Thinking about an antelope tattoo

I don’t wear any ink.
No tribal tattoo encircles my bicep.
No initials decorate my neck.
The likenesses of my children don’t grace my scrawny chest.
Not that I have a problem with those who are all tatted up. It’s a generational thing.
I’m old enough to remember when tattoos were pretty much reserved for servicemen and bikers. Being neither, I never felt the urge or the peer pressure to get one.
I did used to have long hair, and my unshorn locks marked me as an undesirable in the eyes of mostly older folks who told me to get a haircut.
Now I’m one of those older folks and I wear my hair short, but it’s for convenience, not to make a statement. And I try hard not to judge others by their appearance, especially the heavily inked.
Chances are good they’re basically regular folk, not Honduran gang members, rocks stars or NBA point guards.
Seldom, however, are they antelope hunters.
Rarer still is the antelope hunter who wears his passion for pronghorns in colored ink on his forearm.
But it’s a passion I appreciate and a tattoo I admire.
Lots of hunters chase antelope, but few of them consider speed goats their No. 1 quarry, a position more commonly occupied by bull elk or whitetail bucks.
Most hunters invest little time filling their antelope tags. A few hours on opening day are usually enough to bag the first critter within range, leaving the rest of the fall to chase the more glamorous species.
I always felt like the only guy out there who spent weeks hunting antelope. The solitude, however, is one of the reasons I love pronghorn season. Following the opening-day barrage, the prairie is pretty much void of hunters until the general big game season opens.
Now I find I’m not so alone after all. I’ve recently become acquainted with a few other hunters who share my passion, including one with the tattoo of an antelope buck on his massive forearm.
He’s a bit younger than I am and he may wear other, less visible ink, but the buck is prominently displayed for all to see.
It’s one of the few tattoos I’ve seen that prompted me to consider getting one myself.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. My skinny forearm hardly offers the epidermal canvas for any ink, let alone a pronghorn buck in full flight. There may be enough space on my arm to depict a bedded fawn, but who wants a baby animal tattoo?
I’ll stick with scars and age spots and leave the ink to a younger generation.
And on second thought maybe I will judge by appearance, especially when the tattoo is really cool.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

Buckle up on the river

The body of a Sheridan, Wyo., man who fell off a dock at Tongue River Reservoir during a recent storm was recovered earlier this week.
The body of a woman caught in the same storm in a 14-foot boat that capsized had already been recovered.
There but for the grace of God …
I never thought the Tongue was a very scary body of water. A fairly narrow body lake that sits just north of the Wyoming state line near Decker, Mt., it offers plenty of places to escape the wind.
Unless you’re not paying attention.
Or the bite is too good and you’ve just got to make one more cast.
A few years ago my wife and I got caught in a storm on the Tongue because we couldn’t stop fishing. We watched the sky darken and felt the wind building before we decided to take refuge. I couldn’t make the run back to camp across the lake so we pulled into one of the many bays on the lake and I ran the boat into the shallows, jumped out and dragged it up on shore, waves breaking over the stern
We sat out the maelstrom under a pine tree and when the wind ceased I bailed out the boat and we headed back to camp none the worse for wear.
We’d survived closer calls on Yellowstone Lake, a big body of water where the afternoon breeze can turn a slight chop into four-foot waves in minutes.
But it’s the cold water there that will kill you. The Tongue in July won’t even take your breath away when you dive in.
So I’m guessing the two victims of the recent storm on the Tongue weren’t wearing life jackets.
I seldom do. And who but a child wears a life jacket on the dock?
But when the wind kicks up and the waves begin to build it might be a good time to strap one on, especially if you’re alone in the boat – or on the dock.
A rafting guide on the Yellowstone River once told me she had never heard of anyone wearing a life jacket who had drowned in the river.
That’s probably true on most waters.
We’re required by law to have life jackets in the boat, yet we seldom feel the need to wear them – even though they’ll save us.
It’s hot. The water’s warm. The fish are biting.
But keep an eye on the sky. Storms build fast and move quickly this time of year.
Like buckling your seatbelt when you get into the car, pulling on a life jacket when the water gets rough should be a habit, not an afterthought.
By then it may already be too late.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

