The dream always ends the same.
Someone else shoots the buck.
He wasn’t one of those deer I had to think twice about. With tall heavy antlers spreading wider than his ears, the muley was bigger than any I’d seen in years. Maybe as big as I’d ever seen and I’ve looked at a lot of deer.
But he was out of range when I spotted him and he’d already seen me so I just sat down and watched him through the binoculars.
Although it was early in the season, he appeared to be rutting. There were half a dozen does with him and he acted more interested in them than in me. Eventually the deer moved to the top of an open ridge and one by one disappeared over the other side, the big buck at the end of the line, silhouetted for a few seconds against a pewter sky.
Instead of heading directly after them, I hiked farther up the drainage before crossing the ridge and dropped into a deep coulee on the other side to stay out of sight.
I hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when four sharptail grouse flushed noisily and rode the current of a rising wind, cackling as they flew.
For three hours I followed the deer, or at least tried to. There were a lot of muleys feeding and moving through the snow-covered breaks that day and every time I spotted movement I stopped and glassed, but didn’t see the big buck again until I crossed two more ridges.
Below me, at the bottom of a steep slope, were a couple of bedded does. I raised the rifle and looked at them through the scope. Then I saw the antlers.
A few yards beyond the does, the big buck was bedded, only his massive rack and the top of his head visible. But he was looking directly at me and before I could punch the safety, he got to his feet and trotted off.
I slipped back over the ridge and ran parallel to the direction I guessed the deer were headed. When the ridge between us broke off at a sandstone cliff, I saw the deer moving casually down the drainage on the other side and I sat in the snow until they were out of sight.
After working around the cliff to the bottom of the drainage, I belly-crawled to the top of a low rise and saw the big buck standing like a sentinel on a bare knob, 250 yards away.
Cold, wet and uncomfortable, I leveled the rifle, found the muley in the crosshairs and squeezed off a shot. The deer took a step and I fired again, this time hearing the impact of the bullet.
By the time I got to my feet the deer had vanished and upon reaching where the buck had been standing I found only the faintest sign of blood.
But it was blood nonetheless and I started following the tracks.
Two hours later, head down, trying to find the trail on a bare, south-facing slope, I heard a snort and looked up to see the big buck racing through a cut in a steep ridge.
From behind, antlered game animals always appear bigger than they actually are and this deer looked enormous.
It was also the last look I had at him. I got to the cut as quickly as I could, but it was too late. He was nowhere in sight. Light was fading and I was miles from the truck. It was time to give up the chase.
I haven’t been back. The weather warmed the next day and melting snow made the country inaccessible.
It was only the third time in nearly 40 years of big game hunting I can remember losing a wounded animal and it haunts me, especially in my dreams.
That’s where I keep seeing the big buck.
The one I didn’t get.
The one someone else shoots.
Every time I close my eyes.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Monday, November 12, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Hunting in 21st century takes 4-wheels
What was I thinking?
For some archaic reason I’ve been under the impression that hunting is supposed to be done on foot.
Like this is still the 20th century.
Then I saw the light. Or maybe it was the sun reflecting off the 4-wheeler that caught my eye.
But there it was, deep in the Breaks, a mile from the nearest road – an ATV traversing the same country through which I was walking.
Sure, the rider was there illegally. Off-road motorized travel is outlawed on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. But with 8.3 million acres of BLM land in Montana and just 10 enforcement officers to track down violators, who’s to know?
“It’s really hard to catch people,” says Mary Apple, a BLM spokeswoman in Billings.
Besides, what good is a 4-wheeler if you can’t take it places your 4-wheel drive pickup can’t already go? Isn’t that the point?
And since they don’t require a road, ATVs have redefined road-hunting.
This is, after all, the 21st century, an age in which hunters no longer have to worry about getting lost, thanks to GPS, losing touch, thanks to cell phones, or breaking a sweat, thanks to the 4-wheeler.
You can hardly pick up an outdoor magazine that isn’t filled with full-page ads for ATVs, showing them splashing through clear mountain streams or climbing rocky trails above timberline. And what cable television hunting show doesn’t feature 4-wheelers, if only to show them parked in the background?
