When I was a younger, I kept a long look ahead on the calendar when April and November appeared on the horizon. Back then, April meant the opening of mountain trout season, as well as the best bass fishing that could be imagined. November was the peak of the whitetail deer rut — and I needed all the help I could get from bucks that were smart 51 weeks a year.
April is still No. 1 in my book, but not for the same reasons. About 20 years ago, a good buddy introduced me to turkey hunting. Like the late, great Ben Rogers Lee used to say, “It’s a disease.” I was infected, so much so that I can remember only one year when I really took off any time during turkey season to bass fish. I think by some amazing quirk of fate, I’d filled my tags, so I went bass fishing one day and caught two of my three biggest bass ever. That’s the last time I can remember catching a fish on a spinnerbait, which used to be my favorite way to fish.
When there are turkeys in the trees, gobbling at daylight, there’s no time to do anything else. I like to think I’ve matured as a sportsman. My wife just thinks it’s a mid-life crisis kind of thing, me getting up at 4:30 in the morning for a month.
My favorite fall month changed several years ago. From my teen-aged years, it was always November — deer season. I’m old enough to remember when the only doe day in my neck of the woods was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. But I quit bowhunting a few years ago. I have always been color blind to reds and greens, but as I’ve aged, I think my condition has gotten worse. I’ve had more and more trouble seeing blood while trailing a deer. One day, I decided I couldn’t trust myself to blood-trail a bow-shot deer, so I turned my Hoyt compound over to my son and decided I’d wait for blackpowder and gun season.
When I quit bowhunting, I quit worrying about having all my stands perfect by Labor Day and I quit spending all that time in the woods when it was still hot. Instead, I started fishing more at the coast. I discovered how much more fun it was to battle a 20-inch speckled trout and how good a 3-pound flounder was on the dinner plate.
Nowadays, instead of November, I start counting the days until September. I’m always ready to get in a couple of dove hunts over Labor Day weekend and then turn my attention to the coast. The mullet run usually starts sometime in September, and for eight weeks, it’s hard to beat the kind of action that’s available for trout, flounder and reds. The weather starts to cool; the nights get longer and the days shorter, and the fish start to stir a little, then go wild when the mullet stream past all the inlets. I start a month in advance trying to get work out of the way so I can squeeze in an extra day at Bulls Bay or Edisto.
I think I’ve matured as a sportsman. My wife would say it’s a mid-life crisis, but she loves to eat flounder and doesn’t dare complain.
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