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Four things to do in a winter without snow

Posted on February 9, 2012 |
By Matt Dickerson



 

So it’s winter, and you can’t get your fix of fishing. This is a problem for Vermont anglers every winter, but this year it’s particularly acute because all the outdoor things you do in the winter when you can’t fish require snow. And, as you may have noticed, there isn’t any. Not only is there no snow, but as I write this column it is 46 degrees outside and the long-range forecast offers no promise of significant snowfall in the next 10 days.

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Local fly-tier shares his experiences

Posted on January 12, 2012 |
By Matt Dickerson



It is winter (despite the lack of snow). Although a few Vermont rivers are now open year round for catch-and-release fishing, most are closed. And even those that are legally open, such as the lower sections of Lewis and Otter creeks, on most winter days are not especially productive.

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New Year's thoughts from New York City

Posted on December 29, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



“It was dark. Very dark,” Isreal Dudley recalls, thinking back almost 10 years to his first visit to Vermont. He was 11 years old at the time, and it was his first real taste of the rural outdoors. Thanks to the Fresh Air Fund, Isreal, also called “Isszy,” had come to spend a couple weeks with our family that summer. It wasn’t his first time out of Brooklyn, the borough of New York City where he had grown up and lived his whole life. The previous year he had spent some time with a family in Pennsylvania, also through the FAF.

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Entering the timeless story of the season

Posted on December 15, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



I am a writer. Although I have written numerous essays for magazines and have now published eight books of nonfiction, with a ninth on the way, I especially love to write stories. I started writing stories 30 years ago when I was in high school. I haven’t really stopped since.

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Early birds get big fish (but no worms)

Posted on December 1, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



I admit it felt crazy getting up at midnight to drive through the night in order to be fishing at dawn on the Salmon River, a tributary of Lake Ontario in western New York. But the opportunity to catch Great Lakes steelhead will do that to a person. And besides, if it was crazy, I was not alone in my craziness.

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Turkey, coyote, bobcat...but not a deer in sight

Posted on November 17, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



It is the third day of the 2011 rifle season for deer. I’m sitting in a folding chair inside my hunting tent atop a small hill. In terms of my chances of success, I’d be better off 12 feet up in my tree stand rather than on the ground in a tent. I can see a lot farther from a dozen feet up in the air. Plus, my scent dissipates from a tree stand rather than lingering on the ground and warning deer of my presence.

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Fishing the promise of two seasons

Posted on November 3, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



I stood thigh deep in a favorite large pool on the New Haven River working the deep channel at the tail. Wes Butler stood on the far bank working the inlet and a swifter channel where the current undercut a steep bank.

Between us we covered the pool thoroughly with a mix of nymphs and black and white wooly buggers, drifting and bouncing along the bottom as well as stripping through the current. But nothing stirred. No flashes of silver, brown, or rainbow red to suggest anything hungry and tempted by our offer.

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Twenty-five states, one bull trout

Posted on October 20, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



Bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), like their cousins the eastern brook trout (S. fontinalisˆ), are not actually true trout. They are char, in the same family as arctic char, lake trout, and Dolly Varden trout.  In fact, bull trout are close enough to Dolly Varden’s (S.malma) that they were not designated as a separate species until 1980.

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Too many eyes, too many weeks

Posted on October 6, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



Everywhere I go in Vermont I see turkeys. There was a time, not too many decades ago, that turkeys could not be found in the state. Hunting and loss of habitat had pushed them out. But the turkey reintroduction program begun in 1969 was wildly successful, and for the past few years they have been about as ubiquitous as squirrels.

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Fall bike touring on Grand Isle

Posted on September 22, 2011 |
By Matt Dickerson



“Drive around. Pick out a few campsites you like. Tell us the site numbers. We’ll let you know if they’re available.” Those were the instructions from the ranger at the booth as we drove into the Grand Isle State Park for the first time.

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