When my Recorder phone, I picked it up, put it to my right ear and glanced at the clock hanging high on the north wall. Half-past eight, Peter Mallett calling.

The affable Mallett — card-carrying union pipe-fitter, conservation gadfly, Millers River Fishermen’s Association founder, and world-class gabaholic –sounded pleased to hear the, “Sports, Gary Sanderson,” on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Gary, how ya doin’, Peter Mallett here.”

He didn’t need to identify himself. I immediately recognized his raspy, high-energy voice, spiced by that North Quabbin workingman’s twang. Although we’ve never met eye-to-eye, we have built a good telephone relationship over the years and, always eager for column fodder, I could smell it.

“Hey, Peter, what’s new? Stayin’ busy?

“Oh yeah. Workin’ on a braised-bear roast at the gun club now, and we had a helluva spaghetti feed for the MRFA. Everything was homemade, including my own meatballs. It went well. All the money will go to trout stocking.”

“So is it the braised bear you’re callin’ about?”

“Hell no. I don’t need that headache. We’re almost sold out.”

Then it was apparent to me that Mallett wasn’t contacting me about anything pressing, just wanted to shoot the breeze. And, oh my, can Peter Mallett talk when he cranks up that jaw of his.

Our chat began, as usual, with his MRFA, approaching 200 members now, always raising money for Millers trout stocking, his passion. He’s burning brush on the land he cleared for a private hatchery behind his rural New Salem home. Imagine that. His own backyard hatchery, built solely to improve other anglers’ recreation on the Millers River he worships. It’ll soon hold fish. Many fish. No strings attached. Pure altruism. That’s Peter.

Out of the blue, our conversation moved to hornpout, bottom-feeding pond fish more commonly known as bullheads, something I had never before heard Mallett mention. It’s a good-eating fish that many old-timers seek in their summer travels. The problem is, according to Mallett, “hornies” are getting scarce and no one except Mallett seems to understand why. To him, it’s a matter of simple logic.

“All these guys filling up five-gallon pails ought to think about it a minute,” he said. “When they’re cleaning a bucketful of those fish to eat, how many have eggs in them? Therein lies the problem. You can’t take the eggs out of the pond and expect there to be fish. It’s not rocket science.”

Before the hornpout topic took off, I gently nudged our conversation North to Warwick, where an enraged Mallett had complained last summer about what he perceived to be irresponsible logging around Clubhouse Pond and Mount Grace. After publishing his one-source tirade, I received an irate call from the forester who oversaw the projects and called my piece “irresponsible,” among other things. I defended myself, responding, “I didn’t say you raped the forest, Peter Mallett did. Maybe you should take it up with him.” A civil discussion ensued, ending in a friendly tone.

Well, a couple of months later, at a Historic Deerfield Tavern Night, I got talking to Beth the tavern wench (just kidding), who happens to live in Warwick. She described the mess loggers left behind as “disgusting” and said she and her neighbors agreed with everything Mallett said in print.

“We like Peter Mallett in Warwick,” she said. “He’s a folk hero.”

Mallett seemed pleased, not surprised, to hear he had a Warwick fan club.

“Yeah, I knew those people were angry. After your article ran they put up a big sign that read ‘Mt. DisGrace,’ and I made sure a picture of it found its way into the Athol Daily News. That was beautiful. Got the message across loud and clear.”

From there our meandering dialogue found its way to a familiar subject, that of local cougar sightings.

“Loved that article you wrote last week about the Deerfield mountain lion sighting,” he said, before spewing uncomplimentary, if not disrespectful, accusations about state wildlife officials. He then passed along a rumor about the photo someone took of a big cat lying in a Royalston tree and shared a personal big-cat experience from many years ago in Quabbin country. Then, it was on to the beaver issue that’s festering along the outside edge of his big toenail. Rural Bay Staters are getting mighty tired of the flood damage being caused by those shiny black critters multiplying like flies on a manure pile since trapping was outlawed 11 years ago. Mallett wanted to chime in.

“Did I ever tell you about that beaver meeting we had at the gun club with a speaker from the state?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Well, I stirred ’em up’ when I stood and asked the speaker if it would be OK to build a beaver pen behind the club so that we could live-trap ’em and store ’em there. Then, when we gathered enough to fill up a trailer-truck, I told him I’d rent the truck out of my own pocket and deliver the beavers straight to Boston Common, where everyone loves ’em.

