DEIRDRE FLEMING: Quality of ice fishing really depends on your locale

Outdoors

Published
February 4, 2012

DEIRDRE FLEMING: Quality of ice fishing really depends on your locale

Based on reports by state fisheries biologists this winter, the ice fishing season is either going great or hardly going.
Published
February 2, 2012

ON SKIING: Phones bring a whole new element to the slopes

Smartphone applications have made it easy to keep score in our lives, as if we're inhabiting a massive video game. Foursquare gives points and badges for checking in to stores and restaurants. Using Nike+, runners can set running goals and track stats from past workouts. From Chore Wars (an app that rewards household tasks) to SuperBetter (a game that aids in recovery from illness), gamification is seeping into every corner of our lives.
Published
February 2, 2012

WHAT’S UP IN FEBRUARY: February is the shortest month, but still so much to see

February used to be the last month of the year and the word is related to rites of purification, which are februa. We are in the middle of winter but it hasn't been consistently winter-like yet.
Published
January 28, 2012

ALLEN AFIELD: Looking forward to green season

We're approaching mid-winter, and snowmobiling, ice-fishing, rabbit-hunting and self-propelled options like skiing, snowshoeing and hiking boom. A few hardcore types even backpack with a tent or fish a handful of open-water rivers or streams that have year-round fishing regs.
Published
January 28, 2012

OUTDOORS: ‘The Baxter Line’

MILLINOCKET — It took a half dozen questions, first with the reverend, then the carpenter, next the restaurant owner. Finally, the name for this peculiar phenomenon that takes place in a parking lot in Millinocket every January came clear.

Published
January 28, 2012

HUNTING: For Ducks Unlimited, plenty of history of conservation

“It just isn’t worthwhile to go duck hunting these days — having to get up early in the morning or sit out in hard weather for a shot or two all day. I wouldn’t want my son to pursue a sport that I love so well that has sunk to such a low level after the way I have known it.”
Published
January 28, 2012

DEIRDRE FLEMING: If you’re on the Baxter Line, you join a special group

This is part inside story and part full disclosure, and while I’m at it, I should say that in 20 years of journalism, I have never looked to personally benefit from a story.
Published
January 26, 2012

FOR THE BIRDS: Christmas Bird Counts yielded wide variety along the coast

This column is the second of three reviewing the results of the most recent Christmas Bird Counts in Maine. Let's visit some coastal count circles together, working our way from York County downeast to Eastport.
Published
January 26, 2012

SKIING :There are many deals available for senior skiers

Let's face it, as some of us reach and proceed through senior citizenry, we search for, and take advantage of, every little special deal we can find. Not that those of us who've passed into what some call our Golden Years don't have a great deal to be thankful for: making it this far, being able to enjoy our lives, our families, our memories and our ever-expanding circle of friends and, for some, good physical condition and the extra leisure time for recreation that retirement affords.
Published
January 26, 2012

HIKING :Yurt let’s you get away from it all

Tucked into the forest, high on a ridgetop in the hills of Montville -- about 20 miles west of Belfast -- is a unique and comfortable spot to spend a winter's night, known as Goose Ridge Yurt. Easily accessible via a five-minute hike, snowshoe or ski trek uphill from the parking area off Halldale Road, the yurt feels amazingly remote, as if it were miles deep in the woods.