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.

Daniel, I am guessing that your dove opener is a big affair, as it is in much of the South. We were too poor to get invitations to the big opening day events in Virginia when I was a kid, but I recall hearing shots from one of the bigger ones when we lived in Hanover County. Here in Missouri it's more of a "blue collar" affair with guys showing up sometimes at 3:00 am to stake out a spot on one of the managed fields at a local WMA -- still fun and generally a more social affair than most public land hunting.

I hope your season starts well.

The doves are starting to bunch up into loose flocks instead of the pairs seen during summer. A sure sign of good things to come. The bucks are also bunched up into age groups and are friendly. That will all stop once the velvet comes off around Labor Day.

As soon as we get some reasonably cool weather it will be time to start running dogs in preparation for October.

I've become tuned into what birds are doing.

At my feeders lots of species are molting, growing in new feathers to take them on their journeys south. Some species, like Rose-breasted Grosbeak are already gone.

My last ruby-throated hummingbird banding session in the Adirondacks turned up only two adult males out of 25 birds caught. The adult males are the first to go.

The newly fledged songbirds are no longer begging for food from their parents and actively finding food on their own.

Species that don't breed in my area start to show up at the feeders, a good indication that they are migrants heading south.

I still haven't seen immature American Goldfinches as they are late breeders in my area. They'll show up anytime now at my feeders.

All migratory species are actively feeding on what is usually a peak in food availability at this time of the year to build up reserves for migration.

Flocks of Canada and Snow geese heading south high overhead.

But then there are other local signs...apple orchards opening up for pick-your-own business. White-tailed deer fawns with mostly faded spots. Those huge ears of white corn-on-the-cob that have had all Summer to grow. The crispness of the air in early morning. As has been mentioned already, some leaves are beginning to turn color.

Something always tells me to take stock of my ammo supply and get what is lacking. Setting aside a day to go to the range to check rifles. I am shooting my bow every day now. Then there is the scheduling juggle for time to hunt vs. other commitments. I mean, who schedules a wedding in October??? Really??? I am going to give up a weekend in October to go to a wedding???

At my place in Maine on Sunday early morning we had several times more hummingbirds than normal. Many were pushing and shoving and chasing each other at the feeders and sitting on branches nearby waiting their turn. there were also a few males.
To me, these were signs that they are feeding up and attempting to boost energy reserves for the long flight to Central and South America.





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It's interesting to read these observations, especially concerning birds. I know that upstate NY is far enough north to make a difference in the timing of bird migrations, but we still have doves nesting (they seem to want to nest continuously until they begin to move south). We also are seeing male hummingbirds, and the Grosbeaks are still "in town." Our prairie restoration plot is filled with Gold Finches, and they are constant companions in the sunflower fields during the first week of the dove season. I guess a few degrees of latitude make a significant difference...

A good sign of the upcoming fall season is sorghum that has the seed heads well developed. We got a late start this year so none of mine have seed heads yet. But they will come and provide great feed for the pheasants, deer and turkeys. The turkey hatch was expecially good this year. We should have some fine fall shooting.

That stir that's telling me I need to work the boys every cool morning possible. The wood stacks never seem to be large enough. Almost nightly just at the edge of sleep, I question will that grouse I call Houdini, the one that beat us twice in the same week last year still be there.

I heard that a 10-year-old kid was in there with a .22 just after you left last year.....:eek:





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Maybe, but at least he couldn't have rode an atv! The Tamarack swamp he would need to cross is daunting. The lone deer and wolf trail through this almost mile long bottom of 13 year Aspen makes my hips sore before I get near the end. Watching the setter pup work it reminds me of a Border Collie doing the poles on a agility course. Houdini doesn't live alone but has neighbors of the little russet fellas that make the bell stop fairly regularly and their tweeting rise provide warning before we get to his block of hawthorns. I can't wait to catch his next show.

Yes, the locust leaves are starting to rain down. They mowed the hay fields that butt up against my back yard today, so I will soon have acess to a bunch of connecting hay fields to condition my dogs in the mornings. Ed, the gent who cuts the hay there has a littermate to my Fancy, who many of you met at Hausmann's. Unfortunately, that dog doesn't get hunted, but is a sweet dog.