“The speaker didn’t think I was funny, and I think there were some at the club who agreed. But hey, it’s like I told ’em, ‘Those poor beavers know they’re loved in Boston and they’ve been tryin’ to get there on their own. The problem is there’s too many roads to cross and they’re gettin’ run over.’ I just want to help ’em get where they want to be, where they’re loved.”

How can you not love it? Pure Peter Mallett. Tears of laughter flowing in the isles.

A rabble-rouser with a sense of humor.

The man inspired a belly-laugh at my desk months later. I only wish I had been there.

Pure Peter. Classic.

I look through electronic press releases from various sources daily, seeking information that may tickle my fancy. Rarely, though, do I get one like last week’s from Vermont Fish & Wildlife that touched on three subjects relevant to Franklin County.

Most interesting was the item about a central Vermont dam-removal project. It got me thinking about the lower Green River, where there’s similar talk about removing antiquated dams that have been reduced to dilapidated monuments from a better day in Greenfield, when downtown was bustling, industry booming, blue-collar families breaking ground for backyard pools. These dysfunctional monuments to our fading industrial heritage are in many ways symbolic of 21st-century Greenfield, squeezed into a space so tight it can’t get out of its own way. But that’s discussion for another day. This is about dam-removal and its environmental benefits.

Before I get going, let me admit to being a little biased, given what happened to that section of the upper Deerfield River known colloquially as ”The No-Kill,” Thus my inclination to be more supportive of the Vermont venture at Northfield Falls’ Cox Brook Dam than our latest desperate attempt to revitalize Greenfield. My justification centers on the different sources of energy driving the sprockets of change for the two initiatives. Here in Greenfield, you have commercial whitewater people floating ideas aimed at their tills, while in Vermont the primary impetus is habitat improvement to benefit Dog River fishes. In Vermont, they’re talking stream restoration and dam removal to produce unobstructed movement of wild trout and other indigenous species. Although there is some discussion here about habitat-improvement and anadromous-fish passage, it begs the question of whether it’s genuine or contrived as the means to an end?

My own suspicion is that commercial interests are using proposed habitat restoration to facilitate government money for personal gain. If it’s the ecosystem they’re trying to improve, then I’m all for it. But, from my perspective, the undercurrent driven by self-centered commercial whitewater interests is far too strong, and frankly transparent, at this point.

When I hear or read about whitewater businessmen advocating dam removal and river-bed reconstruction to improve flow for whitewater recreation, I’m turned off. No, I can’t say I blame the entrepreneurs. Who wouldn’t want state and federal funds to recreate a river suitable for activities that fill their coffers? But anyone familiar with FERC’s contentious Deerfield River dam-relicensing meetings of the mid-1990s knows what happens when whitewater interests prevail. Ask Trout Unlimited, which fought valiantly and lost in its effort to limit river-flow for the good of the ecosystem and its anglers. The battle was won by savvy commercial whitewater investors who organized West County business people and recreational activists to push for scheduled dam releases sufficient for summer whitewater activity. Altruistic TU conservationists, some of them practicing lawyers, didn’t stand a chance in the political struggle. As usual, business carried the debate and, in the opinion of nearly all lifelong western Franklin County anglers, their Deerfield River was the pathetic victim.

On the other hand, jump two hours north to Vermont, where folks are sincerely committed to conservation and preservation. What the movers and shakers there seem to desire most is bucolic landscapes displaying an occasional solitary angler quietly pursuing a passion in an unobtrusive, artistic manner; maybe even a kayak or two, a canoe or Jon boat when stream conditions are right. A better way of thinking, in my opinion, while the whitewater folks here prefer bringing to the Green River what we already have on the Deerfield, gaily clad metropolitans screeching and banging and splashing their way along a scenic stretch of river; loud “Yahoos,” wearing a colorful mix of chartreuse, hot pink and electric blue. And that’s ignoring the vans, the buses and general commotion they bring to secluded parking areas in an otherwise pristine slice of Franklin County paradise.

Obviously, Greenfield is in a bad place these days; it aches for an economic upturn and imaginative leadership, but is this it? Or is this just another blatant example of entrepreneurial creativity trying to cash in on a public resource for private gain? The question is, what do these whitewater businesses give back to the river?

I guess, in my opinion, there’s a fine line between protecting Franklin County’s natural beauty, perhaps its greatest asset, and abusing it? So, when it comes to our woods and waters, I support harmonious balance, with conservation and preservation outweighing commercial exploitation.

Balance is certainly not a priority for those who want to siphon green from the Green.

