Wednesday, August 31, 2005

 

THE SERENDIPITY OF SEPTEMBER

In our latitudes, September marks a major change in the natural world.

Summer still hangs on like an unwanted drunk at a wedding party. But never fear. The drunk is ever-so-subtly being eased out a side door.

Look closely. The foliage that was so brilliantly green just a month ago has lost some of its sharpness.

Walnut leaves are already turning yellow and falling into bass rivers and trout streams. The first hints of crimson and red are showing up on sumac and Virginia creeper.

In the woods, I find green hickory nuts with brown teeth marks. The squirrels are testing them daily. Squirrels will be the first to know when the meaty flesh of the nut is mature and ready to eat or store in knotholes for winter.

August loses its sweaty grip on the land this month. On certain early mornings and late evenings, a long-sleeved shirt feels good again.

The great trek south begins this month.

The annual hawk migration peaks in September. Any day now, you can find long lines of barn swallows collecting on utility wires, exchanging travel talk. I saw a gaggle of blue-winged teal on the river recently. You can tell they aren’t from the neighborhood.

A major shift is taking place – a 90-degree turn toward autumn and eventual winter. The outdoor loafer sees it coming, and picks an extra handful of blackberries or gathers a pocketful of walnuts still in their green hulls.

Summer won’t last forever, and next August is no more than a distant promise.

* * *

Got more money than you know what to do with?

Even if things are a tad tight, one of the best places you can contribute to helping others is an organization called Hunters for the Hungry.

Hunters for the Hungry of Big Island, Va., near Natural Bridge accepts venison donated by hunters, then has the meat processed by state-certified stores, and distributes it to food banks and other organizations that feed the needy.

The address is Hunters for the Hungry, P.O. Box 304, Big Island, Va. 24526. The phone is 800-352-4868. The Web address is www.h4hungry.org

Though the meat is donated, it costs $30 to $40 to process a deer and get it distributed to the people who need it. The goal of Hunters for the Hungry is to provide 350,000 pounds of venison during the upcoming hunting season.

Now, I realize that most readers will immediately write a $100 check and send it to Hunters for the Hungry without prodding or provocation. But just in case you need a little encouragement, several businesses and organizations have formed a hunting-and-fishing raffle system whereby you can make a donation and possibly win an outdoor goodie at the same time.

Raffle tickets are $10 each, or three for $20.

First prize is a three-day, four-night deer hunt in Eldorado, Texas, as well as a Remington Model 700 30-06 rifle. Total value: $5,500.

Second prize is a full-day fishing trip on beautiful Smith Mountain Lake with David Dudley, Bassmaster Top 100 winner from Lynchburg, Va. Value: $650.

Third place is a Beretta Pintail 12-gauge shotgun. Value: $600.

And fourth place is a Chesapeake Bay fishing trip for six people (you can take your friends!) with Capt. Chuck O’Bier out of Lottsburg, Va. Value: $500.

If such sumptuous prizes – plus a desire to help those less fortunate – do not inspire you to open up that moth-eaten wallet, then you ain’t no friend of mine.

END





Thursday, August 25, 2005

 

REVISITING BEDFORD

I thought I knew every pig trail in Virginia.

Turns out I don’t. At least not as well as I thought.

On a recent prowl through the mountains and piedmont area of central-southwest Virginia surrounding Bedford, I uncovered several relatively unknown treasures for the outdoor lover.

The town of Bedford is best known for losing more young men (19) during the World War II invasion of Normandy than any other place in America. The late historian Steve Ambrose beat the drum for years to establish an interactive National D-Day Memorial on the hills overlooking Bedford.

Today the sprawling memorial is finished. If you can take the tour and watch the simulated German fire as it pockmarks water around soldiers in agony pulling one another from the Normandy surf, and if you can do it without a lump in your throat, then "you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

A related suggestion: Try the outstanding food at the Olde Liberty Station restaurant. The restaurant was once a bustling railroad depot. Ask owner Harry Leist to show you the door through which young Bedford men passed to board the train that would carry them into history.

(If history is your thing, another restaurant in town with great food and a pleasing ambiance is the Duchess of Bedford.)

But let’s get into the outdoors surrounding the city.

You’ll want to drive the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway, a mountaintop two-lane highway that runs along the flinty backbone of the Blue Ridge.