“We’d like to thank our fine sponsors,” drawl every camo-clad host on the tube, who wouldn’t have a show were it not for Polaris, Yamaha or Honda.
Even duck hunters, it appears, need 4-wheelers to pursue their sport.
So what was I thinking, trudging up and down hill and dale on foot when I could have been seated in relative comfort, fingers warm and toasty wrapped around heated hand grips, rifle held securely in a scabbard, onboard GPS keeping track of where I’d been so I didn’t have to?
Maybe it’s time to embrace this new technology. With the money I could save on aspirin for my aching knees, an ATV might just be within my budget.
Whether it’s stubbornness of simply a case of bad vision, I seem to take longer than most to see the light. It was years before I gave up wool for fleece, I remain a bit uncomfortable with email and still think blackberries are best cooked in a pie.
Here’s hoping the sun reflecting off that 4-wheeler in the Breaks opens my eyes to hunting in the 21st century.
For some archaic reason I’ve been under the impression that hunting is supposed to be done on foot.
Like this is still the 20th century.
Then I saw the light. Or maybe it was the sun reflecting off the 4-wheeler that caught my eye.
But there it was, deep in the Breaks, a mile from the nearest road – an ATV traversing the same country through which I was walking.
Sure, the rider was there illegally. Off-road motorized travel is outlawed on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. But with 8.3 million acres of BLM land in Montana and just 10 enforcement officers to track down violators, who’s to know?
“It’s really hard to catch people,” says Mary Apple, a BLM spokeswoman in Billings.
Besides, what good is a 4-wheeler if you can’t take it places your 4-wheel drive pickup can’t already go? Isn’t that the point?
And since they don’t require a road, ATVs have redefined road-hunting.
This is, after all, the 21st century, an age in which hunters no longer have to worry about getting lost, thanks to GPS, losing touch, thanks to cell phones, or breaking a sweat, thanks to the 4-wheeler.
You can hardly pick up an outdoor magazine that isn’t filled with full-page ads for ATVs, showing them splashing through clear mountain streams or climbing rocky trails above timberline. And what cable television hunting show doesn’t feature 4-wheelers, if only to show them parked in the background?
“We’d like to thank our fine sponsors,” drawl every camo-clad host on the tube, who wouldn’t have a show were it not for Polaris, Yamaha or Honda.
Even duck hunters, it appears, need 4-wheelers to pursue their sport.
So what was I thinking, trudging up and down hill and dale on foot when I could have been seated in relative comfort, fingers warm and toasty wrapped around heated hand grips, rifle held securely in a scabbard, onboard GPS keeping track of where I’d been so I didn’t have to?
Maybe it’s time to embrace this new technology. With the money I could save on aspirin for my aching knees, an ATV might just be within my budget.
Whether it’s stubbornness of simply a case of bad vision, I seem to take longer than most to see the light. It was years before I gave up wool for fleece, I remain a bit uncomfortable with email and still think blackberries are best cooked in a pie.
Here’s hoping the sun reflecting off that 4-wheeler in the Breaks opens my eyes to hunting in the 21st century.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
I don't want to press my luck
It’s beginning to look like I got out just in time.
Before moving to Malta last year I did most of my hunting in Park County. Each fall since the late 1970s found me roaming the mountains around Yellowstone National Park in search of elk. It’s hardly unusual to see bears in that part of the world, but still, in all the years I hunted there, I only saw two grizzlies.
Apparently things changed this fall. Five hunters have been mauled by bears in places I used to hunt.
Two bowhunters were attacked by grizzlies in Beattie Gulch, another hunter was attacked by a grizzly while black bear hunting in the Little Trail Creek area north of Gardiner in September and a bowhunter was attacked in Tom Miner Basin early last month.
Then a California man was badly mauled Tuesday in the same general area by a bear that took a swipe at him, knocking his eyeball from its socket and severely damaging his face.
Suddenly I don’t miss Park County elk hunting so much.
The last bull I shot was up Beattie Gulch, a drainage bordering the park in sight of Gardiner, not the kind of place you’d expect to be attacked by a grizzly. It’s surrounded by national park and private land and can be hunted in a couple of hours.
