Pop....pop-POP...pop-pop-pop...A stiff west wind shakes the old oak behind the house, sending a shower of green acorns across the roof. When I first bought the place I contemplated re-roofing it with metal. Thank God I didn't. In a heavy mast crop it would sound like a 24-hour car wreck. As it is, the noise combined with a sudden drop in the August temperature puts a tingle of anticipation up my spine. Hunting season is just around the corner. As with every year, I'm not even close to ready.

Since this is my first column in The River Reporter, let me introduce myself. I grew up in Montgomery, down in the flatlands of Orange County, where I hunted and fished as a boy. Summers I spent at Wolf Lake. In my 20's I moved to San Francisco. In my 30's I moved to New York City. In my 40's I moved back to the Catskills. During my years living in cities I stopped hunting and fishing. Just before I moved back to the country I took both up again. For all intents and purposes I started from scratch and I'm still learning. So if you're looking for an expert to tell you how it's done, I'm not your guy. But as a country boy turned city slicker, turned back into ridge-running hunting and fishing guide who can string more than five words together in a sentence, this column may be good out-house reading.

Introductions aside, lets get down to business. If you are at all like me, you haven't renewed your sportsman's license, sighted in the gun, practiced with your bow, filled out your doe tag or washed your camo, not to mention chopped wood, fixed the storms, cleaned the furnace or completed any number of tasks you promised you'd do this summer. That acorn hitting you on the noggan is nature's wake-up call. I've lost fish to rotted line, missed turkeys because I didn't pattern my 12 gauge and sat with a wet ass in ripped rain gear I was meaning to patch on one of those sunny summer days. There's no getting rid of procrastination but we can minimize it together.

Goose season opens September 1. Bag limit is five per day. You need a current license, a Federal duck stamp, non-toxic shot and you must register with the Harvest Information Program (888/427-5447). When I was a kid it was a big deal just to see a Canadian goose. Nowadays they're like pigeons with webbed feet. Golf courses institute "Goosicide" policies and more and more the noble bird is seen as a nuisance-instead of game. That's only if you hunt from the ninth fairway. Anyone who has crouched in a pre-dawn corn stalk blind, straining to hear the faint honking of an incoming flock, knows this couldn't be farther from the truth. The reward of a honker barbecuing on the Weber should be all the reason you need to drag your butt out of bed in September.

If it seems a bit early to hunt there's still over a month of trout season, bass are biting in the lakes and I don't mean to nag but there's always practicing your turkey call, scouting for sign, washing your camo... you get the picture. They don't call it Labor Day for nothing. As much as I enjoy preaching to the choir, I hope those of you who are scared to death of guns, eat nothing more wild than a Big Mac and are susceptible to the media-instilled fear of Lyme Disease, West Nile Virus and the bite of a rabid chipmunk, will also check in from time to time. I don't belong to the N.R.A., think gun control is smart, love animals as much as any card-carrying PETA member, vote Green and try to use my time in the woods to better myself. I also run a guide business, hunt and fish as much as I can and-given a safe clean shot-will not hesitate.

At the dawn of the 21st century, hunting and fishing in the Northeast are better than they've been since the end of the 19th century. Bear, turkey, deer and waterfowl are all back. Game populations are up while hunter numbers are down. Conservation programs have succeeded, along with the urbanization of the culture, in creating an environment where animals flourish. Sportsmen and women are egalitarian, non-subsistent and eco-friendly. Humans are an integral component in keeping a balanced eco-system. As suburban sprawl continues, the 21st century sportsperson will play an increasingly important role in sustaining this balance.

So that's it. A little hard info., a little politics and a whole lot of one middle-aged white man's attempt at hunting and fishing the Catskills. It's a great time to be in the woods.