“Is it summer or autumn, Grandad?”
The question, called out each Wednesday as we wave goodbye from child-minding is now a weekly ritual as our little grandson eagerly awaits the arrival of a sibling ‘in the Autumn’, as his Mummy has told him. I have found myself asking the same question recently, but for different reasons. There seems to have been an extraordinary acceleration of our seasons from the start of the year when spring indicator-species were ticked off alarmingly early, right through the often debilitating mini heat-waves of recent months; Nature has had to adapt and show resilience at every turn.
So, is it summer or autumn? The calendar tells me one thing, while my observation leads me to believe something else.Blackberries were already ripening weeks ahead of schedule in July, so the chance of the Devil cursing them on Michaelmas day (29th September) was likely to be a waste of time, as most will have had their fill well before then.
The heat enfeebled so many of our trees – the horse chestnut was noticeably the first to show signs of extreme stress, leaves withered and jettisoned to preserve and ripen its tiny fruits. The oaks by comparison seem to have shed enormous acorns, easily two centimetres long and as plump as can be. Ducks and pigs will be a-fattening well on them…
A wander through the meadows and along hedgerows reveals a profusion of fragile, papery wild hops, and crimson and scarlet haws and hips. A forty-foot high holly tree lives in the corner of my back garden, resplendent in berries from top to tail. The lumpen and drowsy wood pigeons typically strip this tree bare well before the arrival of fieldfares and redwings from Scandinavia, but this year I pray the bounty may last longer and be more evenly shared.
Gaudy jewels in butterfly form bathe in the sun warmed glades, replete from ivy nectar. Gossamer threads break as we move the dustbins, disturbing corpulent mothers who await their labour. Garden borders are lightly tidied; minimal dead-heading is done and log piles created to support over-wintering mammals and insects. Lawns are scarified, fed and aerated in the hope there may still be some glimmer of life left deep below after the scorched prairie lands we have resigned ourselves to of late.
Meteorological autumn begins at September 1st and runs to the end of November. The rest of the year thus falls nicely into those three-month blocks we once could confidently assign to a recognisable season from our primary school learning. The ninth month usually sees my last stillwater angling forays for carp as the afternoons shorten and the remaining leaves flutter earthward, drifting in tawny flotillas across the pond on the lightest of breezes.
Small fry scatter periodically in the margins as the light fades, and the prospect of a fat perch, defiant and bristling within the folds of a landing net will occupy my slumber. As the trout season ends, so October sees travels further afield in pursuit of the grayling, that most exquisite extension to the fly angler’s season. If the rainy season has not yet arrived and made our rivers unfishable, then the dry fly – a red tag perhaps – may still tempt a wiry, pewter-coloured adversary from the river bed, corkscrewing up as it strikes at, but misses, a deftly cast morsel. When the first frosts arrive, these fish will shoal up in the deeper holes and making their acquaintance will be even more difficult, unless you are mobile in approach and work deep-sunk, heavy nymphs into their new hideaways.
If I resort to trotting with bait, I may too welcome the roach and dace in the search. By November, the barbel and chub will be feeding in earnest once a tinge of colour comes to the water. As the levels drop after the first flush of debris and detritus has pushed on downstream, it is a time for smelly baits to be selected from the larder or fridge, as I move on throughout the embers of autumn, that most cherished of fishing seasons. And beyond lies winter…but that is another tale…
Writing & Images – David Chalcraft – Autumn 2025
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