Most hunters head up the open hillside before first light and then check the timber halfway up the slope for tracks of any elk that may have wandered out of the park during the night.
Traffic on U.S. 89 can be seen and heard from most anywhere up Beattie Gulch. But Beattie, like Little Trail Creek and Tom Miner Basin, while easily accessible, borders huge tracts of wild land that harbor grizzly bears.
For that reason I may have been a better hunter down there. Knowing it was bear country kept me on my toes and made me pay attention.
Antelope hunting last week on the prairie south of town, I stepped into a covey of sage grouse that exploded around me as they rose. Had I not been daydreaming as I picked my way through the sagebrush I would have seen them.
But while close-flushing birds may scare the pants off me, they won’t maul me or eat me. And now that it’s started to cool off, there aren’t any rattlesnakes to worry about.
A friend from Gardiner who had come up to visit last week asked if I was going to make it down for an elk hunt before the season ends.
“I’d like to,” I told him. “But I think I’ll wait until the bears hibernate.”
I don’t want to press my luck.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Before moving to Malta last year I did most of my hunting in Park County. Each fall since the late 1970s found me roaming the mountains around Yellowstone National Park in search of elk. It’s hardly unusual to see bears in that part of the world, but still, in all the years I hunted there, I only saw two grizzlies.
Apparently things changed this fall. Five hunters have been mauled by bears in places I used to hunt.
Two bowhunters were attacked by grizzlies in Beattie Gulch, another hunter was attacked by a grizzly while black bear hunting in the Little Trail Creek area north of Gardiner in September and a bowhunter was attacked in Tom Miner Basin early last month.
Then a California man was badly mauled Tuesday in the same general area by a bear that took a swipe at him, knocking his eyeball from its socket and severely damaging his face.
Suddenly I don’t miss Park County elk hunting so much.
The last bull I shot was up Beattie Gulch, a drainage bordering the park in sight of Gardiner, not the kind of place you’d expect to be attacked by a grizzly. It’s surrounded by national park and private land and can be hunted in a couple of hours.
Most hunters head up the open hillside before first light and then check the timber halfway up the slope for tracks of any elk that may have wandered out of the park during the night.
Traffic on U.S. 89 can be seen and heard from most anywhere up Beattie Gulch. But Beattie, like Little Trail Creek and Tom Miner Basin, while easily accessible, borders huge tracts of wild land that harbor grizzly bears.
For that reason I may have been a better hunter down there. Knowing it was bear country kept me on my toes and made me pay attention.
Antelope hunting last week on the prairie south of town, I stepped into a covey of sage grouse that exploded around me as they rose. Had I not been daydreaming as I picked my way through the sagebrush I would have seen them.
But while close-flushing birds may scare the pants off me, they won’t maul me or eat me. And now that it’s started to cool off, there aren’t any rattlesnakes to worry about.
A friend from Gardiner who had come up to visit last week asked if I was going to make it down for an elk hunt before the season ends.
“I’d like to,” I told him. “But I think I’ll wait until the bears hibernate.”
I don’t want to press my luck.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Archers battling each other in Breaks
While bow hunters in the southern mountains of Montana were fighting grizzly bears this fall, archers in the Missouri Breaks were battling each other.
Apparently an increase of 66 permits was just too much for the twangers to bear.
According to a recent news release from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, both hunters and law enforcement officers reported more conflicts this year than ever before.
“Several hunters reported verbal threats made against them and assault charges are pending against one individual,” the FWP said.
Wildlife managers blame an increase in hunters and a greater concentration of elk in the river bottom this year.
As the elk population ballooned on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, the waters of Fort Peck Reservoir receded, creating more habitat along the Missouri River bottom.
“Elk sought out those places,” said Matt DeRosier of the CMR.
So did hunters.
But while there’s habitat now where there used to be none, it simply concentrated elk and hunters on the river instead of dispersing them in the Breaks.
A total of 1,715 archery permits were issued for Hunting District 620 in southern Phillips County this year compared to 1,649 in 2006.
Most of those hunters were concentrated along a narrow strip of river bottom running east from the Fred Robinson Bridge to Fourchette Bay.
