Mid-May. Rhubarb knee-high. Rotting tulip-magnolia petals carpeting the lawn below their large ornamental tree. Kwanzan cherry blossoms pink. Japanese maples ascending to their spring burgundy splendor.

Such are the springtime inspirations in my yard. Yet, still, to me, nothing triggers spring reminiscence like those faint whiffs of sweet lilac tickling my nostrils and tweaking my consciousness. It’s invigorating. Optimistic. A signal of renewal and rebirth.

Last time we met in this space, my topic was the native Eastern brook trout I once pursued with youthful passion. That discussion was ignited by news of a record eight-pound brookie pulled through the ice on Maine’s Moosehead Lake in January.

This week we’ll switch gears to a couple of other spring pursuits that kept me busy for many years as a sportsman – not to mention as an outdoor writer pumping out a weekly column for a small daily newspaper. I’ll touch upon wild turkeys and shad, both of which significantly grew in population and popularity among regional sportsmen in the 1980s. By then I was married with two kids and keeping a home, yet still stubbornly clinging to my youth, tattered and torn, on the local men’s softball circuit.

First, turkeys. The wild variety did not exist in my world as a kid growing up in South Deerfield, chasing trout up and down rattling mountain streams in hip boots. Times have changed. Aggressive trapping and relocation efforts brought quick success to aggressive restoration efforts by New England state wildlife agencies. Now, not only have they gained lofty status as our state game bird. It’s not unusual to catch the big birds strutting down city streets.

I remember hearing my first gobbles in the early ’80s. Approaching 50, I was guided by a friend trying to spark my interest. This daybreak introduction occurred, quite coincidentally, less than two miles up the hill west of my current home. That East Colrain neighborhood surrounding a vast, working Yankee dairy farm was then viewed by many Bay State hunters as their state’s turkey-hunting capital.

The 2025 spring turkey season opened on April 28 and consumes four weeks. I finally saw my first turkeys of the season two weeks in, on my way to Pine Hill Orchards in Colrain for a Mother’s Day pie. Two skittish hens crossed the road in front of my truck, not a half-mile as crows fly from the spot where I heard those first gobbles many moos ago.

I stopped turkey-hunting many years ago, satisfied that I was a competent caller. After that I called in a few for a friend who loves to hunt, then drifted away when he preferred gentlemen’s 9 or 10 a.m. starts. Far too late for me. Similar to trout fishing, I wanna be there before the birds sing to experience first-light magic. There’s nothing quite like blending into the habitat and waking with the woods.

If ever I get the urge to return to the field, I have plenty of calls, camo clothing, and equipment squirreled away in safe places. Some of the box and slate calls are collectible. In fact, some of the box calls are works of art. A comeback becomes less likely as I age. I have lost my stomach for killing.

As for the ongoing season, it’s hard to imagine anything but a lackluster first two weeks of hunting. The rainy weather has not helped, keeping fair-weather hunters home and reducing daybreak gobbles from the roost to a bare minimum. Gobblers prefer announcing their presence in clear, high skies in which sound travels far, and hunters prefer aggressive gobbling on the way to the gun.

There is, however, plenty of time to harvest a nice gobbler searching for last-chance hens who’ve lost their first nests to predators or pneumonia brought by the extended raw, rainy weather. Still, the highest percentage of spring kills occur during the first two weeks, so I would expect this year’s numbers to be down a bit.

A hunter told me he was puzzled by what he had seen during week one. Perplexed by a lack of sightings and gobbles, he said he’d heard coffeehouse chatter about bird flu infecting our statewide flock. Though I suppose that’s not impossible, I find it hard to believe I wouldn’t have been alerted to such a development by MassWildlife, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the New England Outdoor Writers Association, or other wildlife-management organizations I’m cyber-connected to.

Which brings us to the annual Connecticut River anadromous fish runs, and particularly American shad – the best and most plentiful sportfish of the lot. Shad spawning runs always peak in May after river temps rise into the-60s Fahrenheit. Having tracked, compared and contrasted these runs for nearly half a century, I was surprised to receive my first notice that the runs were underway on April 18. The Holyoke fish lift had opened four days earlier.

I sensed an early start but had no time to investigate. Too busy. So, I printed the report and left it handy on my desk before hitting the road for an Easter Weekend getaway at Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont. Shad could wait.

Since then I have received three additional weekly reports, released each Friday until the fish runs come to a halt and spawning begins. I was right about the early start. Connecticut River coordinator Ken Sprankle attributed it to drought and abnormally low mid-April water levels. That all changed overnight, when five inches or rain fell during the week of May 4. Valley runoff flooded the river, necessitating closure of the fish lift, which, at press time, was expected to open no sooner than late this week.

What that means for this year’s fish runs is at this point anyone’s guess. What we know for certain, however, is that flooding lowers the water temperature and raises turbulence, both of which temporarily slow spawning runs. That said, migrating fish are prepared for such setbacks. By the time all is said and done, we know it’ll all come out in the wash and they’ll make their way to spawning grounds.

As of May 9, with the fish lift down, a total of 26,508 shad had passed Holyoke and 287 of them had passed Turners Falls. Once the river settles down and water temps ascend into the 60s, the sportfishing peak will arrive and last a couple of weeks. So, it won’t be long before the Rock Dam boys are reeling ’em in hand over fist.

A simple matter of when, not if.