First of October.

I can’t recall katydids creaking all the way into October.  It was ninety-two on the second before air temperatures dropped thirty degrees for a couple days. Had I been more thoughtful, I would’ve sloughed off work Thursday, too.

A fat fox squirrel crosses the blacktop and I’m glad I brought my shotgun along in the event fishing doesn’t pan out. Turkeys are in season, too. Woodcock open next week, and I may jump one up in the brush on the walk in. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, I’ll try and arrow a doe. From here through December, loyalties are divided.

A more thoughtful angler may pay more attention to the little light colored mayflies drifting backwards upstream on the breeze and tie on a little Adams. I remind myself to make some handsome quill-bodied Blue Duns this winter, while it’s cold, and tie on a peacock-bodied stimulator with black rubberlegs dangling from its sides.

Maybe it resembles the brown and black spiders skittering along the stream this time of year, I don’t know. But the fish rises from between two boulders, where you think it should, and takes confidently.