“Guide sees woodcock spottings increase - Detroit Free Press” plus 1 more

Guide sees woodcock spottings increase - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 03 Oct 2010 12:53 AM PDT

GRAYLING -- Over a three-year period, Tony Petrella watched the number of woodcock pointed by his English setters, Ghost and Heart, decline by nearly two-thirds.

The drop in the area he hunts in northern Michigan was consistent with similar decreases across the northeastern U.S.

So it's encouraging that Petrella has seen a nice uptick in the woodcock count since the grouse season opened Sept. 15. (Woodcock season opened Sept. 25 and runs through Nov. 9.)

What makes Petrella's data more valuable than most observations is that he's a trout and upland bird guide, in the woods from the grouse opener until he heads for Sarasota, Fla., to guide for tarpon, redfish and snook.

He logs every bird pointed and shot (or more often shot at) along with the weather, the condition of the habitat and food sources, and his logbooks hold information spanning decades.

"I deliberately stayed away from the best woodcock cover before their season opened, but we still bumped up quite a few in the grouse coverts," said Petrella, who lives on the upper Manistee River. "We saw six today, a dozen in the last three or four days. Those are all native birds, because the flight birds haven't come through yet.

"We'll see the migratory woodcock coming through when the weather gets a little colder. They follow river valleys like the Manistee and Au Sable and Pere Marquette, because that's where they can find food."

The Ruffed Grouse Society's woodcock migration maps show that woodcock migration through northern Michigan starts in late September and peaks in October. But the birds are gone once the ground freezes and locks up their food supply.

In addition to temperature, another key element in migration is the wind. The birds take advantage of high-pressure systems approaching from the north or lows moving off the south to ride the associated frontal winds to wintering grounds in the southeastern U.S. and Gulf Coast.

Woodcock usually migrate at night, averaging about 20 miles per hour. They often can be seen crossing the full moon in late October.

Petrella can be reached at 989-370-1249 or www.tightloopsflyfishing.com.

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Your Sacramento Guide: C'mon fall -- a cool corn maze and two ice rinks - Sacramento Bee

Posted: 03 Oct 2010 12:02 AM PDT

Sacramento is in that swing period when it's sort of all seasons at once – summer weather last week, Halloween on the horizon, Christmas store decorations in, what, another week?

So it's time to do some seasonal catch-up.

The first one is fall-ish. Specifically: Best. Corn. Maze. Ever. It's back and open after it was leveled last year by a crazed mid-October windstorm.

I'm talking about the Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze near Interstate 80 just north of Dixon, all 45 acres of it. The maze is the planet's largest, sanctioned by Guinness World Records, and as someone who's tottered through it, I can tell you three important things: 1) it's really fun, 2) don't lose the map, and 3) seriously, hang on to your map.

The maze is the spawn of brothers Matt and Mark Cooley, two otherwise sane farmers who somehow got themselves into the pumpkin patch business, which led to the corn maze business and, anyway, the point is, they sometimes have to go in and find people who lose their maps and their way.

The maze isn't just big, it's tricky – the circle sections are tough even with a map – and the place attracts corn maze enthusiasts from across the country.

"I didn't know there were corn maze enthusiasts until we started this (10 years ago)," Matt Cooley said when I took my trip through it two seasons ago.

Anyway, it's open again, wind or no wind, along with the massive pumpkin patch – 2,000-plus pumpkins in scores of varieties and sizes – the hay rides, the climbable straw mountain and, this year, something extraordinarily cool: a pumpkin cannon.

Officially, it's a pumpkin launcher, but it looks and functions like a cannon and, for $1 a shot, you can fire a 7-inch pumpkin into a wall of hay bales.

"People get on it and won't get off," said Ann Schmidt-Fogarty, who does marketing for the Cooleys. "Men just stand around it and laugh. Maybe it's a guy thing."

