Wow… My favorite month of the year has finally arrived! Time to change gears and (slowly) put the rods down, and turn our hearts and minds to the glorious fall and hunting season about to begin. The new pup is going to get her first true season in the woods and on the water, and the old pup – she is still full of heart and desire even if her body can no longer keep up. I retired her end of last year, but she is begging me to go along again this season. If you have owned hunting dogs, you know just how we feel and what we are going through, and where we are at in this stage of life.

But we will give it a try. What better way for an old pup to spend her last days doing what she loves, as long as she is still willing and able. The scent of the autumn woods, the splendors of fall colors, and the crisp, cool air laced with wood smoke. It’s all new again, but its a fleeting moment of time, a painting we get to walk through for a brief moment, and be touched in the deepest parts of our soul. “A walk with God,” a time to sort things out, tidy things up, and dwell fondly of season’s past – both in hunting and in life – and in the season before us.

Growing up rural, I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in the sixties and seventies at my Aunt Obe’s house, a short walk through the woods and fields from our house. She lived a very simple life, an 1800’s life, and I got to enjoy that and be a part of it whenever I visited. On one wall, across from the wood and kerosine cook stove, she had an old clock that no longer worked, with a quote that read: “Time and tide wait for no man, and lo – the bird is on the wing…” I was a very young boy, but I was deeply moved by those words even at a tender age. I liked how things were always done in a proper way and in the right way, in her home and daily life. “David,” Auntie would say, “whatever you do, do it well!.” I hope this autumn, the little boy that still lives inside me, can live up to her expectations. I’m still trying, Auntie, I’m still trying.

Happy October.

Capt. David Bitters, F/V BAYMEN, baymenlife.com