Only in Montana could I have such an opening day.
First light on Sept. 1, found my son-in-law Aaron and I hunting ruffed grouse in the Beartooth Mountains south of Livingston.
The dogs put up a few singles, but I missed the only shot I took. By 10 a.m. it had gotten hot and we called it quits.
On the way back to town we slowed to watch mule deer and whitetails still in their summer coats, and surprised a young black bear feeding on chokecherries at the edge of the road.
In the distance we could see three mountain ranges, the Crazies, the Bridgers and the Gallatins. The longest undammed river in the lower 48 -- the Yellowstone -- wound through the valley below us.
Back in Livingston I hitched my drift boat to the truck, said my goodbyes and headed home to Malta. Once hunting season arrives, I pretty much give up fishing, but with a little camouflage, the boat will make a great duck blind.
The skies were clear of smoke across the middle of Montana and I watched the state’s lesser-known mountain ranges rise on the horizon likes ships at sea. First the Snowies and the Little Belts, then north of Lewistown, the Judiths and the Moccasins.
Every stock tank I passed, it seemed, held ducks and geese and a stiff wind blowing out of the west hinted at more to come.
I ate chile rellenos in Lewistown and let the dogs swim there in Big Spring Creek where it passes through town before getting back on the road.
Smoke from wildfires still burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness drifted across the Missouri Breaks and hid the last mountain range of the trip, the Little Rockies, until I topped the hill on Highway 191 above the Fred Robinson Bridge and they appeared out of the haze.
Sage grouse and sharptails fed along the edge of the pavement, nearly invisible against the dry grass, and a pheasant flushed as the truck blew past, filling the mirror with a blur of wings.
Scattered bunches of antelope grazed across the prairie in the fading light and I slowed to watch a badger scramble off the road at my approach.
Finally I topped the last hill and the green line of the Milk River bottom bisected the arid landscape below me. I was nearly home.
I’d been skunked on opening day, but it was a day to remember nonetheless.
And it was only the beginning.
Hunting season has returned at last.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net