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In
this Issue FIN,
FUR & FEATHERS
A few days ago, I could have written about the low water conditions locally. It seems what rain hit the Bay State recently has favored the Berkshires or the coast, leaving Worcester County with negligible moisture. As this is being written, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine are all under local flood watches, with some coastal areas picking up double-digit inch amounts. Too much of a good thing, to be sure. Turkey season started warm, then hit the cooler, and more recently, the shower. The only thing the weather has been good for of late is growing grass, or hay, if you are a farmer. This is good as the stuff has been in high demand, proving once gain that no matter how diverse your weather need, Mother Nature, in New England, can oblige. After deciding to leave the Toms in an area I’d taken one from to other hunters, it was time to go scouting again. Not far away, we had many sightings of hens on nests and toms scattered about., one of which will weigh over 23 pounds. This huge bird would not be a trophy to some hunters. Somehow, despite his huge body, his beard will measure a scant inch, or slightly longer. Perhaps he heard we only shoot bearded birds in the spring season, and shaved his off, the protruding inch being stubble. A morning’s hunt near where he could well have roosted produced no gobbles from this hillside at all. But down in the valley, across a road, a lot of gobbling was going on. A quick reconnaissance run showed a house down in that hollow with a domestic tom and hen in a pen. “Sure fooled me,” I thought as I turned the vehicle around in a nearby lane, but as I drove by the driveway, I spied a huge wild bird with a ground length two-inch thick beard gobbling at the tame tom, or perhaps his hen. Subsequent morning hunts showed that three toms on that hillside go down to that barnyard for breakfast, every morning. They probably chase hens later in the morning, while I am at work. So, I’m still on the lookout for a respectable tom with more traditional habits, to wit, girls first, food later. Everyone I speak to that fishes at South Pond has been taking trout, though most browns are a bit shy of the 15-inch minimum. I recently watched a shore fisherman land a 15-inch rainbow and a five-foot tree limb at the same time, a nice trick. The best bass was brought in to D&G Tackle in Leicester, an eight-pound trophy taken in local waters. Hopefully, we’ll see a few more behemoths taken, due to the curtailed ice fishing season. Recently, a fellow angler’s kids pulled in yellow perch of 15 inches and 15-1/2 inches from a less than an acre puddle nearby. It has been proven time and again that the biggest pan fish may not come from a reservoir. They may, of course, but they have so much more good habitat to hide in that your chances of being in the right spot at the right time are better on a small pond. Big fish in small ponds got that way by being aggressive, not by letting the little guy snatch the easy meal. If they are seldom fished, their wariness will not be as fine tuned as a roadside pool’s inhabitants that see dozens of worms and lures on a daily basis. If you get a bunch of the smaller ones in your quest for the big guys, take them home and make a chowder. It will be delicious, and do the pond a world of good to have that many less mouths to feed. Here’s hoping that this mid-May streak of wet weather doesn’t adversely affect grouse, woodcock, and turkey broods, as it did some areas last year. The downy darlings don’t suffer a dousing well, and pneumonia takes a high percentage toll. Only time will tell.
A local outdoorsman with a lifetime of traipsing these covers should
have known better. Ask any local bird dog owner or beagler which
neck of cover locally has the worst tick infestation, and they will
tell you, “Down by the old air field behind Quaboag Wire,
at the rest area.” Bobby swears that after just a short run,
his dog’s back seemed to shimmer, or perhaps shimmy. The dog
could hold still, and it looked like its back was off to the races,
the ticks were so thick in its coat. |
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