It’s little wonder there’s no harmony among bowhunters, more than 1,500 nimrods all hoping to stick an arrow in an elk. And until they start walking and talking the camo-clad crowd is invisible to each other.
While rifle hunters are required to wear blaze orange, it’s perfectly legal to dress like a special forces sniper while bow hunting. Unfortunately they’re also starting to act like Rambo.
Hunters tend to shy away from other hunters who wear orange because they spot them at a distance. Archers on the other hand have no such way to avoid confrontation with other archers. They can’t see each other until it’s too late. Somebody is in somebody else’s space. Or face.
Conflict is inevitable.
And we’re going to see it. In this day of camera phones and Youtube someone is sure to capture a couple of bow hunters going at it in an outdoors version of World Extreme Cagefighting.
In the southern mountain ranges bordering Yellowstone National Park this fall four bow hunters tangled with grizzlies.
Along the Missouri river in north-central Montana, a handful of bow hunters exchanged threats and punches.
Too bad they didn’t have grizzly bears to worry about instead of each other.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Apparently an increase of 66 permits was just too much for the twangers to bear.
According to a recent news release from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, both hunters and law enforcement officers reported more conflicts this year than ever before.
“Several hunters reported verbal threats made against them and assault charges are pending against one individual,” the FWP said.
Wildlife managers blame an increase in hunters and a greater concentration of elk in the river bottom this year.
As the elk population ballooned on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, the waters of Fort Peck Reservoir receded, creating more habitat along the Missouri River bottom.
“Elk sought out those places,” said Matt DeRosier of the CMR.
So did hunters.
But while there’s habitat now where there used to be none, it simply concentrated elk and hunters on the river instead of dispersing them in the Breaks.
A total of 1,715 archery permits were issued for Hunting District 620 in southern Phillips County this year compared to 1,649 in 2006.
Most of those hunters were concentrated along a narrow strip of river bottom running east from the Fred Robinson Bridge to Fourchette Bay.
It’s little wonder there’s no harmony among bowhunters, more than 1,500 nimrods all hoping to stick an arrow in an elk. And until they start walking and talking the camo-clad crowd is invisible to each other.
While rifle hunters are required to wear blaze orange, it’s perfectly legal to dress like a special forces sniper while bow hunting. Unfortunately they’re also starting to act like Rambo.
Hunters tend to shy away from other hunters who wear orange because they spot them at a distance. Archers on the other hand have no such way to avoid confrontation with other archers. They can’t see each other until it’s too late. Somebody is in somebody else’s space. Or face.
Conflict is inevitable.
And we’re going to see it. In this day of camera phones and Youtube someone is sure to capture a couple of bow hunters going at it in an outdoors version of World Extreme Cagefighting.
In the southern mountain ranges bordering Yellowstone National Park this fall four bow hunters tangled with grizzlies.
Along the Missouri river in north-central Montana, a handful of bow hunters exchanged threats and punches.
Too bad they didn’t have grizzly bears to worry about instead of each other.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Monday, October 29, 2007
Age of two-sport athlete is over
The age of the two-sport athlete is over.
What didn’t work for Michael Jordan shouldn’t work for Montana sportsmen either.
So says Victor Workman, a member of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission who wants big game hunters in the state to choose their weapons –- rifle or bow – and no longer be allowed to hunt with both as they can now.
“It’s an effort to curb the amount of wounding that happens by archery hunters who one might describe as part-time hunters,” Workman recently told the Billings Gazette.
The commissioner from District 1 in the northwest part of the state reasons that archers who commit to using only a bow and not switching to a rifle when the general big game season opens will become better shots with a bow. Full-time archers, if you will.
It could be the start of a trend.
In an effort to improve efficiency among outdoor folk of all stripes, perhaps limiting them to one discipline is the ticket.
Fly fishermen, tired of never catching any fish, would no longer be allowed to make the switch to bait.
And vice versa.
Catfish anglers, unable to wash the smell of rancid chicken livers off their hands, couldn’t change into color-coordinated outfits and flail the waters with 9-foot split bamboo rods.
Whitetail hunters who use shotguns and slugs in areas where rifles aren’t allowed would no longer be allowed to hunt elk with their 7–mags. Making the mental switch from short range to long is simply too difficult. Just ask Workman, who claims to have a lot of support for his proposal.
