In these days when the blush is on the apples, the trees are afire and the geese are honking overhead, I know the trout will be getting ready to spawn and the salmon are in the rivers.

I have a good friend who, like me, grew up fighting through the tag alders to drop a line into a cold creek for the chance at hooking a brook trout for the dinner table.

The last day in September always marks the official state closure of trout fishing season on inland rivers and creeks. My buddy and I try to get out on that last day for one last fishing adventure before the long off-season sets in that continues until the last Saturday in April.

We’ve had some tremendous times on those closing days of the season.

Many were great because of the fish we caught — typically beautiful red-orange male brook trout, with hooked jaws and at least slightly arched backs, decked out in spawning colors, or the duller looking females puffed fatter by skeins filled with fish eggs.

Other days were memorable just for being outside enjoying the outdoors.

A few days ago, we ended our season on a high note. My partner pulled a beautiful fish from a hole at the confluence of two small creeks. We had been fishing for a few hours without much luck.

The sun was high, the air was warm, and the woods were full of everyone from other anglers to bear hunters, deer hunters getting ready for their Oct. 1 opener and people seemingly just driving around, going from here to there.

The one fish he managed to hook, after only a few bites during the day, was a fine prize he was very happy to end the day with. When we parted directions, I still hadn’t caught any fish.

However, as luck would have it, I caught two trout just after he left and, after trying without success at a few more holes, I found a place where the fish were biting — hard. In five casts, I caught three nice keepers.

Just like that I had hit my bag limit for the day. Wow. Sometimes it works like that. It’s fun when it does, most likely because it doesn’t happen that way all the time.

I recall one of the first season-closers my friend and I fished together, which is years ago now. We fished a small creek into the darkness before we each caught a fish.

I can close my eyes and see those two fish on the tailgate of my old pickup truck photographed as they were bathed in the circular glow from a flashlight.

Last year, it again hadn’t been a particularly productive last day of the season. We were getting ready to shut down and start heading home.

As I was retrieving my lure through the dark waters of a deep stream, I saw a trout make one of its arced passes as it tried to strike my lure but missed. I took another cast, but the fish didn’t want another try.

Just then, I heard a door shut. It was my buddy putting his fishing stuff into his vehicle.

Knowing that he had been fishing with nightcrawlers, I left my place along the riverbank and quickly walked the trail through the woods to the road and over a bridge to where his vehicle was parked.

I urged him to come back to my spot along the river to try his nightcrawler. I was happy to see that he decided to follow me back.

Three or four seasons before this, on the last day, he had hooked a big trout that fought hard and was tiring along a grassy bank.

I was a good distance from my fishing partner but was close enough to watch the action. As he pulled the trout to shore, he reeled and lifted the fish up the bank.

While it slid closer, the fish summoned a hefty kick and jump to its whole body, and it flipped off the hook and softly slipped back into the water — gone with a swirl.

“Well, you’ll have all winter to think about that one,” I said.

So now again, coming down to the last minutes of the last day of the season, I felt like a caddy or a guide setting my buddy up for his best shot.

As I recall, the first cast didn’t net anyth ing, but the second one did. A trout was hooked, presumably the same one I had seen.

For a minute or two, this looked like it might be shaping up to be a potential replay of that time my buddy had battled that big fish along the grassy riverbank and lost.

However, this time, I was able to lie down with a net, stretch and reach to get the fish netted. I felt like I had just made an incredible catch in the big game of something.

Several times over the following winter months I was sent a photo of that fish as the memory of that day warmly lived on for my friend.

On another closing day, we encountered a violent storm that crashed down trees across the road on our way home. We came upon a couple of guys in a pickup truck who tried to ram the fallen trees off the road with their truck, but couldn’t.

We had to turn around to find another way home. We parted ways with the guys in the pickup as they headed off onto a small two-track road.

We ended up detouring several miles in the dark but made our way back to the rain-slicked pavement of the county road.

There, the storm had picked up its ferocity, with winds slashing and raindrops the size of Kennedy dollars hitting the windshield.

Two cars passed us at a high rate of speed. In the blackness ahead, we could see the taillights of one car move swiftly left and then jerk right while the second car stopped abruptly in the road.

When we got to the scene, a huge tree had been blown down across the road and the second car was wedged underneath it. It had slammed right into it. I got out and walked over expecting to find the driver dead and crushed.

Instead, I met him walking toward me. He told me he had seen the tree in the last seconds and ducked down quickly onto the floor on the passenger side. It saved his life.

The other driver had gone off onto the shoulder on the left side and then back up on the road, somehow avoiding the tree. Unbelievable.

Some people say summer starts to slide toward autumn once the Fourth of July is over. Time seems to evaporate and before you know it, it’s Labor Day weekend.

For me, Oct. 1 has a peculiar, hollow feeling of fall having certainly arrived and things seem to look grayer, wetter and darker — even when the sun is shining.

It’s the season of winter’s sly approach.

I love the autumn season and I think it may still be my favorite. It has remained so for almost my entire life, except for those kid years when I was assured of a months-long summer vacation.

I love all the pumpkin-spiced everything and the Halloween hullabaloo. The cold, crisp air outside is deeply refreshing. The cold also brings clear night skies for stargazing.

There are also continued opportunities to fish throughout October as many Great Lakes tributaries remain open for salmon and steelhead fishing and there are now several gear-restricted inland lakes that are open for fishing until Halloween.

I know I’ll be out there somewhere in the drizzling rain, wetting a line.