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It’s one of the most exciting programs in the state, recruiting and introducing women to our favorite outdoor sports.

And now, Becoming an Outdoorswoman (BOW) wants to step it up by increasing its scholarship fund for participating women. Friends of Becoming an Outdoors Woman has taken on the challenge of raising these scholarship funds.

As Jenn Curtis recently wrote me, “BOW introductory skills weekends have been wildly successful at introducing women to new opportunities for outdoor recreation… and the newly offered Beyond BOW programs, which provide more in-depth training to outdoors women, have been an equally big hit.”

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Retired game warden John Ford is at it again. Perhaps he is astonished at the success of his first book, Suddenly, the Cider Didn’t Taste So Good! Maybe he’s enjoying his new assignment, traveling the state telling his tales to eager audiences.

For sure, he’s got a lot more stories to tell, so his sequel, This Cider Still Tastes Funny!, will delight all who loved his first book. I’m wondering now how many more stories he’s got!

As John got out into book stores and other places to talk about and sell his first book, he really caught fire, emerging today as a notable public speaker, irregardless of whether or not he has a book to sell.

But this column is about his new book. Published by Islandport Press in Yarmouth, you get 40 more stories from the diary John compiled as a Maine game warden. They range from the ridiculous to the sublime, with a bit of danger and a lot of humor thrown in.

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We taped three new Wildfire TV shows on June 10 and talked about some hot topics. First up was Representative Mike Shaw, the House Chair of the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee.

We ran through the list of what the committee did and did not do, and my cohost Harry Vanderweide challenged Mike on a couple of key issues including the lack of action on proposals to increase the moose harvest. We discussed the bear bill and referendum, IFW funding, the deer plan, fisheries bills and the committee’s decision to overturn some recent DIF&W rules, and probably hit the hardest on the $245 cost of killing each coyote in the agency’s special predation project.

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 A rainy Memorial Day weekend didn't dampen our spirits, probably because we had a comfortable room right on the harbor, three great restaurants to try and a host of shops and galleries to explore.

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Anglers who possess their limit of fish may not accept additional fish as gifts. And anglers who give fish to others must label each and every fish with the anglers name plus the year, month, and day the fish was caught. People who accept such fish may only possess them in their homes – nowhere else.

I’ll bet you didn’t know all of this. I certainly didn’t. When John Rice of Castle Island Camps in Belgrade Lakes posted information about this from a conversation he’d had with a local game warden, I thought some of that information was wrong. So I hauled out my Open Water & Ice Fishing rulebook, but couldn’t find anything about this. I was pretty sure the legislation added the labeling requirement last session, so I emailed Lt. Shon Theriault of the Maine Warden Service with my questions.

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A lot of legislative fishing was done this session for wild brook trout, driven by the adoption of new rules by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to ban the use of live fish as bait on nine waters in northern Maine, to protect those waters from the possibility of the introduction of fish species other than brook trout.

The new rules incensed many northern Maine anglers and bait dealers, and they brought the issue to the legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee where it got a lot of debate, focused on LD 170, sponsored by Senator Troy Jackson, that would have overturned the new rules on all nine waters.

Rep. Jeff McCabe also submitted a wild brook trout bill at my request, and worked with me to move our suggestions forward. I am pleased to report that final action by the committee included the concepts Rep. McCabe and I advocated.

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Gary LaPlante’s Buen Apetito Waterville restaurant is one of our favorites, partly because he offers amazing dipping sauces. Some of them have been available in Barrels Market in Waterville, but now Gary has hit the big time with a whole new line of sauces.

The line is called Deer Camp. The small flask bottles are hot sauces that can be used as a table condiment (like Tabasco). So far we’ve tried Buckshot Blueberry and Big Bore XXX Hot Sauce. Both are very nicely spiced but not so hot that you stop breathing. Linda especially enjoyed the blueberry sauce, very different from anything we’ve tried. I loved them both.