Nice photo. He's probably sitting on his helmet, and he's got his typewriter perched on a gas can. They got it done however they had to back then.

His customized grouse and woodcock gun was the glass-barreled Model 59.





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A contemporary of Woolners, Paul Kurconnen(sp.) was a film maker in central Mass. He made a number of surf fishing films and hunting films, woodcock mainly, and he came up with the idea of the sawed off fiber glass gun and it spread in the local area. He tried with the available tools of the day but could not get any good grouse footage because of the light conditions. The Woolner brothers also knew Hal Lyman the owner of the 3rd Invincible. They all fished the outer cape and hunted grouse and woodcock.

You gentlemen certainly do live in an area rich in the sporting traditions...and that produced some of the best literature on hunting and fishing.

I found this in my "stuff"...


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Frank Woolners brother Jack worked for Mass. fish and wildlife for many years and was credited with the creation of hunter orange. I met Jack when I was a kid and he was a fascinating man to listen to. This is reminding me of how many years have passed since then.At it's inception hunter orange was cursed and hated and a lot of animosity was directed toward Jack for his promotion of it. I have hunted with men who would take it off out of sight of the road while deer hunting and just wear brown canvas. How times have changed.

Garry:

We do have some great sporting traditions here in the Northeast, but our regional Megalopolis is trending toward the effete.

We have teen-age boys around here now who have never baited a hook or shot a gun.

I look toward the West and South (and far North) of our country to lead in extending the outdoor ethos in the future. Paddle-boarding, mountain-biking, hiking and bird-watching are the main businesses today of our venerable sporting camps. They are great activities; but I think we’re missing something essential if we are not occasionally out there extracting something wild to eat.

Frank was a member and used to shoot regularly at our local club—the Boylston Sportsman’s Cub. My father knew Frank, shot with him, and took photos for his book on grouse hunting.

Russell, I feel blessed to have found my way to Northern Missouri. The top two tiers of counties in Missouri have a smaller population now than they did in 1900. A good proportion of the local young men, and a fair number of young women, do hunt and fish. Sadly, most of them leave the area as there is little for them to do to support themselves. Farming is still the biggest "industry;" roads are poor, but generally sparsely traveled; taxes are low; gun laws lenient; and we are not a destination for too many, other than deer and turkey hunters. There's nothing flashy about us here in, what I like to call the "Middle-Middle," but it's home for us now, and I am just OK with that.

Right Russell, and not just blueberries, mushrooms and fiddleheads.






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[QUOTE=Dean Romig;280291]Right Russell, and not just blueberries, mushrooms and fiddleheads.

Dean: Ok, you got me. I should have ended the sentence saying "...with a gun".

No, we are not talking a vegan tradition here.

Paul Kukonen had a little fly shop on Green Street in Worcester. The guy knew everything about fishing, building rods and fly tying. I think he (and his English setter) would sometimes sleep in the back room. The guy lived to fish and hunt. After he closed shop Jim Bender opened a fly shop on Madison St and carried on the tradition. Sadly they are both are closed now.

We always blamed Kukonen for ruining the West Branch of the Ponobscot River by informing everyone through his 8 mm films how great the fishing was there.

I love that river Ron, and fish it at least once, maybe twice or more, each year.
Trust me, the fishery is not ruined - there are just a lot more people coming each year, what with ww rafting and kayaking. But the fish are still there. But when “Culvert Pool” is lined with 6 fly-fishers and another one steps in, I step out. There are plenty of pools to fish.





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Speaking of Kukonen et al, I hope all you fly-fishers bought a copy of Austin Hogan’s book.





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Fall is finally approaching us here in the South. Last evening the Cicadas seemed to be crying loudly for Summer to hold on a little longer. The sky was a deep azure blue that can only be seen here when the humidity is taken aback by the approaching Autumn. The temperature this morning was hovering between 59 and 60 and a mist was coming off the waters. But the predicted highs for the next several days are in still in the 90s, but there is evidence of a coming freshness!

There is certainly a “mist coming off the water” here in Maine this morning. Only just now able to see “Blueberry Island” through it.

Oops... spoke too soon.


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Hmmm... I feel like I’m in the Stephen King horror story... “The Mist”

It’s baaaack ...