While on the Parkway, stop at Peaks of Otter Lodge. The buffet is famous. The lodge overlooks a lake stocked with trout, and fishing is encouraged. Each room (no phone, no TV) has a balcony overlooking the lake, and in the mornings, you can sip coffee and watch hundreds of feeding trout dimpling the still surface of the lake.

You might want to also take the bus (or even hike) to nearby Peaks of Otter, once believed to be the highest mountaintop in Virginia. This proved incorrect (Mount Rogers in Southwest Virginia is slightly higher).

But the error wasn’t caught until after a chunk of granite from Peaks of Otter was transported to Washington, D.C., inserted in the Washington Monument, and inscribed with the information that it came from Virginia’s highest peak.

If – and this is a big if – there are mountain lions or cougar in Virginia, this is the best place in the state to catch a glimpse of one of the big cats. More cougar sightings – including several sightings by Park Rangers – have come from the Peaks of Otter area than any other place in Virginia.

And don’t forget 20,000-acre Smith Mountain Lake located in the mountainous terrain between Bedford and Roanoke.

Smith Mountain is among the top two or three most beautiful lakes in Virginia. Fishing for bass and stripers is good. Marinas with rental boats surround the 500-mile shoreline.

It’s worthwhile to take time out from fishing (as I did) to simply skim over the water and marvel at the million-dollar homes that are springing up like Queen Anne’s lace.

Things change. Some places get better. I need to prowl more often and check ‘em out.

(For full details of all that’s available in the area, call 877-HiPeaks toll-free or check the Bedford Welcome Center’s Web page at www.visitbedford.com)
END

Thursday, August 18, 2005

 

THE ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY OF FALL

Where are the monarchs?

We’re not talking about kings and queens, but something more ancient and worthy.

We’re talking about the monarch, or milkweed, butterfly.

Late summer and early autumn is the time of year for their annual migration from the United States to a remote range of misty mountains in Mexico, where they spend the winter.

They travel by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions, and are as easy to spot as New Jersey tourists headed to Florida.

(Fortunately for those of us with a weak stomach, monarch butterflies – unlike Yankee migrators -- don’t wear sandals and black knee socks.)

First, let me describe a monarch butterfly.

What they don’t look like are other butterflies. Monarch are big rascals, reddish-brown (I prefer "orange") in color, with wings edged in black.

The arduous trip they take each fall is one of nature’s most amazing journeys.

Thin as a wisp and fragile as a piece of colored Kleenex, these long-distance travelers leave North America in late August and September. They bob, weave and dawdle down the landscape like a reluctant little boy returning home in late evening.

By the time they reach their destination in Mexico, many will have flown into the teeth of tropical storms along the coasts and into autumn hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico – an endurance marathon that leaves them ragged by journey’s end while putting Lance Armstrong to shame.

They seldom fly higher than the tops of buildings, so they’re always visible. They flit along highways, through fields, down river valleys.

Anglers on lakes and rivers are likely to see them bobbing just above the water during migration. Dove hunters in the cut corn fields of September see so many that the monarch appears to be part of the scenery, and the long journey is interpreted as routine.

Hardly.

Of the millions making the journey, not a single one has made the trip before. Tired and tattered, the bulk of them will successfully complete the 2,000-to-3,000-mile, one-way migration and will spend the winter in the Mexican mountains.

But they don’t have what it takes to reverse the journey in the spring. The returning survivors will lay eggs on milkweed plants along the way, and successive generations will hatch and finish the job.

Where they acquired such navigational skills without Boy Scout training and a GPS remains a mystery.

But I wonder: Are they just late this year, or has something happened? Normally I would have seen lots of monarchs while on summer fishing excursions. They’re common, even before the fall migration begins.

So far, I haven’t seen a one. Perhaps they know something we don’t – that summer will hang on a little longer than normal this year.

However, when dove season opens, if I don’t see hundreds of the beautiful orange-and-black creatures dawdling slowly south and southwest while I’m scanning the low horizon for incoming doves, I’ll know I’ve got one more thing to worry about.

END

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

 

THE 'TERROR' OF DOG DAYS

These miserable times, then, are the days of the dog star Sirius.

That’s the 40 days and nights when Sirius is aligned with the sun.

