September. Music to the senses. The cadence quickens. Time to bid summer farewell and make plans for Maine’s finest hour and Mother Nature’s supreme orchestration: The debut of autumn and those magical October days. September’s song includes a landscape of golds and rust-colored ferns. Windless days of apple picking, ripened Big Boys and dedicated anglers squeezing in a few more hours on the waters.

Hiking mountain trails and camping can be great this time of year. Cool nights for deep sleeping and bugless afternoons for lingering beside still waters. For hunters, there is bear season, special archery season for deer, an early goose season and much planning to be done.

There are dogs to be trained, guns to be sighted in, camp roofs to be fixed and woodlands to be scouted for deer and moose. And for those true hunter-gatherers, there are wild mushrooms aplenty and vine-ripened blackberries to be plucked and put up in jam jars and pie plates.

Maine in September. Next to October, who could ask for anything more.

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If you are an outdoorswoman, who would like to learn some new outdoor skills, or if you are simply a woman who has never been comfortable in the outdoors, a suggestion: Sign up for the fall workshop of the Becoming an Outdoors Woman program.

They call it BOW for short. BOW’s introductory skills weekend is Sept. 18-20 at Camp Caribou in Winslow. BOW is sponsored by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and offers programs aimed primarily at women 18 years and older. There are dozens of courses being offered, from use of firearms and bows to fly casting, kayaking and outdoor survival. Scholarships are also being offered. Yours truly teaches a course there called Finishing School, which is a cram course literally on the nuts and bolts of outdoor machines and tools. You’ll even learn how to use a chain saw! This is a great program that helps independent women become more self reliant in the outdoors. It’s not too late to sign up. Contact BOW director Emily Jones 287-8069. Her email address is [email protected].

Dates have been approved for the 2009 migratory bird hunting season. The north zone runs Oct. 1-Dec. 9. The south zone runs a split season: Oct. 1-24 and Nov. 9-Dec. 23. The early season for Canada geese runs Sept. 1-25 in both north and south zones. The regular goose season in the north zone runs Oct. 1-Dec. 9. In the south zone, the season runs Oct. 1-24 and Nov. 9-Dec. 23. The sea duck season runs Oct. 1-Jan. 31. The woodcock season is Oct. 1-24 and Oct. 26-31.

The expanded archery season for deer runs from Sept. 12-Dec. 12. Special permits are required for this hunt along with a regular archery license. Although a doe permit (any deer) is not required during archery season, a bow hunter cannot take a doe in any wildlife management district (WMD) where doe permits are not issued. Check your law book. New this year: The Marsh Island permit-only archery hunt will be Sept. 1-Dec. 31. Only hunters who are BLIP-qualified, through the Maine Bowhunters Association, will be permitted to take part. As you may recall, there was a limited experimental hunt last December. Although it went well from a protocol standpoint, the bitter cold was tough on hunters. Bow hunters interested in becoming BLIP qualified should contact a representative of the MBA. Our hats are off to the Maine Bowhunters Association, state wildlife biologist Mark Caron and Old Town’s municipal leadership, all of whom worked hard to bring this hunt to fruition.

If you are an upland bird hunter, September is a great month to get yourself and your gun dog in shape for the grouse and woodcock season that begins Oct. 1. One fun and effective way to “jump start” your dog and sharpen your shooting eye is to spend a September morning or two at one of Maine’s many outstanding upland shooting preserves. Yes, it’ll cost you a few bucks, but your dog will love you for it! It should help you both perform better afield come October.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].