provide fresh snows that, in turn, hold fresh scent for beagles whose hearts and voices are bigger than they are. Give me a mid-February day and a beagle bugling the whereabouts of a bounding snowshoe rabbit – varying hare for anyone who’s sticky about it – and I’ll give you one of the reasons why I don’t complain about Maine winters. Excepting, of course, those nostril-sticking, subzero wind-chilled blasts that would intimidate an Eskimo. Call it tough love: It’s tough living here, but we love it.

I think you’ll agree that, for the most part, March is a betwixt and between month in this neck of the woods. Personally, it’s my favorite for gathering loose ends and getting things done. Like cleaning guns and stowing hunting gear, putting new plugs in the outboard, patching waders, oiling reels, replacing the rope on the boat trailer’s winch, and suturing the holes in the smelt net. The old-timers had it right in saying March was a time for mending harness. Aside from that, the month that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb signals the arrival of spring. So inspired, sportsmen tie a few more flies, order something fishy from Cabela’s, saunter the aisles of the Penobscot County Conservation Association’s annual Sportsman’s Show and, with all respect to robins, watch for woodcock returning from southern sojourns.

So, tell me, what’s your favorite month for spring fishing, April, May, or June? To be honest, I favor all three. Actually, my spring fishing begins with dipping smelts from the Penobscot in April. Then comes trolling streamers for landlocks soon after ice-out, which continues through May. In the interim, you may want to forsake your fly rod for a shotgun and try for a turkey. When spring fishing for Atlantic salmon was legal in the Penobscot – and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be now – June was my hands-down favorite month. But even at that, the king of freshwater game fish couldn’t keep me from casting popping bugs to spawning smallmouths and fishing for stripers fresh from the sea.

If you have the patience and tactile ability to practice the art of trolling for togue, July and August are certainly among your favorite months. Allowing that I’m short of patience, I stick primarily with stripers when summer’s in full bloom; but if a bluefish shows its face somewhere between Bucksport and Bath, that’s where I’ll launch my boat.

For many sportsmen, August marks the opening of bear season. Truth be told, though, I’ve never had a desire to shoot a bear, even though I’ve had ample opportunity to do so by hunting with my longtime friend and bear guide, Galen Ruhlin. Likewise, I can’t list September or October as my favorite month for moose hunting. Fact is, I’ve never entered the lottery for a moose permit, though I’ve tagged along on a couple of hunts. Moreover, at this stage of the game, I’d think twice before shooting a deer. Nowadays, I leave the tagging and dragging of those critters to Jeff, who does it consistently.

September has long been one of my favorite months, though, because it’s then that I begin hearing the autumn chiming of dogs’ bells. If you’ve been owned by a feather hound, you know what I mean; and I know what you mean when you say your health improves at the sight of sumacs turning scarlet and fields silvered with frost. September is also the month for painting decoys, giving the canoe a fresh coat of olive drab, building blinds, and wrenching your arm by throwing a dummy to work a retriever into shape.

Of course, October is the favorite month for hunters whose favorite target is the long-billed bird that whistles with its wings. Actually, October is the only month in which woodcock hunting is legal in Maine. However, if I had my druthers I’d favor early November. The leaves are down by then and so are the flight birds. Without question, the ruffed grouse, partridge to us, is the king of game birds. Trouble is, there’s a lot of ground between them nowadays. Therefore, instead of hunting partridges specifically, I consider bagging one as a bonus to a day’s woodcock hunting. A couple of warm, dry nesting seasons are needed to start the partridge population on the road to recovery. Great sport, bird hunting. I wouldn’t venture to say how many times I’ve walked in behind a dog paralyzed by the perfume of bird scent. But I can say the next time will raise the hair on my arms and the back of my neck.

Tell me Maine’s deer-hunting tradition is a tyrant that rules by promising hunters trophy bucks and I’ll say you’re right. Ol’ basters, as they say, sporting bowed, thick-beamed antlers with enough points to hang 10 or a dozen hats on; maybe more. Small wonder, then, that November, with its regular firearms season, is the favorite month of deer hunters hereabouts. Additionally, hunters who favor muzzleloaders can worry the whitetails in special December seasons. It should be mentioned that hunters addicted to archery can draw their bows on deer in special seasons ranging from early September through early December. The way I see it, deer hunting is the most challenging of the shooting sports. Simply put, the white-tailed deer wrote the book on wariness, wiliness, and elusiveness.

Duck hunting, however, is the reason November is one of my favorite months. By then, the whistlers are down, skeins of geese are unraveling in woolly gray skies, and bogs and flowages are skimmed with ice, forcing waterfowl to move to open water. Usually, that is. For the past two years, warm weather and flooding rains created hunting conditions that could hardly be described as “fowl weather.” Consequently, if not for sea-duck hunting, last fall’s waterfowl season would have been less than memorable for me.

December? Take your pick: deer hunting, duck hunting, partridge hunting, rabbit hunting, bobcat hunting, fox hunting, coyote hunting, trapping, and if you’re so disposed, open-water fishing in specified rivers and streams. I have to say that the diversity of Maine’s hunting, fishing, and trapping seasons makes it impossible for me to sympathize with sportsmen who complain about lack of opportunities to practice their favorite pastimes. However, I’ll support them in complaining about unbridled development decimating wildlife habitats and posted land and other restrictions hindering public access to state-owned waters. Public access is the major issue facing Maine sportsmen today.

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Seeing that I’ll turn 70 years old this month, which means there’s a lot more trail behind me than ahead of me, I’m concluding my tenure as a BDN outdoors writer with this column. That said, I want to thank my five readers for following the trail of words I’ve left here for nearly 30 years. If nothing else, writing was a learning experience that taught me a lot about people and more about myself. Suffice it to say, there’s more than meets the eye to sticking words together for others to read and scrutinize, especially sportsmen. Make a false cast and you’ll hear about it. Nevertheless, it has been my privilege and pleasure to be a spokesman for Maine’s hunters, fishers, and trappers who, unfortunately, now are forced to defend and protect their precious heirlooms of tradition, culture, and heritage.

So there you have it, Sport. In closing I wish you good luck and the best of times on your favorite hunting and fishing grounds and remind you, respectfully, to leave some for seed.

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