A chill is in the air as the bright yellow maple pulsates in a blustery autumn wind, shedding its leaves to the ground. The burning bush shines pinkish-red, the Japanese maple brilliant scarlet when the sun peaks through the billowy white clouds racing eastward. Down the road a piece, a harvester levels the cornfield to stubble.

Yes, the hunters’ moon has passed and it’s again that time of year when the reports of scatterguns can be heard emanating from the highlands and swamps, the croplands and shores, producing fall table fare.

The archery deer season opened Monday, the waterfowl season opened Wednesday and on the same day the pheasant trucks got rolling from the Valley District office in Belchertown, stocking game birds for Saturday, opening day.

That day, everyone and his brother will be out enjoying the fresh air, the exercise, the bird-dog’s enthusiasm, and the challenge of bringing a flying bird to the bag. It sounds easier than it is, but try it sometime and you’ll soon learn that there’s nothing easy about it. You have to remain quick, alert and always ready to scoot around an obstruction to get off a quick, clean shot. And when that’s impossible, you have to shoot through a screen, sometimes thick, learning over time how thick is too thick.

The majority of the upland bird hunters will flock to pheasant coverts, which have gotten quite crowded in recent years. Too crowded, in fact, particularly on opening day and every other Saturday. If you learn how to hunt the periphery, refuges where escaped birds congregate, you can still find a pleasant hunt, but don’t count on it opening day, when the stocked birds, hunters and dogs will be stuffed into small places at public coverts and Wildlife Management Areas.

I think I’ll pass and visit a secluded site in search of partridge and woodcock. If they’re there, they’re there. If not, well, you can always read deer sign and check the mast crop for future reference.

It’s not about putting food on the table or proving your manhood. It’s about being there, on their turf

So that’s where you’ll find me on opening day. On their turf, and mine.

Gun in hand, I shy away from crowds.

If memory serves me, the first time I met John Randolph, under brisk, gray November skies, he could have passed for a hardscrabble Vermonter, head capped, bib overalls covered by a dark sweatshirt and insulated vest. The morning was frosty. He was scurrying to get chores done with his family together for Thanksgiving at his ancestral East Colrain farm.

From where we stood along a fence on the eastern slope of the Berkshire foothills, proud Monadnock would have beckoned over Randolph’s right shoulder on a clear day, but the faraway New Hampshire landmark was hidden by unfriendly sky. In the hollow below, out of earshot, Workman Brook babbled through the wetland on its way to the Green River. Randolph cut his teeth as a fly fisher on those two streams. They left indelible marks on an accomplished, worldly angler who’s fished alongside and edited fly-fishing icons.

Today, settled in Harrisburg, Pa., as editor/publisher of Fly Fishing Magazine, the 63-year-old Randolph is far removed from his days as a Franklin County schoolboy, first in Colrain, then at Arms Academy in neighboring Shelburne Falls. But Randolph hasn’t forgotten his roots, and that’s apparent when reading his new book: “Becoming a Fly Fisher: From Brookie Days to the Tenth Level.” The book chronicles Randolph’s evolution as a fly fisher, one whose bedrock was formed during his brookie days along the loamy banks of that brook called Workman which runs through Randolph’s lower pasture.

Locals may remember Randolph as a rugged, All-Western Massachusetts Arms lineman who co-captained the 1957 squad along with Ronnie Scott, or a power-hitting cleanup man on a potent Arms baseball team coached by Jim Butterfield. Randolph has come a long way since then, graduating from Williams College in 1962 before following his father’s footsteps as an outdoor writer and editor.

Father John W. “Jack” Randolph was the New York Times outdoor editor from 1956 to 1960. Randolph says his father hunted or fished until 2 p.m. daily, then penned his Times column six days a week from his Colrain farm until taking ill with cancer and succumbing as a young man in 1960. He was followed to the Times by outdoor scribes Oscar Godbout (who died in a barroom brawl) and Nelson Bryant, a retiree whose columns still occasionally appear in the Times.

After a short stint in the Marine Corps (1963-66), young John landed his first writing job as a technical writer for General Electric (1966-68) before joining the Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer as a reporter in 1968. Within a year, he had moved up the ladder to county editor of the Bennington (Vt.) Banner, then founded Vermont Sportsman, which he edited and published for 15 years, until selling in 1983. Randolph’s Vermont Sportsmen days overlapped his career with Fly Fisherman Magazine, which began in 1978 as managing editor and led to his current position.

