If you enjoy hunting, those cool mornings we've had this week may have stirred your mental juices, anticipating what is just a couple weeks away now – several openers for small game hunting. Whether you hunt for big or small game or both, autumn is a very special time, one that whistles by very quickly, or seems to. But in all truthfulness, we could be hunting upland game right now, since the squirrel season has been open since September 1.

I'm not sure all hunters go through this evolution, but it seems that hunting gray squirrels is a passion when you're young and just starting out. Then, with the passage of years that expose us to a variety of other game species, big and small, we hunt bushytails less and less. I suspect there aren't many older hunters in the September squirrel woods on any given day, unless they're accompanied by a young hunter just starting out. No doubt that squirrels are a great species to introduce new hunters to, but why should the kids have all the fun and reap the good eating?