For me its when the nh crow season starts on 8/15 :) than into duck and goose season.

Scott

Sat down this morning and ordered RST shells. will write my check for my part of the dove field cost this afternoon. Beginning to get like a child before Christmas.

With the heat index at and above 100 here in Southeast TN this week I haven't seen any signs Fall hunting yet!

Hang in there, Reggie. I've been told that good things come to those who wait. I was never told that waiting was fun, though.

I am kind of in the same boat as Reggie.

You gentlemen in the South will be envied come late January.

That is how it goes for sure.

One of the subtle signs of fall for me is my supply of cut, split, stacked and cured firewood for winter.

One double row stack and another stack under the overhang on each side of the barn.

Let 'er snow. I'm ready.

Other signs, bucks still in velvet but getting bigger. Fawns growing too.

https://i.imgur.com/MyoCcll.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MV4ktnA.jpg

I am getting all my outside repairs and winter prep done now! Life is so busy and the months are passing like weeks! My Toyota 4RUNNER, AKA The rooster runner is all ready for my fall hunting trips. Still need to service my home generator and prep all the other gas engine things for storage. October will be here in a blink and I must be ready. Still have three of my front line doubles out for repairs or up-grades and they all should be back by the end of August so I'm told. My first hunting will be in October at Bullseye pheasant preserve or possible black bird shoot at a local farm and some doves too. Then up to the U.P. for a week in the grouse woods....(-: SXS Ohio

It's interesting to see how the nearing of the hunting seasons pushes us to complete the "other" tasks we have had before us and need to finish up before we devote ourselves to hunting. I, too, have been trying to finish house, yard, and farm chores when the weather cooperates. My wife kids me about my "incentive" to finish work, but with the dove season opener, all else goes to the back burner.

This would be a good theme for a Parker Pages article

It’s been done, but the theme never gets old... it is reborn every year at about this time.
I wrote such an article, “Anticipation” in the Fall 2016 Issue.

But it’s different for each of us - different locales, different upland game and waterfowl. Each to his own - each, his own love of the hunt.





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I noticed yesterday that the leaves are just beginning to turn on some of the trees here. :(

Why the sad face Sara? We’re coming into harvest time - the greatest season of the year. :clap:





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Leaves changing color = Winter is coming = months of lake effect snow :crying:

Ah, yes, the bittersweet element in the changing of the seasons. When a season that we've lived with dies, we mourn in our own way. Frankly, when summer dies, for me, it's like when an unwanted relative finally packs up and leaves. I will, however, miss sitting in the shade with the dogs, but I know that soon we'll be lunching on the tailgate after a morning chasing birds.

Sara, you could always pack up and head South, but you must have some beautiful weeks in your neck-of-the-woods during the Fall. The trick is to live within the Day...and it is a tough trick to master. It does get easier with age, but it's about the only thing that does(!) There's that bittersweet element again.

One of my best customers, Dresser Rand, was in Olean, NY. I would be summoned for engineering input about monthly. One trip, late April, I was driving down from Buffalo, thinking how nice it was not to be on 17 in whiteout conditions. Guess what the trip back to the airport was like.

I lived in the Scranton area for a few months once and used to hunt the first week of the PA deer season for a number of years . Let me begin by saying I enjoyed hunting the Poconos because of the friends I hunted with , but after residing in Scranton a few months I was never so happy to get back to Virginia and CIVILIZATION LOL’s !

When mowing the lawn on Saturday, in my path were the first few leaves that had fallen on it since the beginning of Summer. They were from an apple tree.

As much as I am looking forward to another foray into the woods with gun (or rifle) in hand this Fall, I have reached the age where any upcoming season looks good to me, provided I have relatively good health, some free time, and money enough to enjoy it.

I think that translates to - Money enough to enjoy it while I sit back and watch the young fellow I just paid to snow-blow my driveway and shovel my walks.






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