In ancient times, residents in countries bordering the Mediterranean noted that the excessive heat not only made them mean and picky, but that particularly nasty diseases seemed to flare up during the most blistering breath of summer.


They called the time from early July until about mid-August "dog days."


So, hundreds of years later, did my grandma. And my mother.

Grandma said dogs went mad -- that is, developed rabies – during dog days. A stray dog on the dusty roads of Scott County, Va., was not something you rushed to embrace in the early 1950s.

Grandma also said that snakes went blind during dog days. This temporary inability to distinguish between a baby rabbit and a boy’s bare ankle would cause a snake to strike at everything, according to Grandma.

We kept a sharp eye out for snakes wearing dark glasses.

Mother, on the other hand, was convinced (as were most people) that the chances of contacting polio increased a hundred fold during dog days, as streams and rivers ran slow and congested with scum and brown foam.

We were forbidden to go swimming and discouraged from fishing during the dog days of summer.

True, no one knew at that time where polio came from. Lifesaving Salk vaccine was years away.

The North Fork of the Holston River, which ran by the house, was low and contaminated-looking, especially in August. The river as a source of polio was as good a guess as any, and a youngster’s protestations and loud caterwauling carried little weight in the adult world.

As a result, dog days were something to endure. No visiting the Deep Hole for swimming. Danged little fishing, unless you sneaked and did it.

I still hate dog days, though it has been several decades since summer heat and humidity gave me diaper rash, even in places where one did not wear diapers.

The heat drives me slightly mad, much like the dogs of yesteryear. If it would provide relief, I’d bite somebody.

I know now that snakes do not go blind in July and August, though they do shed their skins in summer and may, in fact, be a bit incapacitated in the vision department.

We’re big people now, and can go fishing if we want to. But who wants to when the temperature is 90-plus and the humidity matches it?

Some things never change. Dog days remain an endurance contest. This summer especially, it’s a contest that I feel, once again, I’m losing.

END

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

 

MAKING SQUIRRELS PAY

Let’s be honest. Squirrels are freeloaders in the most aggravating sense of the word.

They take over our birdfeeders. Steal the dog’s food. Gnaw through phone and electrical insulation.

They are, in fact, little more than semi-airborne rodents with a propensity for theft and mischief.

Plus there are about nine times more of them than there ought to be.

There’s a way to even up things, and make money in the process. You won’t make enough extra change to buy that new Lexus, but you just might help pay for your shotgun shells when dove season rolls around.

Do this.

When early squirrel season opens (and most Eastern states do have an early September season), go squirrel hunting. This time, instead of making squirrel gravy with the bulk of the little rats and throwing the tails out to the cat, recycle the tails into fishing lures.

Sheldon’s Inc., maker of famous Mepps spinners found in every tackle box , will pay up to 26 cents apiece for tails.

For more than 30 years, Mepps has been buying grey, fox and black squirrel tails to dress the world’s best-known lure. But it ain’t easy.

"Every year, it gets tougher to get the tails we need to dress our spinners," says Jim Martinsen of Mepps. "Hundreds of other materials, both synthetic and man-made, have been tested. "But few materials work as well as the hair from a genuine squirrel tail."

In order not to make it look as if there’s a bounty on squirrels, Martinsen is quick to ask that hunters only recycle tails "from squirrels harvested for the table."

But I need not be so politically correct.

I recommend that hunters this autumn dip into the squirrel population as deeply as the law allows – heaven knows the population is way overloaded – then snip off the tails and keep them in the freezer until you’ve got enough to pay for a wheelbarrow load of shotgun shells. Or perhaps a wheelbarrow load of those wonderful Mepps spinners, which Mepps will gladly trade double-value for more squirrel tails to make even more spinners.

Here’s where you can get details:

The e-mail site is meppsman@mepps.com or call toll-free at 1-800-713-3474. Ask for a free copy of the Mepps Fishing Guide, which has all the details of the squirrel recycling program, plus helpful fishing tips along with the entire lineup of Mepps spinners and products.

If you don’t have a computer or a phone (in which case you badly need extra income), the mailing address is Mepps, 626 Center Street, Antigo, WI 54409.

You’ll be doing both suburban homeowners and anglers a favor.

Now, if someone can just find a use for Canada goose feathers, we can tidy up the country’s golf courses too.
END

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