And if weapons-specific laws work, why not species-specific regulations, too?
Turkey hunters would be just that. The law would prevent them from ever taking off their camouflage head nets or face paint – a perfectly acceptable situation for most of them.
Upland bird hunters would have to choose a single species – snipe, for example, or sage grouse. Never firing a shot at anything in the air other than your chosen bird would undoubtedly make you a more efficient hunter.
On the other hand, there’s also the chance Workman’s idea would ruin hunting for a lot of guys who shoot both a rifle and a bow. Fewer opportunities and more rules in a sport some folks say is already dying may not be the direction the FWP Commission wants to go. Especially when even Workman admitted he had no figures on game wounded by either archers or riflemen.
But he’d like you to consider his proposal anyway.
It turned out Michael Jordan couldn’t hit a minor league curve ball. Think what a basketball player he could have been had he never picked up a baseball bat.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
What didn’t work for Michael Jordan shouldn’t work for Montana sportsmen either.
So says Victor Workman, a member of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission who wants big game hunters in the state to choose their weapons –- rifle or bow – and no longer be allowed to hunt with both as they can now.
“It’s an effort to curb the amount of wounding that happens by archery hunters who one might describe as part-time hunters,” Workman recently told the Billings Gazette.
The commissioner from District 1 in the northwest part of the state reasons that archers who commit to using only a bow and not switching to a rifle when the general big game season opens will become better shots with a bow. Full-time archers, if you will.
It could be the start of a trend.
In an effort to improve efficiency among outdoor folk of all stripes, perhaps limiting them to one discipline is the ticket.
Fly fishermen, tired of never catching any fish, would no longer be allowed to make the switch to bait.
And vice versa.
Catfish anglers, unable to wash the smell of rancid chicken livers off their hands, couldn’t change into color-coordinated outfits and flail the waters with 9-foot split bamboo rods.
Whitetail hunters who use shotguns and slugs in areas where rifles aren’t allowed would no longer be allowed to hunt elk with their 7–mags. Making the mental switch from short range to long is simply too difficult. Just ask Workman, who claims to have a lot of support for his proposal.
And if weapons-specific laws work, why not species-specific regulations, too?
Turkey hunters would be just that. The law would prevent them from ever taking off their camouflage head nets or face paint – a perfectly acceptable situation for most of them.
Upland bird hunters would have to choose a single species – snipe, for example, or sage grouse. Never firing a shot at anything in the air other than your chosen bird would undoubtedly make you a more efficient hunter.
On the other hand, there’s also the chance Workman’s idea would ruin hunting for a lot of guys who shoot both a rifle and a bow. Fewer opportunities and more rules in a sport some folks say is already dying may not be the direction the FWP Commission wants to go. Especially when even Workman admitted he had no figures on game wounded by either archers or riflemen.
But he’d like you to consider his proposal anyway.
It turned out Michael Jordan couldn’t hit a minor league curve ball. Think what a basketball player he could have been had he never picked up a baseball bat.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Sunday, October 14, 2007
A story about a guy from Butte, America
It probably matters more where you’re from this time of year than any other.
Permission to hunt private property is usually granted more readily if the plates on your pickup sport the number of one of Montana’s lesser populated counties.
It may take a bit more time to convince the landowner you’ll shut the gates and not shoot his cows if you’re from out of state or happen to reside in Yellowstone, Gallatin or Flathead counties.
Worse yet, is getting permission to hunt when your rig bears plates with the number 1. Folks who live in Montana’s hinterland remain a bit leery of residents of Butte.
A rough and tumble mining town in its long past prime, Butte isn’t so different from most other Montana cities anymore, unless of course you happen to be from there and think referring to it as “Butte, America,” makes perfect sense.
Luckily, for residents of the Big Sky state’s larger cities, a plethora of new license plates celebrating everything from pets to unborn babies are available to disguise the fact they hail from Billings or Kalispell.
My friend Dallas has special license plates on his pickup. But like any good Butte native, although he has lived in the Gallatin Valley for years, the plates trumpet his heritage. “Butte, the Mining City,” they read.
