Readers get three mini-columns for the price of one today, all for shelling out a hard-earned 60 cents ...

n Despite the fact it appears as though we're going to have ice covering our lakes and ponds until sometime into July -- of 2009 -- open-water fishing is just around the corner. Though there are a select few year-round open-water sites in the state, the law book opens most of central Maine to anglers on Tuesday.

But despite as much as two feet of ice still out there in places, those in the know remain optimistic that ice-out will happen virtually on schedule this spring. On the Oakland end of Messalonskee Lake, for example, open water is already visible -- more than the usual parcel near the dam leading to Messalonskee Stream.

According to Paul Laney, a Gardiner native who now guides out of Grand Lake Stream, we probably aren't likely to see an unusual ice-out -- for two reasons. One is the state of the ice that exists, and the second is the immense amount of run-off water lakes and ponds will see once the surrounding snow pack melts.

"There's a lot of ice out there, but most of it is (iffy) ice," Laney said, noting the several inches of black ice that reside under a thick blanket of nothing more than frozen slush. "It's not going to take it that long to melt. Once it warms up."

Choppy ice breaks down quickly, and melted run-off is warm enough to serve as a catalyst to the melting process when it reaches lakes and ponds. Of course, the warming up remains the sticking point. The extended forecast for the next several days continues to show sub-freezing temperatures at night and well-below normal temperatures for the days.

There are snow showers in the forecast for the area this morning and over the weekend. And, yep, it's more of the same next Monday, too.

n One of my favorite "rite of spring" passages is a trip into the woods in Rome.

The hike up Mount Philip is great on snowshoes in the winter, but I prefer to make the trip in a pair of sturdy hiking boots. Two reasons -- the weather is a little warmer, obviously, so some of the snow melts, and once the trees start to bud, it's a gentle reminder of the promise of life which spring holds.

Timing is everything when it comes to this short, family-friendly jaunt.

Make the hike too soon and deep snow makes it nearly impossible -- sometimes even with the aid of snowshoes. Go too late and the bursting greenery on the side of the mountain drowns out what's perhaps the best of the reasons to make the ascent, the views of Great Pond at the "summit."

While we're all eager to get out for a good, lung-burning, muscle-taxing hike as the weather warms -- especially so after the winter we've endured this time around -- small mountain hikes, for me, are as good as it gets. Flat, waterside hikes are often muddy or flooded. The higher reaches of taller mountains remain drenched in winter-like conditions weeks longer than their smaller cousins.

Hill and small-mountain hikes are self-draining, so to speak, and one can typically count on favorable conditions near the top.

n For a while last week, I felt like some kind of outdoors high priest -- fielding confessionals from all sorts of readers who felt guilty for having fed deer in their backyards. E-mails poured in as people recounted story after story, some of them feeling quite ashamed for having committed a wildlife sin.

Deer, come to find out, are susceptible to life-threatening diseases when fed carbohydrate-rich foods in winter.

Turkeys, it turns out, are not.

One reader wrote to tell me he had been feeding wild turkeys, fearing they wouldn't make it through the winter with such a deep ice and snow pack this year. Local biologist Keel Kemper told me that the poultry sect doesn't have the same issues deer have with winter feedings.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. According to Kemper, there are more than 40 diseases associated with poultry.

It's also, as suggested last week, a bad idea to encourage wildlife to congregate, period. They run the risk of car collisions and domestication.

I'm all for keeping our wild wild.

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com