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Here's some Adirondack photos showing misty onset of Fall. These are from a couple of years ago late-September timeframe. The top photo has a pair of loons in it, but it's tough to see them. The middle photo has a single juvenile loon in it.

Craig, your wonderfully composed post reminded me of some of the words of an author, whose book I read continually, almost every day of the year. David Grayson is a pseudonym for the pulitzer prize winning author, Ray Stannard Baker (although born in Michigan, he's a New Englander at heart). His book, "A Countryman's Year" is a day-by-day account of life on a small farmstead in Mass. around the second decade of the 20th Century. I keep the book handy and read a passage for each of his date entries of the year. I've been reading this book for many years, completing it every year and then starting anew.

Here's the passage from a day at the end of August that reminds me of your post:

"In low spots along old country roads today I found the joe-pye weed in bloom; a rank grower, which in mass is often beautiful. There is a real touch of fall in the air: at twilight the crickets call. The goldfinch has a swooping flight; the aristocratic cedar birds are through with their late nesting; already the robins are beginning to gather, restless for their southern journey. And I found a fringed gentian by a woody roadside."

It's so nice to live where you can see the seasons unfold, and have the familiarity with your surroundings to know their subtleties and nuances.

Again, thanks to all of you who have contributed to this post. We are going through some tough times here with one of our dogs having cancer, and my own diagnosis with the same. It's nice to read these positive posts in a time when there is so much acrimony elsewhere.

Thank you!

Reading “A Countryman’s Year” is so much like reading Robert Frost’s New Hampshire poetry.

“Stopping by the Woods” is a beautiful little poem but he wrote so much more wonderful stuff - “West Running Brook” being one.

Maybe it’s because they were of the same New England generation...





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My sign was the arrival of this mounted bull canvasback (taken near the end of last season).

-Victor

I used "ruined" as a figure of speech. My little group of fishermen (mostly family and close friends going back three generations) have fished the West Branch for many years. My father and his buddies were going up there when they still used the river to drive logs. The logs would at times fill the river from shore to shore making it impossible to fish. The river wasn't fished by very many people back then. I'm thinking that would have been in the early 50's. They had the place to themselves.

I first fished the river in the 70's. You had to check in at the Ranger Station before going up the gravel road. Pray's Camps were still around and the Big Eddy was empty except for a few guys tenting. But even then it was getting extremely busy with rafters and screaming college kids. I remember my buddy and I strategically placing ourselves about 20 yards apart in a pool thinking no one else would dare encroach. But as the bewitching hour approached we heard car doors slamming and down came the stampede. We ended up with two guys between us and several more on either side. That "ruined" an otherwise perfect evening on the river.

I'm sure you are right and you can still go up and find pools that you can fish by yourself -- if you don't go at the prime time and don't mind walking. But it's definitely not like it was in the "good ol' days."

We blamed Kukonan for popularizing the spot but obviously no one could ever keep a place that beautiful and with that quality of fishing a secret.

Ron, I’ve only been going to the West Branch for about 40 years.
My good friend’s great uncle had his doctorate in geology and minored in cartography and spent from early spring to first snow in that region and up into Canada.
I have seen the pictures of his of blankets spread on the ground with salmon and brookies spread on it that today we rarely if ever see.

I once told Bunny Pray about a hugh brookie I had seen saying it had to have been twenty inches.
She said there were no brookies like that in the West Branch since the 70’s.
The following year in late September i caught a 21” brookie on a streamer up at Roll Dam.





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On a whim last week I went to New Hampshire for a few days for my setter Max to work on wild birds. Flushed 6 grouse over 2 days so I know he's ready. I went to the skeet field a couple of times this past month and would be embarrassed to tell you my scores. I'm hoping it does not translate into missed birds when the season opens :(

The blue winged teal showed up at our marsh today in central NY right on schedule, calendar birds. The woodies are starting to show up in numbers saw about 50 today.

Some not so subtle signs for me is when I switch from wearing shorts, tee shirts and flip flops pretty much every day to waking up on cool mornings and putting on jeans, a flannel shirt, shoes and socks; a fire in fireplace starts to be a more common occurrence than running the A/C; and bourbon on the rocks is preferred to gin and tonic. Now when I open the outside door the friendly summertime mallards somehow know ... and fly away rather come for food.

Wild rice, Sora rail, 28 ga. Parkers and #10 shot all work for me!

Kevin, That is something I've always wanted to do!