It's cannon-colored – a sort of military green, which for some reason makes it look way better – has a thick, 6-foot barrel and uses compressed air. If you aimed for distance – which you wouldn't, because injuring someone with a pumpkin would be both horrible and embarrassing for everyone – but if you did, the thing could fire those small pumpkins hundreds of yards.

Kids, don't do this unless you're at a professional pumpkin patch.

The Cooley brothers, by the way, are the guys who hoisted a 1,000-pound pumpkin up on a crane a couple of years back and dropped it on a car.

The term " big kids" applies in all the best ways.

Getting into the patch is free, but the corn maze is $10 general, $6 for ages 12 and under.

It's at 6585 Milk Farm Road and is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily through Nov. 7.

For more information: (530) 304-0163 or www.cool patchpumpkins.com.

Rink moving back home

This one's actually a holiday-season update and, yeah, it's way early and I'm the guy who's always whining about stores or ads pushing the holidays too soon. Still, people have asked.

Remember the ice rink that hung out in midtown Sacramento last winter and how it's going back to its original home at Seventh and K streets?

Well, early or not, work will start by midmonth to set up the 7,000-square-foot rink, and the folks at the Downtown Sacramento Partnership plan to step things up this year. That will include, they say, a wonderland of holiday lights all over the area and a bunch more events, starting with a free skate day when the rink opens Nov. 5.

They're also planning discount days and nights for all kinds of people and reasons, including downtown workers, people who eat or shop downtown, and for occasions like Ugly Sweater Day.

"Generally, if you dress up and do something goofy, you'll probably get a discount sometime," said Lisa Martinez, marketing director of the downtown partnership. "We want this to feel like community space."

And what of midtown folks and no rink for them? They're taking the lots-of-smaller-events approach, which includes the 12 Days of Midtown in early December.

Those days will probably include a Santa Paws Day (when people can bring their pets to get pictures with Santa), a Christmas Carol-Off (when roving bands of carolers will sing out to be called the best, uh, roving carolers) and a Santa's Tavern Day at the Golden Bear.

"Things are subject to change," said Rob Kerth, executive director of the Midtown Business Association. "It's early."

And what exactly is Santa's tavern?

"It's the place where Santa would go to relax after a hard day of flying around the world distributing toys," Kerth said.

The word in the bar community, if it matters, is that Santa can party with anyone.

Iceland rink on track

As long as we're going down the ice rink road, North Sacramento's Iceland Ice-Skating Rink is on track to reopen by the holidays, thanks to a monumental effort by folks in the community who would not let the place die.

Iceland, remember, was pretty much destroyed by fire in March. At least the building was. The rink and the cooling system survived, and so did North Sac's connection to the place that opened on Del Paso Boulevard in 1940.

So since March, people in the area have staged a bunch of fundraisers and logged more than 700 days of volunteer time to rebuild it as an outdoor rink. It'll have almost the same skeleton but no roof.

It's completely cleaned out, mostly painted, and they're working on leveling the ground and putting in a heating system under the ice – which sounds odd, but the old ground below the ice developed a kind of permafrost and got uneven patches.

"Once in a while, we had to go in and pull beginners out of the low spots," said Rob Kerth, yes, the same Kerth as the Midtown Business Association guy. His grandfather started Iceland, and his family still owns it.

"It's one of those honestly heartwarming stories," he said. "We have everyone from kids to 80-year-olds showing up to help. We had one older lady who baked cookies for the workers. She said she met her husband there and didn't want it to disappear."

Coming up are things like neon-repair day on Oct. 23, when volunteers plan to get there at first light, take down the marquee, completely repaint, repair and rewire the tubes, and get it all back up. It's the ice rink equivalent of a neon barn-raising.

The goal is to be open by Nov. 1. Or soon after. Certainly by Christmas.

Iceland's rebuilding and management are now in the hands of a nonprofit group, which keeps the community's stake in the place and makes contributions tax-deductible.

For more info or to pitch in, contact Terrie Kerth, Rob's sister, at terri@icelandrestoration.com or (916) 992-4836.

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).

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