Folks from Butte, America tend to be proud of it no matter what anyone else thinks.
So here’s a story about a guy from Butte.
Dallas and his 15-year-old son came up to stay with me last weekend for the opener of antelope season.
Fans of the Colorado Rockies, they stayed up until nearly midnight Saturday to watch the Rox beat the Phillies and win the National League Division Series, then woke at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for their hunt.
Dallas had to be back at work the next morning and his kid couldn’t miss school so this was their only day to chase speed goats.
They walked deep into a block management hunting area before first light only to discover every other yahoo with an antelope tag for the area was also hunting there.
But like Buttians do, they persevered. Dallas’s son shot a nice buck and by early afternoon they were back at the house. An hour later they had showered and packed their gear. We said our goodbyes and they climbed into the truck for the five-hour trip back to Manhattan.
A short while later there was a knock on the door. It was Dallas.
Twenty miles south of town, near the area they had been hunting, Dallas and his son spotted two rifles lying by the side of the road.
He said he had been tempted to keep on driving. Let someone else stop. It was already going to be a long trip home.
But the guy from Butte did stop, pick up the rifles and turn the truck around. He’d sure hate to lose his rifle that way, he told me. And the next guy that stopped might just keep them.
Dallas was still at the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office when a young couple walked through the door and announced they’d lost their rifles.
They tried to give Dallas a reward, but he wouldn’t take one, so they stuffed 50 bucks in his kid’s shirt pocket.
His son is going to use the money to take his dad out for a steak dinner.
He’s proud of his old man.
And he should be.
After all, he’s from Butte.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Permission to hunt private property is usually granted more readily if the plates on your pickup sport the number of one of Montana’s lesser populated counties.
It may take a bit more time to convince the landowner you’ll shut the gates and not shoot his cows if you’re from out of state or happen to reside in Yellowstone, Gallatin or Flathead counties.
Worse yet, is getting permission to hunt when your rig bears plates with the number 1. Folks who live in Montana’s hinterland remain a bit leery of residents of Butte.
A rough and tumble mining town in its long past prime, Butte isn’t so different from most other Montana cities anymore, unless of course you happen to be from there and think referring to it as “Butte, America,” makes perfect sense.
Luckily, for residents of the Big Sky state’s larger cities, a plethora of new license plates celebrating everything from pets to unborn babies are available to disguise the fact they hail from Billings or Kalispell.
My friend Dallas has special license plates on his pickup. But like any good Butte native, although he has lived in the Gallatin Valley for years, the plates trumpet his heritage. “Butte, the Mining City,” they read.
Folks from Butte, America tend to be proud of it no matter what anyone else thinks.
So here’s a story about a guy from Butte.
Dallas and his 15-year-old son came up to stay with me last weekend for the opener of antelope season.
Fans of the Colorado Rockies, they stayed up until nearly midnight Saturday to watch the Rox beat the Phillies and win the National League Division Series, then woke at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for their hunt.
Dallas had to be back at work the next morning and his kid couldn’t miss school so this was their only day to chase speed goats.
They walked deep into a block management hunting area before first light only to discover every other yahoo with an antelope tag for the area was also hunting there.
But like Buttians do, they persevered. Dallas’s son shot a nice buck and by early afternoon they were back at the house. An hour later they had showered and packed their gear. We said our goodbyes and they climbed into the truck for the five-hour trip back to Manhattan.
A short while later there was a knock on the door. It was Dallas.
Twenty miles south of town, near the area they had been hunting, Dallas and his son spotted two rifles lying by the side of the road.
He said he had been tempted to keep on driving. Let someone else stop. It was already going to be a long trip home.
But the guy from Butte did stop, pick up the rifles and turn the truck around. He’d sure hate to lose his rifle that way, he told me. And the next guy that stopped might just keep them.
Dallas was still at the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office when a young couple walked through the door and announced they’d lost their rifles.
They tried to give Dallas a reward, but he wouldn’t take one, so they stuffed 50 bucks in his kid’s shirt pocket.
His son is going to use the money to take his dad out for a steak dinner.
He’s proud of his old man.
And he should be.
