End of hunting season a bit melancholy

I approached the opening of the general big game hunting season with a bit of melancholy. It seems the start of this -- the most anticipated of seasons -- only heralds the end.
Antelope hunting will be over for the year in a couple of weeks and I’ve yet to fill my tag. Not that the opportunities haven’t been there. The big bucks, however, have stayed out of my range, which I find keeps getting shorter with each passing season. Come Nov. 5, I may regret passing up the lesser-horned speed goats that filled my scope, but the 15-incher I shot last fall keeps my expectations high.
Sage grouse hunting closes Nov. 1 and while I found Montana’s oldest native game birds to be plentiful this fall, I’ve yet to take advantage of the state’s new 4-bird daily limit. I keep getting distracted by antelope.
The rifle season for deer and elk in Montana, while more liberal and less restrictive here than in any other western state, lasts a mere five weeks. No wonder archery hunting, which opened in early September, is becoming so popular. It more than doubles the amount of time hunters can pursue whitetails, muleys and wapiti.
And while my walls are covered with elk horns, I’ve run out of elk steaks in the freezer, so any legal cow or bull will prompt me to pull the trigger.
I’m a bit more particular when it comes to deer. The muley I passed up on the final day of season last year stayed in my thoughts for the past 11 months. He was in the rut and oblivious to my presence, his focus entirely on the doe he was chasing. Not quite good enough last year, I’m sure he will be this season. I just hope to see him again somewhere other than in my dreams.
If not, I might quit the breaks into which he disappeared before the season ends and spend the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the aspen woods where I hunt whitetail. The deer there aren’t as big, but it’s picture-postcard pretty and I seldom see another hunter.
It’s the same place I hunt on the last day of the mountain grouse season Dec. 15. Seldom as plentiful as they were in September, the birds are in the same cover nonetheless and the dogs always put up one or two for me to try to shoot. By then, that’s plenty.
The season for pheasant, sharptail and Hungarian partridge closes Jan. 1 and I usually chase them to the bitter cold end.
Then, other than maybe a frozen trip or two for ducks and geese, I’ll spend the ensuing eight months in anticipation of September when it all starts over again.
For now though the end is just around the corner and I’ve still got tags to fill.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net