North Maine Woods, Saturday
 

0-framed, 26-inch barreled, 1907 Parker 16-gauge; Woodcock; my guide’s English Setter “Archie”, as referred to in the General Parker Discussions under WOODCOCK FLIGHTS thread, post #27, and me.

Where in the North Maine Woods were you Russell? I know the area and in fact I think I recognize one of the spruce trees behind you.

That's a real pretty setter there. I have pictures of one named Ginger from long ago that looks so much like that one.





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gee Dean, it’s not that I don’t owe ya, but giving away my guide’s covers….I’m even self-conscious when riding in his truck to pay much attention to the topo map or MAINE ATLAS and GAZETTEER; it just doesn’t seem cricket. (Not that for safety reasons-only, you see, I don’t file away mentally where we might be; heck, there may come an emergency, or something.)

I just can’t shake the story I was told about the legendary Cape Cod Striped Bass guide, who noticed that whenever he got his Diesel-powered 35-footer into a productive tide-rip, the client disappeared below – just when the action was getting hot. The mate went down into the cabin to see what the client was doing and found him entering latitude and longitude numbers into his hand-held GPS.

OK, in the interests of broadening the knowledge of PGCA Members and Forum Associates: the trees you see are of a Christmas tree farm, incongruously right in the middle of the North Maine Woods, where the norm, in contrast, is cultivating and logging off timber for milled wood products. It is all at the confluence of the Aroostook; Allagash and Machias River watersheds.

For further info. on his guide services; dogs and kennels contact Dave Mosher, Registered Maine Guide, via his website: https://sugarfootguideservice.com.

below see photo of Dave on our June 2019 fishing trip, impairing his health; and another of the 80-year-old, with a full pack basket.

Russell I know the guy with the GPS, or his twin, on Nantucket shoals our guide finally told him to bring his notebook up and just copy the numbers off the boat GPS and stop the foolishness. We all had a good laugh. The captain would predict the size fish from a section of rip with 90% accuracy and skip places saying ''no fish'' when asked how he knew he said '' lets go see'' and he was right. How did you know? I am here every day he said.

Russell, You can go hunting with me anytime! Not many people observe your courtesy.

In my own defense, I didn’t ask for gps coordinates. The North Maine Woods is an enormous area of hundreds of square miles. There are dozens of unnamed townships and districts there. I wouldn’t presume to ask for the exact location of a favorite cover. Nor would I disclose such, if I even knew it, to anyone else. I once made the mistake of sharing my favorite covers to the wrong person....





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On my river - "Where did you catch that fish?" - "On the lip"

For 20 years I kept my Wasque 32 in Lake Tashmoo(not a lake), and would take the kids out for blues and bass in Buzzards Bay, and Nantucket Sound. There was often a guy at the town dock who would ask where we got such nice fish. I pointed to a polished, round head #8 Brass screw in the cockpit combing and said "right there".

As an aside, Loran C, that went the way of the buggy whip in the early part of the century, was a reliable technology, that lacked the weakness of GPS. It was improved upon by eLoran, and that is finally being revisited in the 2018 DHS bill. GPS is easy and simple, but way to easy to disrupt, if not entirely disable.

real radios glow in the dark

Yikes... tubes!





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Edgar:

You allude to the fact that a few years back folks that comprise our leadership class decided to drop celestial navigation from the mandatory curriculum for Naval officers coming out of Annapolis. The practice was just too passé (or gauche) to bother with, given the Advanced Electronic Age.

Then, it occurred to enough of those in our nation’s chancelleries that clever (or cleverer) nation states might have the capability and inclination to knock out our satellites, or jam their signals, rendering our Global Positioning System (GPS) devices moot.

So, they recently brought back teaching Midshipmen the art and science of navigating by the stars.

Although celestial navigation is not required of all U. S. Coast Guard licensees, mariners have never been allowed to rely solely on electronics, although they must use them if their vessels are so-equipped.

The analogy for us when hunting remote lands and waterways would be in our carrying a compass (or two) and a topo map, in addition to our electronic devices. Maps and charts don’t “break”, or malfunction if they get wet or stepped on; magnetic compasses don't "run down"; thus, the requirement for mariners.

Long-time sporting camp proprietors all seem to have a supply of stories of guests getting “lost” in the woods, and one camp owner I know of has observed that most of his hunters were chary enough about venturing much further than 150 yards from unmistakable signs of civilization, that they just didn't do it. The more recent prevalence of GPS devices may have tempered those inhibitions; but there are newer camp stories of batteries that unpropitiously discharged.