Over the years, Randolph has developed a passion for fly fishing felt by many unable to describe it with his deft touch. So, if you want to understand why it is that people fly fish, let Randolph explain it. If you’ve been there, you’ll nod your head in agreement. If you’re a beginner, it’ll give you something to shoot for. If you’ve never handled a rod, Randolph’s book will encourage you to buy one.

It’s not for the party-boat gang, sipping martinis and dragging a line through the water behind them. No, this book is for the fish hunter who creeps softly along a mountain stream, always observing and learning about trout and the aquatic insects and baitfish that make up their diet. It’s about a lifetime of seeking and absorbing all there is to know about fly fishing, then pulling it all together to attain the “tenth level.” It’s about casting and imitations and presentation and philosophy. It’s about patience and ethics, fins and fur and feathers, tippets and tapers and 10-weights; and it’s about East Colrain, where a brook called Workman led Randolph to a river named Green and a lifetime of pleasure. It was on the Green that a youthful Randolph observed his first fly fisher catching trout. Although he doesn’t pinpoint the location, anyone who’s fished the northern Franklin County, freestone stream will know he was standing on Ten-Mile Bridge, connecting East Colrain and West Leyden.

You’ll place Randolph’s book next to treasured volumes in your fly-fishing library, alongside Schwiebert, Bergman, Borger, Arbona, Krieger, and the other masters. From time to time on a cold, quiet winter night, you’ll remove it from the bookcase to read a chapter or two beside a warm, relaxing fire with a glass of wine. The language will inspire you to tune your equipment for spring and explore the inner sanctum of your sporting consciousness.

The passion is there.

What better time to wet your line than under cool skies backdropped by brilliant colors reflected in the glassy water surface? It’s New England at its finest; at least that’s how I view it, and judging from the annual fall tourism trade, outsiders concur.

From what I’ve seen thus far in the uplands, it looks like a brilliant foliage season is about to blossom. The sugar bush is already a mellow yellow, and soon, after the frosts, it’ll explode into near-florescent orange. Although I know of no foolproof formula, our soggy summer had to be beneficial. We’ll soon find out, but the harbingers of a brilliant fall are here. A tease at this point, a subtle hint of what’s to come, landscape euphoria, a spiritual updraft before the deep freeze and chimney smoke, remnant of hard-earned cash wafting to the heavens. It can be a dreadful sight these days, frightening, in fact, to some, lucrative, of course, to others. Count me among the former. Like other working slobs, I wonder where the money will come from. And as I ponder that dilemma, the reincarnation of Herbert Hoover and his cronies are on the boob-tube daily pleading with that proud lot who twice elected them to further fatten the rich with tax dollars from those who dread winter bills? Imagine that: bail out the Wall Street predators, idle rich who’ve been at the wheel to this economic Pearl Harbor? It’s not difficult to understand why the proletariat and their legislators, even those of the incumbent party, are reluctant to support a lame-duck administration saddled with credibility peering up at zero?

But, let’s not digress. Why accentuate the negative, the depressing? Extract yourself from it all, focus on the playoffs or weekend football, stack wood, turn on Dr. Phil or Oprah or Springer or anything but a dysfunctional government speeding toward the ancient oak. Better still, dig out your fishing rods and head to a nearby lake or stream. Local anglers will be pleased to learn that MassWildlife’s annual fall trout-stocking trucks have been on the road this week, depositing 66,000 rainbows and browns, a foot long or better, in a body of water near you. According to information supplied on the agency’s Web site, local stream fishermen will find what they’re looking for in the Deerfield and Millers rivers, while lake and pond enthusiasts will be happy with the developments at Ashfield Pond (in the vernacular, Ashfield Lake), Laurel Lake in Erving, North Pond in Florida, Upper Highland Lake in Goshen, Lake Mattawa in Orange, Lake Wyola in Shutesbury, and Sheomet Pond and Laurel Lake in Warwick.

Raised at the Belchertown, Montague and Sandwich state hatcheries, the frisky fall trout might offer respite from the dire straights we’re in. After eight years of opening your quarterly 401-K statements with trepidation, there’s a glint of light in the deep, dark well, elections on the way; then this looming disaster. Sounds like high time to hang the sarcastic “Gone Fishing” sign for the front door.

It’s gotten that bad, this Lone Star State fiasco. Let us pray an Alaskan Hail Mary ain’t next.

