Sheds

      April is a long month when you live in the North Woods. Snow still blankets much of the ground and everywhere the ground is bare the soil is soggy. Fishing really doesn’t get going for another month. A cold north wind has been blowing snow squalls through almost hourly for several days now. About the only thing to do is try and stay in shape while waiting for better weather. And that means lots of walking for us and the dogs.

      For the last couple of weeks I’ve been teaching Maggie, our younger German wirehair, to hunt shed antlers. The lessons are simple. I ask her to sit outside while I walk around the other side of the house to hide an antler somewhere in the woods. When I walk back to her I say, “find the antler”. She loves it and dashes off to search.

      Today, like a lot of afternoons, we took a little walk up on a favorite hill. The dogs ran about, as they always do, and by golly Maggie came out of the woods with her first “shed”. Needless to say, she was quite proud and so were we.

April

The stream is very cold.

      A week ago south facing hillsides were almost bare ground, while north facing slopes looked like a pinto with irregular brown patches between vast areas of white. Now, more than a week into the month, Mother Nature has pulled a cruel pranks and dumped eight or ten inches of snow everywhere.

Maggie wondering where the
snow came from.

      But the woodcock are back and grouse are drumming, so it must be spring. Our dogs enjoyed the brief freedom of bare ground and hunted up birds. I am sure in a couple of days the ground will be bare again.

      The streams are swollen from the melted winter snow and soon will rise still more as the new snow melts. Water temperatures are very low and it will be a month before we see much insect activity on the streams. Thoughts of fly fishing, so far, revolve around the tying of flies.

      Spring in northern New England certainly teaches patience.

Woolly buggers galore.