Turkey hunters, bass fishermen and crappie fishermen look forward to March and April all the way through the cold, cold winter.
Deer hunters and saltwater fishermen sweat through the summer, knowing that October is around the corner.
The best thing about the 10th month may be that it has something for every sportsman.
Hunters who pursue rails and marsh hens get a few days to bang around oyster beds and marsh creeks, shotguns in hand, waiting for the peculiar little birds to take flight. And the tail end of dove season ushers October in; there’s nothing peculiar about doves or the way they fly. With Labor Day a month in their rearview mirror, they’ll probably have the afterburners on high. Squirrels beware: As the first small-game season to open, there will be plenty of .22 rifles and 20-gauge shotguns pointed your way.
Deer across most of South Carolina will be going through their pre-rut rituals the first part of the month, then getting down to business as Halloween approaches.
Two of the more interesting seasons are open — alligator and shrimp-baiting. Officials with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources expect this year’s second-annual gator season to far outstrip the first in terms of animals harvested.
Last year, in the inaugural season, hunter success was in the 40-percent range, but only three out of ever four hunters drawn for the 1,000 permits actually took advantage of their good luck. Application numbers were much higher this year. And this season has been nothing if it hasn’t been great as far as shrimp are concerned. Good numbers of the crustaceans showed up in bays and creeks in the summer, contributing to one of the better summers for redfish and speckled trout that Palmetto State anglers have experienced.
Which, of course, leads us to a discussion of specks and redfish. Experienced fishermen know that things don’t even get serious until after Labor Day, and the peak of the inshore saltwater fishing season is October. The waters are beginning to cool down, baitfish and shrimp are starting to flush out of the creeks and marshes, moving toward the ocean and its warmer climate. Predator fish like specks and reds — and flounder and sheepshead and bluefish and Spanish mackerel and king mackerel, we could go on for a while — are waiting for them.
You’d think that with an abundance of bait, it would be tough to get a speck or redfish to hit one of your baits or lures, but that’s just not the case. What puts things in the angler’s favor is one word: competition. There may be a lot of bait around, but there are a lot of predators, and every one of them wants to fill its belly with shrimp or finger mullet or menhaden. Feeding is aggressive — a state we rarely get to experience.
As such, I have tried to clear my calendar this month of anything resembling work — just joking, boss — but October is clearly a month that sportsmen need to take advantage of. Yeah, there is that work stuff, and in my case, there is mandatory attendance on Friday nights at high-school football games in which a certain 17-year-old noseguard is involved. But the chance to slip away for a Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday in the marsh or on a deer stand is too much to pass up.
Don’t make that mistake.
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