I'm not quite ready for the couch

A year ago I was recovering from a backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
The eight-day, 90-mile trek took a toll on my aging carcass.
My knees still ache.
I realize, however, that aches and pain won’t dissipate with age, and whether I remain active or not, I’ll still hurt.
So I’m hoping to at least have something to show for my pain, like blistered feet, a sunburned neck or sore shoulders from hauling in fish.
My father quit hunting and fishing 15 years before he died. He had bad knees and an aching back. I think he thought retiring to the couch would alleviate the pain.
It didn’t. He hurt as much in his inactivity as when he used to stay busy.
But he never caught another fish or shot another bird out of the sky.
His was not a generation that worked out to stay in shape. He had survived the Great Depression, fought in a world war and never ever considered joining a health club. He worked to raise a family, not to tighten up his abs.
My generation has had it considerably easier. We’ve suffered little hardship and now find ourselves bewildered with the pain aging brings.
There’s a pill, it seems, for every ailment -- no matter how minor -- and a surgery for every worn out joint. Fly fishermen get rotator cuff surgery, joggers have their knees replaced and bird watchers, unable to tolerate the inconvenience of eye glass any longer, seek relief with Lasix surgery.
I suppose it all beats going to the couch, but being a bit a skeptic, I doubt there’s really much a cure for what ails me, or most of us, other than the grave.
And who wants to accept that?
So we pop our pills and ride our stationary bicycles, schedule appointments with the doctor to discuss surgery and wonder how our parents lived so long living they way they did.
I doubt I’ll live any longer than my folks. Mom died at 83 and Dad, who smoked, drank and got his only aerobic exercise while mowing the lawn, lived to be 90.
I simply hope to hunt and fish until the end. Heading to the couch isn’t one of the options I’m considering.
For the time being, I’m just going to suck it up, learn to cast right-handed, walk with a limp and squint to clear my vision.
Hopefully I’ve got a few years left to consider the modern wonder of pills and surgery.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

My wife's becoming a fish snob

My wife’s becoming a fish snob.
It started last spring in Florida when she hooked a sting ray and handed me the pole.
“It’s just a ray,” she said disappointedly.
“What do you mean just a ray?” I thought to myself as I tightened the drag and began reeling. “It’s a big ray.”
Fifteen minutes later I had the creature alongside the boat and snipped the leader.
Barb wasn’t even watching. She’d picked up my pole and was casting off the bow.
I’ve seen it before – a lack of interest in the fish that happen to be biting. On the Yellowstone River it’s mountain whitefish the fish snobs find so disgusting. While a whitie may rise to the same fly as a trout, if hooked and landed, it’s a sure bet he won’t receive the same careful release.
This morning it was small northern pike that Barb found particularly distasteful. The walleye weren’t biting and the big northerns had made themselves scarce, but the hammer handles were willing and eager.
“Should I get the net?” I asked as Barb’s rod bowed and the monofilament cut through the water.
“No,” she answered, her voice dripping with disappointment. “It’s just another little pike.”
It may be that I’ve spent too many fishless days on the water to be disappointed in whatever decides to bite my hook. Or perhaps my sights aren’t set high enough.
Whatever.
If it wasn’t for whitefish, I’d often have no fish at all. Juvenile northerns beat nothing hands down and I figure big rays are good practice for big anything.
I no longer keep everything I catch anyway, so what does it matter?
Sure, a whitefish won’t fight like a trout, a little pike has the same teeth and slime as a monster and the Crocodile Hunter was killed by a ray, but I’m a needy enough angler to appreciate them all.
Barb isn’t.
She sets the bar a bit higher than I do.
Pike must be at least as long as your arm to interest my wife, whitefish are unceremoniously returned to the river as quickly as she can extract her fly and rays aren’t even worth Barb’s bother.
Consequently she usually catches more fish than me. I’m too easily distracted by the small, the ordinary and the mundane.
Bite my hook and I’m flattered.
Like a wink from a pretty girl, who’s simply humoring an old man, the bite of a less-than-stellar species is much appreciated.
Especially when fishing is slow.
Barb’s not so easily impressed.
She’s becoming a bit of a snob.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

You'll find me out here and gone

What? Me worry?
As gas prices head toward $5 a gallon, real estate prices plummet, and global warming threatens to turn much of the West into a desert, I find myself just where I want to be – out here and gone.

The little northeastern Montana town my wife and I now call home is small enough we can ride our bikes wherever we need to go, there are plenty of critters to hunt within a few miles of town and the lake we fish is only 20 miles from the house.

My crop of sweet corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July and the tomato plants have already set fruit. Lately I’ve been spending the cool of the mornings fishing for walleye and pike, the afternoons fixing up our old stone house, the evenings counting my blessings.

An old hippie who for years longed to get back to the land, I’ve gotten back to a small town instead where the grocery, lumberyard and hardware store are but a few blocks away.
My Hutterite friends, from whom I stole the term “out here and gone,” keep us supplied with baked goods, the bounty of their garden and provide a shining example of “the simple life,” minus Paris Hilton.

No longer able to work my hoops magic because of aching knees, I joined the local gun club and shoot trap a couple times a week at a range north of town. I’m humbled there just like I was on the basketball court, but belonging to the gun club is considerably cheaper than my old health club membership.

It’s a very good life, however it’s not perfect. I miss the mountains. My daughters and grandchildren live farther away than I would like. I don’t see enough of my old friends.
The mosquitoes up here are legendary and the rattlesnakes can be an annoyance at times. But hey, they keep out the riff-raff.

And I’m certainly not recommending this lifestyle. No, you’re far better off staying where you are, commuting to those no-longer-so-high-paying jobs, shopping with everyone else at the air-conditioned mall and sitting in line at the fast-food drive-thru.

But please, come for a visit when you’ve saved up enough cash for a couple tanks of gas. We’ll go fishing out at the lake, come home and eat fresh sweet corn and turn in shortly after the curfew siren goes off at 9:30 p.m.
It’s a pretty simple life.
Paris Hilton would be bored to tears.
Thank goodness.

Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Selected columns are available at parkerheinlein.blogspot.com/