It is the biggest battle you never heard of. At least it’s the biggest battle if you believe Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) has any control over what happens in the “North Woods.”

On September 12 Maine game wardens will be prohibited by law from stopping ATV riders without “reasonable and articulable suspicion” that a violation of law has occurred.

Linda and I were exploring the south end of Lubec, as far Down East as you can go in this country, on the sunny morning of August 10, one of those rare gems when the fog has taken a day off, and we stumbled onto something amazing behind the town’s water treatment plant: a boardwalk and beach trail provided by the Land for Maine’s Future program.

I’ve been a very active supporter of LMF but didn’t know this particular trail was available. It took us out onto an immense sand bar and all through an adjacent wetland. The trail ended at a school.

When Mainers dream about summer, the skies are always blue and we are basking blissfully in the sun. And there’s definitely no buzzing, biting, or swatting. So every year we are, as one writer put it, “newly horrified” by the onslaught of bugs and this summer it really has been worse than usual. The blame falls squarely on the other thing we’ve all been complaining about: the rain.

The collapse of Maine’s dairy industry is a calamity for more than our dairy farming families. It is a disaster for all of us.

This summer’s rain wiped out hay, corn, and alfalfa crops vital to dairy farms, forcing farmers to purchase costly grain and feeds. “Everything is just devastated,” Dr. Rick Kersbergen of the Waldo County Cooperative Extension told Bangor Daily News reporter Sharon Kiley Mack.

Much as I respect former Senator George Mitchell, I never imagined he’d say anything that would change my life. Of course, busy as he’s been in various crises, from baseball to the Middle East, he may not even remember what he said at the 2004 Maine Water Conference.

The rules that govern recreational fishing in Maine are complex, discouraging all but the most committed angler from participating in this enjoyable outdoor activity. Even experienced anglers have difficulty finding their favorite waters and applicable rules in the rulebook issued by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W).

Should you give in to hope or firmly remind yourself that the best predictor of the future is the past? I wish I’d answered that question before double-clicking the attachment in George Smith’s email last week.

Smith is the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (and writes a blog for this Web site). The working title of his column for the September issue of the Maine Sportsman is “Problems Fester in Maine Warden Service.”

You know about the birds and the bees. Start thinking about the birds and the beer.

Maine has cleverly packaged its birding and beering opportunities into two trails for tourists and residents alike. State Representative Bob Duchesne (D-Hudson) has focused his binoculars on an exciting economic opportunity, leading the drive to establish Maine’s very own birding trail.

They are beautiful animals, particularly those spotted fawns, and many people enjoy seeing them. But as deer populations in southern and coastal Maine climbed to historic levels in the past twenty years, people have come to see white-tailed deer as disease-bearing, vegetable-eating, road hazards.