Subtle, but sure, signs of Fall hunting -- What are yours?
 

My dogs and I are anxious for Fall and what it brings to us. We keep a constant vigil on the signs of its arrival here at 40.3470° N, 92.5691° W, as we have for nearly 40 years. These signs we look for mean hunting season is just about upon us, another season of activity here in the "middle-middle" as I like to call our part of the country. Locust sing, crickets chirp, and there are signs among the plants that it will soon be time to break out the guns and head to the fields.

What are your signs of Fall and the hunting to come?

Key to photos:

1. Cup Plant is one of the first of many sunflowers to bloom in the late Summer/early Fall. It is added to by many yellow blooming flowers here in the "Middle-Middle" of this wonderful country we call home.
2. There's always a sneak peak at the beautiful color of Fall previewed by Virginia Creeper (pictured here) and Poison Ivy.
3. About the 2nd week of August, we begin checking the local WMAs to see how the dove field plantings have managed the summer. This field looks like it should draw dove for our September 1st opener. I can't wait!
4. My sentimental favorite harbinger of Fall is the Golden Rod. Golden Rod gets a bad rap, many thinking it, like its brethren the rag weed, causes hay fever. Golden Rod does not polinate through the air, but by proximity, touching the plant next to it in order to procreate. There are 120 species of Golden Rod, and there are times I think that each one is present in our fields near home.

Kathy and I spent the last week and a half or so in the Western Maine Mountains and we saw in some low-lying areas that the swamp maples have begun to turn to reds and yellows and oranges.
In the fields and meadows, even around home in WHF country the various tall grasses like timothy and others have all turned to yellow and then to brown.

Pretty soon......





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Dean, That's some special country you mention. I'll bet it's beautiful come Fall.

We put up a new deer stand . Bought from the Outpost my favorite outdoor store

Hunting catalogs in my mailbox are the first sign for me.

Clover food plots that have been decimated by the summer heat were sprayed last weekend in anticipation of fall plantings consisting of buck forage oats and turnips.

Gosh...to be a kid again...and anticipate sitting in a tree stand on opening day of the deer season. Better than any tree fort!

Here in the Blue Ridge, it is the Locust trees starting to turn brown and the creeper turning, also that cool wind in the early morning out of the north. couple more months and the Parkway will be full of leaf lookers, this October will find me in Maine, God wiling, Gary

Sports page is discussing the collage football openers, that means dove season is right on us.

Gary, I hope Maine is perfect for you. We will spend our annual 2 weeks in Northern MN. We time our trip to get the last vestiges of leaf color, making for clearer shots, but still the hint of color...and, hopefully, no mosquitos(!)

I grew up in coastal Virginia on the peninsula near Jamestown and Yorktown. Had relatives in the Blue Ridge -- Buena Vista and Culpeper, and spent some great days roaming the mountains in Augusta, Highland and Bedford counties for trout, turkeys and squirrels.

My best to you for you Maine adventure.