One Nation, Under God

It's been a long wait

When I cased the shotgun on New Year’s Day the opening of hunting season was eight months away.

It seemed like a very long time to wait.

It always does.

But this year especially, the wait seemed interminable. Winter lasted longer than usual, delaying the start of fishing season by a good month.

I love to fish. It helps kill time until I can hunt again. This year, however, the winter was so bad, that the fish winter-killed in many of my favorite ponds.

For a while, I turned to yard work and gardening to fill my days, but soon lost interest. I’d rather cast flies in a barren pond than mow my lawn.

I caught a few fish here and there, and have a couple of trips planned yet this summer, but upland bird season opens in six weeks making it hard for me to focus on fish.

I applied for and drew a cow elk tag. I’m still waiting to hear if I get to hunt antelope or not. It makes little difference. Special tags are simply icing on the cake. If I don’t draw a tag I can still hunt every day from September through December.

Drought persists in north-central Montana for the second year in a row and game bird numbers are down. It’s a bit better than last year, but not by much. On the other hand, it’s been wetter than usual in the mountains of south-central Montana this summer, which may have impacted mountain grouse populations.

Again, none of this makes any difference. This is a big state with diverse habitat, and we’re given four months to check it all out.

I used to open the season every year in the Beartooths hunting ruffed and blue (dusky) grouse. I always found a few, and rarely saw another hunter. For the last few years I’ve started my season on the prairie in search of sharptail and sage grouse, Hungarian partridge and doves, and I’ve yet to run onto another hunter there, either.

There’s little to do to get ready. I’ve been taking the dogs out a couple of days a week all summer. I ran a box of shells through the new shotgun. I bought a license.

Now I have to find something to do to kill six weeks before the season opens.

Maybe I’ll go fishing.

It sure beats mowing the lawn.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].

 

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