Crowds normally form at name fishing spots on April Fools’ Day, but this year anglers were scarce in the still frozen Belgrade Lakes on that date, the season opener for Maine’s open-water fishing in brooks, streams and rivers.

Rapids flowed incredibly low and rocks showed everywhere in runs usually covered by roaring water – typical from the spring freshet in most years. Brooks covered with ice offered few open spots in channels, while shell-ice clung to shores – dismal fishing conditions. (How many of us have fallen through shell ice while trying to reach an open channel to cast?)

For the first two or three weeks of April, despite weather conditions, I like sneaking around with a fly rod to find open spots to present a baitfish imitation or weighted nymph, or poking around with binoculars and magnifying glass as spring sneaks ever so slowly into the state.

Birds are returning to lower Maine and recently a reader reported red-winged blackbirds around Bath and another mentioned woodcock in abandoned fields at dusk. I expect to see a phoebe or two soon, because in early April this bug-eating species often catches my eye along a hedge on my property where sun pounds the ground and melts snow ultra-early. Perching, dark-colored phoebes flip their tails up and down like a fast-moving pump handle, so we can easily spot this bird from great distances.

Bill Woodward of Monmouth, a retired fisheries biologist, spotted robins back in February, and not long after that I noted robins north of Augusta. They’re around for sure now, foraging on berries left from last fall.

Watching mating woodcock seemed more popular in my youth than now. Back then, many acquaintances would visit abandoned fields at dusk to watch males perform their ritual beneath an opalescent sky. To attract a female, the male makes a buzzing “peent” call, before eventually flying 300 feet up and diving to earth in a twittering, looping, spiraling descent.

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When a female moves close to the male’s singing spot, she softly calls “tuko” in acceptance of that male – difficult for us to hear. Each time a male flies upward, bird watchers can sneak closer to the “peenting” male before he lands again. Each time he touches down close to the spot where he took off.

Folks may bring a picnic with coffee, tea, wine or beer, which makes this early spring ritual more special than just sitting outdoors, braving the cold at sunset. It can be a frigid vigil, reminding me of a singing male in a Belgrade field in 1988. While he stood on ice, my oldest daughter, 2 at the time, and I watched the bird calling “peent.” I wondered how the 6-ounce male could tolerate such cold on bare feet and spindly legs.

Each early spring, woodcock sightings excite me as do drumming grouse or ducks and Canada geese in the Kennebec as the river first opens up, but birds don’t reign as the only game in town for nature observers.

When nights produce at least a 41-degree temperature and rain falls, peepers begin their iconic spring ceremony that may start later in the month this year. For folks looking for a fish fry, white perch spawn two weeks after ice-out, which will also be late this year. Garter snakes may appear on any mid to late morning on sun-warmed patches of ground.

Which reminds me of a quick story. One early April back in my mid-20s, I was lying in the sun, using a hummock for a pillow. My chocolate Lab was digging around a piece of pulp beside me, rotting into the ground, and she soon flushed a garter snake that wiggled off in a rush and a tear to escape. As the dog watched, it slithered across my chest.

The snake startled me, so I leap up and yelled, “You stupid dog!”

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My anger puzzled the retriever. She had evolved from a long line of Labradors bred in Louisiana, a state with myriad poisonous snakes, so she instinctively avoided getting close enough to be bitten. In her mind, she had done nothing wrong and wondered why I was in such a pucker.

Back then, I owned an English setter with Michigan and Maine roots, and the setter was as numb as a pounded thumb around snakes. She’d run into these reptiles in a bird cover and treat them like toys for her enjoyment.

Early enough this month, long before spring’s first timid viridescence tinges the land, light-brown, unspotted wood frogs head to vernal pools to breed, a noisy affair.

The mating calls sound like a black duck with a hoarse-sounding “quack,” uttered by myriad wood frogs all at once – a huge part of early spring in moist woodlands with vernal pools.

What would a Maine spring be like without peepers and wood frogs?

This month, on the east and south side of ridges, a hot mid-morning sun pounding open ground creates a fecund smell. Even with snow still deep in the shade, this shouts spring to the noses of woodland and field wanderers.

Ken Allen of Belgrade Lakes, a writer, editor and photographer, may be reached at

KAllyn800@yahoo.com


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