We are now more than half way through September and ready to enter into the fall season.

I kinda wish that we could get into the cool nights and mild days that fall brings, but it is a gradual process in the fall. It seems that spring is the other way around. We jump right from winter into summer and don’t have that much of a spring. That may be the case, and we jump right into winter after having an extended summer lasting and over running the fall season.

A long fall or a short fall, we will eventually end up in winter, although winter in the Deep South is not all that cold. That is the reason I still live here. Cold weather is great for two or three days and then it needs to warm up. That is what we have.

My brother moved to New York, but the spot he lived in was in a valley and the mountains on each side would protect them from the really harsh weather. It snowed more that I would have liked, but not nearly as much as their neighbors 50 miles to either side of them. There have been times that we have gotten heavy snow here in southwest Georgia, but those times are few and far between. It is usually a dusting that lasts for just a few hours, a little longer at night.

Right now in September we need not worry about snow, maybe rainfall. We have gotten a goodly amount during this month, but we are entering what is usually a dry couple of months. Usually about the time that the regular deer season comes in around the third weekend of October, it is as dry as it gets in southwest Georgia.

When we used to run deer with dogs it was so dry most years at that time that the dogs had trouble smelling a track and trailing a deer. If the track wasn’t really fresh, you had just as soon go home. But it wasn’t dry the entire season and things got better.

The archery season is in now and a few deer have been taken, mostly does. Folks have to get rid of the deer fever and the only way to do that is go deer hunting. Going several times and getting nothing will ease the fever while going and getting a deer may cause the fever to get worse.

Taking that first deer with relative ease will make you want to go more and more. Getting nothing tends to make one not want to go very much and a lot of not getting anything will end you season very early. The folks that can sit in a stand for hours deserve to get a big deer for their efforts. The Georgia state average for time spent in a deer stand per deer killed is about 14 hours. That is a sore behind.

We have had a successful first dove season, and it seems to be that way to our north, though not as much to our east. Based on years past, the dove season will get a little better when the October season comes around and then better again when the third season begins around Thanksgiving.

By that time, all of the fall hunting seasons will be in, and you will have your choice of things to hunt as well as what fish you would like to try for. And that month, November, will see the netting season come in. It will be the first month of the three-month long season.

You know it doesn’t seem all that long ago that the hunting seasons were going out. The years have really begun to fly by, and they tell me that with my next birthday they speed up even more. Just as long as I can see them and eat the cake, it will be a good day.

Hang in there and let the game come to you. Most of us can’t sneak up on anything now, so just let it come to you.