October is known as the month of the illuminated woods. We reached the overall peak of autumn colors over much of Minnesota last week with the fiery red, burnt-orange and golden-yellow on sugar maples and mountain maples, and the intense reds on Virginia creeper vines and sumac shrubs.
Autumn's color show still has time to play out
Naturalist Jim Gilbert also has his eye on ripe apples and trout spawning Up North.
By Jim Gilbert
October 20, 2022 at 10:30PM
Still, there is much more to come, such as red and rich brown on both red and white oaks, smoky-gold needlelike leaves on tamaracks, and golden-yellow on quaking and bigtooth aspens. Expect to see and enjoy fall foliage colors into November.
Farmers are working to finish combining their soybeans and many have started on corn. At harvest time it's best if the corn has dried down to 15% water and soybeans down to 13 % moisture so farmers don't have the expense of drying before storing or selling. A good share of the state's sugar beet harvest was completed two weeks ago, and most of the potatoes are in.
Late-season apples such as Connell Red, Haralson, Regent and Fireside are ripe for picking. The fall-bearing raspberries continue to produce. Broccoli, cauliflower and carrots are doing well in many gardens. Wild cranberry fruit is ripe in the cool bogs of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. The commercial cranberry harvest is underway in northwest and central Wisconsin.
Black bears usually head for their winter dens between Sept. 24 and Oct. 24. Across far northern Minnesota, it's rutting season for moose. Back in September, whitetail deer bucks started to rub their antlers against young saplings, removing the velvet from the antlers and leaving scars on the tree trunks. They continue to rub long after the velvet is gone, no doubt to mark the edges of mating territories with a scent from a specialized gland on their foreheads. By now, deer have begun their mating season in earnest, and the scrapes and rubs of rutting males can be spotted in the woods.
At the end of Gunflint Trail, it's lake trout spawning time in the shallows of Saganaga Lake. Spawning is beginning for brown and brook trout in southeast Minnesota streams. Paul Grussing, who lives in the Fairmont area, fished the south side of Lake of the Woods for three days with friends the first week in October. Walleye fishing was very good, and they also caught some saugers and yellow perch.
Jim Gilbert has taught and worked as a naturalist for more than 50 years.
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Jim Gilbert
None of the boat’s occupants, two adults and two juveniles, were wearing life jackets, officials said.
