North Woods Journal

The number of moose in the North Woods of New England is definitely down from what is was several years ago, but they are still quite common up here. The annual Moose Festival is still held in Colebrook and Pittsburg, New Hampshire and Canaan, Vermont. Part of the Festival is the moose-calling contest, and I often broach to my wife, Linda, that those amateurs would have little chance against my almost-too-successful method of luring bull moose in the rut in my direction. It happened a few decades ago at the camp I built on the shores of Azizcohos Lake in Western Maine. It was in the Fall, but there was no snow on the ground and the weather was pleasant. I was sitting outside the camp on the deck while Linda was inside doing God-knows-what. I was victim to an episode of loud flatulence, which was greeted from inside the camp by an also-loud chiding of "Tom, cut it out." Well, if you can't fart in the wilderness, where can you? My camp was nine-miles from the nearest pa...

When you watch North Woods Law filmed in New Hampshire, believe what you see. It is quite real, and these Game Wardens are called upon to do everything. Living in the North Country, my wife, Linda, and I encounter them quite often, and one meeting was quite bizarre. We were hunting for partridge on a logging road a few years ago and a guy in a pickup truck stopped and told us there was a partridge just off the road and quite close to us. We followed him, and he pointed it out, sitting in a clearing about 20 yards off the road. He wondered why I wasn't shooting it because they were in season - I was licensed - and we were in a legal shooting location. I hesitated because I knew a camp was a distance beyond the bird. That's when it happened. The three of us heard a disembodied voice from the woods - "Don't shoot the bird!" Out of the woods walk two Game Wardens who had been hidden behind some low brush. The bird was a stuffed ruffed grouse (partridge), an...