September is the start of the 2019 hunting season. Sportsmen will be heading to the woods and fields to get feeders and food plots ready and just to get away from the daily grind. Nothing clears a mind like time in the woods. If I might make a suggestion, take the kids and/or the significant other or a non-hunter with you. They can also use the time away and it’s a good educational experience.
Chris (my son) is in his early 30’s now. He was 8 when we first hunted deer together. The sun had started burning off the morning clouds as the pine trees turned to oaks and pecans as we walked into the bottoms of a northeast Texas forest. The temperature was in the high 30’s and I whispered to Chris “to stay quiet, alert and give a little whistle if you see anything”.
The morning sun throws some wicked shadows when you are surrounded by trees. Chris would whistle, I would whip around to see him pointing at a deer that was really just a bush whose branches looked like antlers. Chris was whistling so much it sounded like a jukebox was playing.
We had less than 100 yards to go before the trail turned east to follow the creek. A light breeze was in our face as I told Chris “no more noise”. He did a pretty good job at that, for being 8, as we stalked the last 30 or so yards. Snuggling up behind a giant oak tree I peeked around the right side looking across the creek. I saw 6 or 7 does and 2 young basket bucks all about 60 yards from us. I motioned to Chris to look around the tree. When his eyes saw what was across the creek, his back straightened, his head turned to me and in a rather loud and excited voice said: “dad there’s deer”! Well, they took off like they owed us money! The only thing I could do was hold onto that big tree and laugh. We sat under that oak and ate some snacks and talked about…. it really doesn’t matter. What matters is my memories of that trip are like it happened yesterday. I hope you have a memorable hunting season.
In case you didn’t know, Wells Brothers sells whole corn, corn-soybean mix, Antlermax deer feed, and plot mixes. Just try to keep deer meat under $850.00 a pound this year.
Learn about how Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) affecting deer in Texas. Click to learn about Texas Bears.
The first of September is the time to apply fall pre-emergent herbicides, so start thinking about it now. These herbicides do one thing and one thing only, they keep seeds from establishing root systems. We apply this in the spring and fall because that’s when we get the best bang for our buck. The big question is when is the best time? The rule of thumb is from the first September to the first of November. I try for some time in the first two weeks of September. The kicker is that seeds don’t care what month it is. All they care about is the presence of soil, soil temperature, moisture and a specific amount of sunlight. When the conditions are met, the seed will sprout. You should not apply pre-emergent herbicides in the garden when planting seeds. Do you know how big your lawn is? This is an important number and will be needed to apply the proper amount of pre-emergent (or any other product).
