Welcome to January in our great outdoors

Just in case you haven’t been outside since Saturday’s brief splash of spring, here’s your mid-April reality check.

“Loon Lake, and most other north of Spokane, are still capped with ice.

“A predawn snow storm greeted many hunters out for Tuesday’s opening of the spring gobbler season.

“Fish hatchery trucks still haven’t been able to deliver trout to North Idaho lakes, and the stocking schedule is likely to stretch into May.

“The snow depth at the low-elevation Longmire entrance for Mount Rainier National Park is 522 percent of normal.

“Ticks have not become active – yet.

Big game struggling: Receding snow and green grass doesn’t mean deer are over the impacts from the severe winter.

“When you look at the literature, April is the crunch month in deer survival,” said Dana Base, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department biologist in Colville.

Many of the animals are thin, weak and teetering on a precarious point of survival. Left alone, most of them will slowly begin processing the new spring nutrition sprouting from the ground.

But extra disturbance from early turkey hunters, anglers and other people champing at the bit to get into the woods could push some big-game animals to burn energy they don’t have, and send them over the edge of their nutritional deficit.

Idaho ready for springers: Idaho’s spring chinook salmon season for the huge run heading up the Columbia system has been set to open a half hour before sunrise on April 26 on parts of the Snake, Clearwater, Salmon and Little Salmon rivers. The season opens May 24 on the Lochsa.

A season on the South Fork Salmon will be considered in May.

Idaho Fish and Game commissioners set the seasons Wednesday, changing the rules slightly for chinook jacks this year. A jack is a chinook less than 24 inches long. Anglers may keep two adipose-fin-clipped jacks a day and have six in possession in addition to the adult chinook limit. But jacks don’t need to be recorded on the salmon permits.

The limit for adult chinooks is two a day in the Clearwater drainage or three a day in the Snake, Lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers.

Refreshing requirement: When I asked for permission to hunt turkeys on his property, a Spokane County landowner graciously agreed with one caveat: “I ask that anyone who hunts on my property belong to a conservation organization,” he said.

Multiple-weapon hunters: Washington has drawn the names of 2,000 hunters eligible for multiple-season hunting permits that will them more than one shot at filling a tag.

For example, a hunter with a multiple season elk tag can hunt on either side of the Cascades. He can participate in the September archery season. If unsuccessful, he can head out in the October muzzleloader season. If he still has a tag, he can use it during the rifle season, which ends in November.

The privilege to hunt in any or all of these general seasons isn’t cheap. In addition to the basic cost of the tag, the multiseason hunters must pay an additional $164.25.

Sentence for sea lions: A federal judge has denied a request by the Humane Society of the United States to block the federal government from killing sea lions at Bonneville Dam.

As early as Friday, government agents will begin trapping and/or killing some of the seas lions that have learned to ambush endangered salmon as they congregate at the base of Bonneville Dam during their migration up the Columbia River.

Montana hunting uproar: A group of Montana landowners and hunting outfitters is organizing to close land to hunters in a protest of new state hunting rules limiting the number of non-resident archery elk permits in certain coveted areas, such as the Missouri River Breaks.

Two-way rod: Baseball has switch hitters, and now fly fishing has switch casters, who can use new rods that work conventionally or as a two-handed Spey rod.

Curious anglers should consider signing up for the April 26 Switch Rod Training seminar in Cle Elum, Wash., conducted by Bruce Berry. Info: Yakima River Fly Shop (509) 674-2144.