Unlike most sportsmen, I’ve never really held anything against August. I put up with the daily 90-degree temperatures and 90-percent humidity, mostly thanks to the joys of air conditioning. My annual visit to the local swimming pool usually takes place in August, because at some point, cool water will be required for continued breathing.
But August has never been my least-favorite month; February wins that contest. I thought about it the other day, because when I find myself out of line with others, it’s usually me headed in the wrong direction.
I went back to the 60s and came up with this:
As a youngster, living in the suburbs of a city that had a major-league team, baseball was a large part of my life. Everything revolved around daily sandlot games and twice-a-week Little League or Babe Ruth games. But those seasons all ended around July 31, with the exception of the rare occasions when I stumbled onto somebody’s all-star team: maybe there was a place for an undersized, no-hit, good-field second baseman who idolized Bobby Richardson.
But with baseball over, August meant vacation. It meant a trip to the beach, where my mom would drop me off at the fishing pier with two rods, my tackle box, and enough money to keep me in soft drinks, potato chips and bloodworms for about eight hours. When my dad could get off work for a few days to join us, we might stay 12 hours, or at least until the afternoon spot run was over.
But my favorite part of vacation was the trip to my grandparents’ farm in Georgia. Sometimes, with side trips to South Carolina or Florida to see relatives mixed in, we might stay 10 days to two weeks — and I knew there would be a handful of fishing trips involved.
One summer, I was paddling my grandfather around in his cypress skiff when he caught a 5-pound bass on a fly-rod — and broke one off even bigger. I remember fishing for redbreast sunfish on one of the same rivers that Jimmy Carter wrote about in one of his books. I remember my father trying to slide a big rattlesnake under the brakes of his car when he ran over it in the road on the way home from a pond.
And when that vacation was over and we were home, waiting for that dreadful Tuesday after Labor Day when school resumed, there was at least one trip to the Chesapeake Bay when the bluefish run started.
Fast-forward to adulthood. August became the month to get ready for bow season, to make time for a half-hour of shooting every day. August was also the month to start scouting not only for deer, but also for a good, local dove field. What was planted, and in which field? Has anybody checked out the powerline on the game lands across the river? What time are the doves coming in? Where would we spend Opening Day? Can we hunt that afternoon where the guys from the archery shop goose hunt in the morning? Where can I get four cheap boxes of shells?
Thanks to an invite I received the other day, this August will be a little different than previous ones. One of my long-time fishing buddies knows somebody in the Lowcountry, and I’ve been invited to go on a Lowcountry deer/hog hunt. I have never killed a deer before mid-September before, and I’ve never gone on a hog hunt. If I kill one, how do I turn it into bacon and tenderloin biscuits? Can I stand the insects? How big is this beanfield, anyway, and am I supposed to shoot at something that far away?
These are questions to which I’m willing to find answers. Stay tuned.
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