"Bad Decisions Make Good Stories"
"Bad Decisions Make Good Stories"
Outdoor writer, retired warden and old soldier Bill Crisp's outdoor columns can be accessed here.
Stories on all types of fishing, hunting, mushrooming and access to great apparel. Bill's articles are almost funny, humor based fiction filled, non fiction stories. If we're lucky there will be tips of the trades and seasonal updates!
I 49:2 I 6:8 P 18:34
River waters have reached Walleye spawning temps! The Fish and Boat Commission has started its pre-season trout stockings.
A couple of decades ago I was asked by a tourist if I had been, “monitoring the acorn crop.” It was an innocent question and I answered with something polite but inside I was rolling my eyes. “Who monitors and acorn crop?” I laughed to myself, “That is ridiculous.” So, now for my twentieth season, I’d like to give an acorn crop monitoring report. I do not know what happened, since he asked but now, I cannot help but do an annual survey of acorns. It is not as easy as you think, at times the crop is spotty. Last year there were hardly any acorns in the national forest, while the Quehanna area was loaded. There are times when one side of a mountain can be like rolling on marbles while the other side is bare.
I have been wandering around monitoring the best that I can. It occurred to me while strolling through the forest that one of the good things about adulting is I do not have an innate fear of stepping in quicksand around every corner. For some reason, as a kid, I thought the stuff was everywhere and even studied and practiced escape techniques. I should have signed up for monitoring quicksand, it would be an easier job than monitoring acorns.
What I have done is taken general notes and extrapolated from the area whether to go a general report that should match most of the area. With the rain we have had, acorns should be growing gills. Getting down to it; so far so good. Trees seem to be making up for last year, sorry Quehanna… Not just the acorns but the apples are really busting too. It has been the most spectacular apple blossom season in memory and now most pollinated flowers are already turning to apples. As a side note, last year's apples looked good and we got a sudden freeze that crushed the fruit trees on the cusp of success. We are not officially out of the woods until June 10th but, at a certain point as the fruits mature, the window for success gets larger. The bottom line is that if we do not get another nasty freeze, there will be all kinds of mast for critters this summer and fall.
Despite the very cool spring, the forbs are really bursting out so far too. All this rain seems to have emboldened the field plants and grasses. I have seen a lot of clover that is way ahead of its growth rate as of this week. Apple trees in general are doing very well despite the boring beetle that seems intent on making them extinct. I am not sure if the beetles have dropped off but they have hammered a lot of trees in my area and destroyed a young orchard. Recently though, I noted that a large number of young apples are thriving in the woods. A buddy, who knows more about trees than most, wondered if the bugs, for some reason, missed or avoided apples growing in shady conditions. Following up on that, I did find some research published that concluded that apples in shade were somewhat protected from the invasive pest. So, if you have a grown in orchard or apples, be careful not to daylight them too much, if that is one of the winter hobbies you carry as well. I just thinned and left part of the trees exposed to morning sun if they were suffering from being too choked out and so far, that seems to work. One should be careful about too much sun on woods apples anyway as they become used to the shade and a sudden exposure can kill the trees before the pests get to them.
Not as inquired about but equally important to those that follow them, it appears that ginseng and other medicinal plants such as cohosh will have a bumper season after getting off to a fast start this spring.
See you along the steam
I have no idea why you'd sign up here, yet. But thoughts wander from hunting, fishing and sports to penny stocks...
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