My favorite time of the year starts right now! It begins on Halloween and goes for about 6 weeks. In deer hunting terms these few weeks involve the pre-rut, rut, post-rut, and secondary rut.

November is undoubtedly the best month for seeing big deer in most states. The bucks are either cruising for a doe that is ready to breed, or they are already hot on the heels of one that is in sight.

I'm not much of a duck hunter. I like it but in my area there are not many places to go - or many ducks.

Have you ever noticed that many of the best bucks ever taken have been of the non-typical type?

Many times when I pick up my bow, I'm reminded of my first shotgun purchase as a sixteen year old. I've often said I went into that store as a boy and left feeling like a man.

I've learned over the years to keep a watchful eye when I travel to a tree stand in an unfamiliar place.

I can remember years ago thinking how neat it would be to have lots of bears in our area. I knew we had some and every now and then one would be spotted on camera and it would make news.

It's beginning to feel a lot like deer season. The temperatures today will range from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.

If you hunt or fish long enough there will come times that you must give up your passion for other things. I can remember years ago opening a business during hunting season.

I can remember the first time I decided to learn to hunt with a bow. I was about 30 years old.

It seems now days that many of us are in to hunting a trophy, especially those of you who have been hunting for a long time. To take a doe or a small buck no longer interests you.

Ever since I can remember deer hunting, I have dreaded July and August. Not because deer season is not here yet but because it will soon be.

A recent picture I had not seen in several years brought an uncontrollable smile to my face. It was my son and me leaning against one another and him holding up a squirrel by the tail. It was his first.

I had heard of others catching two fish on the same bait before, but I had never done it or even witnessed it. All that changed the other day. It was a beautiful, comfortable, and even cool August morning on the river.

The home fires may still be burning, it's definitely too hot to fish and too hot for golf. So, I just sits and thinks and plans. And in the late afternoon or early morning I check trail cameras and move tree stands because harvesting a deer doesn't happen in the late fall or winter but more often than not, it happens in the summer. It happens without a bow or gun but with a map, a camera, and strategic planning.

If you've been around the woods or the farm long enough, you have had the opportunity to fight a swarm of bees. This is the season for those little yellow jackets to let you know who the boss is.

While Americans are fixed on our own Independence Day; the truth is many different countries take one day each year and celebrate their freedom from another country or empire.

It seems, years ago, I simply reacted when hunting season came. The preparation phase lasted only about a month. The reason was because I hunted area farms.

Unless you are in school, the summer is not considered to be most people's favorite time of year. We usually choose the spring or fall because of the comfortable temperatures and the changes that can be easily seen in the environment around us.

Jimmy's idea of being in the woods has nothing to do with squirrel, deer, or even those delicious mushrooms. His joy comes from not only the hunt but the profitability of it. He hunts ginseng.

I have never been a big holiday guy. It seems there are so many now that they're almost no different from any other day of the week. They have evolved so much that even Ground-Hog Day has national television coverage.

Now that turkey season is over, I'm getting my mental facilities back in sync. I've noticed for the past few years that as each hunting season lingers I begin to overlook the beauty around me and focus solely on the hunt itself.

There's nothing like barreling down the lake in the spring or summer at 5:00 in the morning. The cool mist will wake up anybody. But it's not really the air that is alarming, it's the possibility of a big bass that is ready for breakfast; buzz bait style.

Another turkey season has come and gone. I spent the last several days chasing two gobblers that teased me every day until the season was officially over. They showed up each day within two hundred square yards of the previous day.

I just spent a week outside of Branson Missouri in a spacious timeshare house overlooking Table Rock Lake. Table Rock is a beautiful man-made lake that has approximately 800 miles of shoreline.