After all, he’s from Butte.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Hitchock started it with The Birds
Don’t blame Alfred Hitchcock.
I was 11 years old when I first saw “The Birds.”
It remains one of my favorite movies.
But it’s not simply the idea of crows, seagulls and sparrows attacking humans that intrigues me, it’s the shots they offer -- left to right and right to left passing shots, straight-aways and incomings, lot of incomings.
I fantasize about rescuing Tippi Hedren with my Model 12, racking a shell into the chamber and dusting the gull that attacks her early in the film.
And Suzanne Pleshette never would have died had I been there to fend off the crows.
But most of all I dream about birds flying closer instead of farther away. Therein lies the advantage of hunting birds on the fight.
The birds I hunt are seldom closer on the second shot. Rarely does the Hungarian partridge that flushes in front of my dogs come toward me.
Oh, sure, every once in a while a bird does fly in my direction, but rarely does that bird live to pass on his flawed genes.
Unfortunately, the birds that flush out of range and fly over the horizon seem to do most of the breeding.
What fun it would be to hunt ducks that didn’t flare when they spotted my poorly camoflauged carcass, but flew at me instead.
I’m sure I’d become a better shot. Give those sharptail grouse flushing out of range a few seconds to spot me and here they’d come, closer and closer until even I couldn’t miss.
And if I did.
No big deal.
It’s not like missing a shot at a charging Cape buffalo.
Even though the birds in Hitchcock’s film killed a number of folks, I think I could easily handle the average grouse in hand-to-wing combat.
At least I hope so.
I hate to think I’d turn and run, screaming like a little girl while that sage grouse I missed cleanly pecks me on the back of the head.
But who knows? The humiliation of losing a fight to a three-pound bird might send me into a comatose state like the one that befell Hedren after she was pecked and wing-slapped into unconsciousness by a swarm of gulls.
Had she been packing a Winchester pump, I like to think she’d have been able to control her emotions and pile up those birds like a dove hunter in Mexico.
But that’s just fantasy.
My reality is quite different.
It involves a lot of misses at the south end of too many fast-flying northbound birds.
I can’t blame Hitchcock for that.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
I was 11 years old when I first saw “The Birds.”
It remains one of my favorite movies.
But it’s not simply the idea of crows, seagulls and sparrows attacking humans that intrigues me, it’s the shots they offer -- left to right and right to left passing shots, straight-aways and incomings, lot of incomings.
I fantasize about rescuing Tippi Hedren with my Model 12, racking a shell into the chamber and dusting the gull that attacks her early in the film.
And Suzanne Pleshette never would have died had I been there to fend off the crows.
But most of all I dream about birds flying closer instead of farther away. Therein lies the advantage of hunting birds on the fight.
The birds I hunt are seldom closer on the second shot. Rarely does the Hungarian partridge that flushes in front of my dogs come toward me.
Oh, sure, every once in a while a bird does fly in my direction, but rarely does that bird live to pass on his flawed genes.
Unfortunately, the birds that flush out of range and fly over the horizon seem to do most of the breeding.
What fun it would be to hunt ducks that didn’t flare when they spotted my poorly camoflauged carcass, but flew at me instead.
I’m sure I’d become a better shot. Give those sharptail grouse flushing out of range a few seconds to spot me and here they’d come, closer and closer until even I couldn’t miss.
And if I did.
No big deal.
It’s not like missing a shot at a charging Cape buffalo.
Even though the birds in Hitchcock’s film killed a number of folks, I think I could easily handle the average grouse in hand-to-wing combat.
At least I hope so.
I hate to think I’d turn and run, screaming like a little girl while that sage grouse I missed cleanly pecks me on the back of the head.
But who knows? The humiliation of losing a fight to a three-pound bird might send me into a comatose state like the one that befell Hedren after she was pecked and wing-slapped into unconsciousness by a swarm of gulls.
Had she been packing a Winchester pump, I like to think she’d have been able to control her emotions and pile up those birds like a dove hunter in Mexico.
But that’s just fantasy.
My reality is quite different.
It involves a lot of misses at the south end of too many fast-flying northbound birds.
I can’t blame Hitchcock for that.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
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