In Search of Bats
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Great Bay Smelt Fishing
With the wintertime smelt run on Great Bay's tidal rivers comes another annual event -- the appearance of colorful ice-fishing shanties set up by devoted anglers. Ice angling for smelt has been a winter tradition on Great Bay for more than 50 years. Wildlife Journal tastes the adventure and camaraderie of winter in a coastal "shanty town,"and pays a visit to Junior Sawyer's former bait shop in Newmarket.
Want to experience the Great Bay smelting season? You might want to begin with a visit to an area bait shop. They'll help you get started with gear, bait and location information.
What's a rainbow smelt, anyway? The Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture and Fisheries has a good set of facts and figures; see www.gov.ns.ca/nsaf/sportfishing/species/smel.htm.
Wild
Ways: Bringing Up Bird Dogs
For bird hunters, dogs are both valuable sporting resources and faithful companions for every type of outdoor adventure.
But what makes a good bird dog? What kind of commitment and training does it take to turn a hyperactive pup into a first-rate canine hunting partner? David Bardzik of Green Mountain Kennels & Shooting Preserve in Ossipee www.greenmountainkennels.com shares his secrets with host Lisa Densmore.
In Search of Bats
Not all bats want to live in our attics... the red, the silver-haired and the hoary bat are strictly forest-dwellers, often using the cavities of dead trees to roost or raise young. But for the types of bats that like attics -- and caves and other "hibernacula" -- the loss of historical structures and improved batproofing in buildings may be causing a decline in populations.
What happens when bat habitats dwindle? Dr. Scott Reynolds, an independent bat researcher, looks for answers as he probes New England's attics and caves, preaching awareness and co-existence along the way.
Want to build, install and observe a bat house? Go to Bat Conservation International, Inc. at www.batcon.org and look for North American Bat House Research Project.
Wild
Places: Nash Stream State Forest
In New Hampshire's North Country, in the towns of Stark, Stratford and Odell, you'll find a rugged 40,000-acre landscape known as Nash Stream State Forest. It's an untamed place to hike, hunt, watch wildlife and explore for days on end. You can do a little fishing in the forest's many small streams and ponds, a few of which have been stocked with brook trout for more than a century -- or pick your share of the state's finest wild blueberries atop the North and South Percy Peaks.
In Nash Stream's backcountry, you might see any number of New Hampshire critters, including moose, bobcat and bear. Some hope to see a Canada Lynx here one day. Northern harrier hawks can be seen over the forest, and bats like pipistrelles and little browns feed on insect hatches in spring and summer. On Long Mountain you may encounter spruce grouse and pine martens.
Though Nash Bog Pond is still shown on many maps, what you'll find there today is a natural alder swamp -- the Big Bog Dam breached in the 1960s and was never rebuilt.
Nash Stream State Forest was acquired in 1988 by the state through the Land Conservation Investment Program in cooperation with the United States Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for New Hampshire Lands and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. It was purchased in part to provide public access for recreation and to protect the beauty and ecological values of the area; also, about half of the area is managed for timber harvesting. It's primarily a hardwood forest, with sugar and red maple, yellow and paper birch, and American beech.
Eight feet of snow falls here annually, so in winter the locals get around on snowshoes or snowmachines. During spring's mud season, be prepared to leave your vehicle at the closed gate and do some serious walking.
Nash Stream State Forest can be accessed from Route 110 in Stark, off North Avenue Side Road and Emerson Road. Click here to download a map of the area.
