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.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

It should come as no shock that the ”apparent” wolf shot in Shelburne last fall was confirmed by DNA analysis to be a wild Eastern gray or timber wolf, the likes of which has reportedly been seen many times in recent years but not killed here in Franklin County for more than a century.

Wolves were once here. That we know for sure. A cursory check of old town records will prove that. Be it Greenfield and Deerfield, Buckland, Shelburne and Colrain, Conway, Ashfield and Whately, you name it, any town in Franklin County, and you’ll find lists of bounties paid to citizens who killed wolves and wildcats alike. In the early days there was a concerted effort throughout New England to eliminate all large predators capable of killing livestock and, heaven forbid, people. Back then, wolves and wildcats were public enemy No. 1. Bounties encouraged cooperation from the best woodsmen as well as farmers, and cooperate they did, driving the beasts they didn’t kill to places where no one else wanted to live. That organized effort led to the extirpation of wolves and wildcats before the 20th century.

Bounties and persecution were not the only factors that led to the beasts’ demise. The major factor that wiped them from our landscape was the deforestation of New England and most of the Northeast. Following more than two centuries of settlement and back-breaking toil, New Englanders had replaced primeval forest with open land bordered by the same aristocratic hardwoods that lined roadways. Other than that it was mostly open country. Sure, landowners still kept woodlots, which provided cordwood and lumber, but there was less demand for wood fuel with the arrival of coal stoves, and by the third quarter of the 19th century, 85 percent of New England and 75 percent of New York was clear-cut, leaving our large, most dangerous predators nowhere to hide and no reason to stay. That’s why they fled to the Northeast’s most remote mountain wilderness, and that’s why, by the 20th century, they had been pushed above our northern border and into Canada, where a reproductive wolf population still thrives.

Well, let’s just say the times they are a changin’. Forests have now reclaimed much of New England and, if you believe witnesses with no reason to fib, the wolves and wildcats appear to be returning, along with moose and deer, bears and lynxes and many other species that grew scarce when the habitat couldn’t support them. Out of this transition also came a new species called Eastern coyote, known in the vernacular as ”brush wolves” and believed by some to be an Eastern wolf/Western coyote hybrid spawned in remote Great Lakes territory.

When coyotes first showed their heads on the back 40 during the late 1950s, they were called ”coy-dogs” by confused hilltowners trying to explain the presence of a new canid resident. Believed to be German shepherd-type dogs gone wild, or maybe a cross between such wild dogs and coyotes, even the experts went along with the wild-dog theory for a spell. But then it became apparent that a new beast had been borne to the Northeast, Today they’re everywhere, often boldly feasting in urban dumpsters.

Consider the re-emergence of moose in our woodlands, another example of an indigenous species that’s returned with the forests. When Moose first started appearing locally it was front-page news and they were said to be confused by an insidious brain parasite, sort of lost in space, clear out of their minds. But that diagnosis, although valid in some instances, isn’t what brought moose back to their historic range. No. It was reforestation, the return of suitable habitat. So now we now have a resident, reproductive moose population living among us.

Expect more of this wildlife expansion to develop; more wolves, more moose, more fishers, more bears, more of everything the forested habitat can support. That means wild wolves, not released exotic pets; and don’t be surprised when, like in the Midwest and Florida before us, our wildcats return as well. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about: the ones with the long tails, the big teeth and the blood-curdling screams resident whack-jobs have reported seeing and/or hearing in recent years.

Then we’ll know for sure that those sightings and eerie sounds described by honest citizens weren’t LSD flashbacks after all.