This one came to me by e-mail from a Hatfield filly who keeps me posted from time to time, both of us being South Deerfield natives, she closer in age to my baby brother. It’s a good tale; worth sharing; about a bruiser buck that died in an unusual manner, just before dark on the evening of Oct. 8.

What tweaked my interest most, really got my wheels spinning, was the e-mail:

“Just an FYI — One of my friends was hunting from a tree stand last Saturday and about 4:30 he rattled and grunted in a buck while he had a cigarette going and after had just relieved himself. The buck apparently investigated the
odor, followed it to the tree and reared up and put his
front legs on the tree smelling all the time …  As the deer
investigated the area further it presented my friend with the ‘perfect’
shot and he downed a handsome, 8-point, 214-lb field-dressed buck!”

How could I such a tease? In this the day of scentless soaps and deodorants, odor-neutralizing body and clothes mists, and every precaution under the sun to mask human scent while deer hunting, this guy does everything the experts tell you not to do and comes home with a monster buck worthy of dreams. How do you figure? Well, it happens, especially during the rut, when bucks establish and aggressively protect territory and, smitten, are known to throw caution to the wind.

Anyway, I placed a call Saturday to the source of the e-mail and inquired whether she thought the hunter would be willing to talk. She thought he would, promised to contact him and give him my phone number. Two days later, she responded to an e-mail I had sent to her workplace before phoning her, and she supplied me with his name and number, just in case I didn’t hear from him. I reached him at home a few days later and he was not bashful. He told me the whole story; about how he was “hunted out” and really wasn’t crazy about going out that day; did so to satisfy a friend; decided on an old stand that had been stolen and replaced and wound up having difficulty reaching it because a nearby horse owner had expanded her paddock, making it impossible to park in his regular spot.

He arrived late in the afternoon, put out doe-in-heat scent bombs in front and behind the hemlock tree supporting his stand, climbed into it, not particularly confident or “into it,” and did some rattling and grunting, trying to entice a buck within range. Well, as fate would have it, before long he noticed movement below his stand and — bingo! — nothing but massive antlers approaching from 15 yards out. The deer came to the base of the tree, nose expanding and contracting, looked up and stood on its back legs, its two front ones on the tree trunk. The hunter, compound bow drawn and ready, had a small window but decided not to shoot, wanted a better shot. When the buck finished investigating the tree, it dropped down on all fours and started to move away when the hunter tipped his doe-in-heat bleat-can and stopped his prey in an open space where he could kill him. The problem was that it was getting dark and he was having trouble finding his mark through a peep sight. Finally, he picked up the yellow pin, buried it into the deer’s vitals and let fly, mortally wounding the animal, which bound off and died 40 yards away. He heard it drop from his stand, got down to investigate, flashlight in hand, and noticed something white. Upon closer inspection, it was the dead buck’s belly.

The story wanders off a bit from there, when he goes to the horse-owner’s house and asks if he can go through her property to retrieve the deer. A mounted police officer, she says yes, and informs him that she loves deer heart and liver … hint, hint … which he gladly gives to her … end of story … well, sort of.

It’s at this point that I queried him about the pee and cigarette tale. Was it true that he had tinkled on the tree trunk and was smoking when the deer appeared? Was it also true that the deer appeared interested in the odor of his urine, like there was a trespasser to chase from his turf? Yes, it was true, “but you’re not going to put that in the paper are you?”

When I told him the angle I wanted to pursue, he understood and said, “OK, but I don’t want you to use my name. People will think I’m not a serious hunter, and I am. I usually bring in a pee jar and go through the whole routine to hide my scent. That day was different. I was just going through the motions because my friend wanted to hunt.”

So, chalk it up as an aberration driven by the fact that he wasn’t wild about hunting in the first place; just accompanying a friend more interested in hunting that he. I granted the anonymity request. Why not? Are names really important for a story like this? Let’s just say he’s a 40-year-old Hatfield machinist and leave it at that.

With deadline looming at the paper, I had to stop the conversation, so I bid my unnamed source farewell. Told him I had to run. Promised to be fair, not critical. Just wanted to present it as an interesting tale demonstrating once again that strange things can happen. As most deer hunters know, even when you do your homework, it basically boils down to being in the right place at the right time. No more. No less. He was cool with it.

A few minutes after we hung up, my desk phone rang. It was him.

“Hey, I was thinking about how you could phrase that story and it came to me,” he said. “You can say I sent my buddy an e-mail that said I wasn’t sure what drew that deer in. Could have been the scent bombs, possibly the grunting and rattling, maybe even the pee.”

You be the judge.