Dreaming of fish

It’s 10 below zero and the wind’s blowing 25 miles an hour.

Snow’s piling up on the drift boat and my beard is frozen.

So why can’t I stop thinking about fishing?

And I’m not talking about hard-water angling.

My thoughts are on warmer times and climes, the sound of a screaming drag and the thump, thump of a smallmouth bass flopping in the cooler.

I can smell the exhaust from the outboard, feel the tug of a strong fish and see the fly line cutting through the water like a laser.

The forecast calls for more sub-zero temperatures, additional snow and stronger winds. Emergency-only travel is advised.

But I’m already counting the days until I can drown a shiner under the railroad bridge, throw an elk-hair caddis to rising trout on the Yellowstone or cast a gold spoon to tailing redfish in Mosquito Lagoon.

The Weather Channel calls for 25 below with wind chills approaching -50. Roads are closed and school is cancelled.

I didn’t fish as much last summer as I should have. Other things got in the way and now I fear I’m running out of memories. At least recent ones. And it’s always been thoughts of fish on the line that got me through these periods of arctic frigidity.

While I can still pull up visions of red and white bobbers disappearing into the murky depths, it’s been way too long since I actually landed a bluegill, unhooked a bullhead or lipped a largemouth bass.

I haven’t caught a fish since last August when the brook trout were fighting over my fly on the Clarks Fork near Cooke City.

Then it was hunting season and now it’s the middle of winter. Blowing and drifting snow. A high of -15. Weather brutal enough to kill.

A 23-year-old Bozeman man died of hypothermia last week after falling through the ice on the Missouri River near Toston. It was only nine below that night.

Now it’s so cold I half expect to find Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel’s harbinger of storms, knocking at my door. Cantore, however, a fan of hurricanes, tornadoes and drought, appears to shy away from the really cold stuff. What I’m hearing must be the wind or the dogs scratching to get back in.

I caught a tiny cutthroat trout on a handline last summer while hiking across the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It had been hot that day and I was trying to cool off in the White River when I saw fish gathering in the still water behind my legs. Dropping a Griffith’s gnat onto the water a few feet upstream I watched as one tiny cutt rose to the surface and inhaled the fly.

The atmosphere sparkles with ice crystals. The radio warns me to stay inside. There’s no relief in sight.

But I still feel that tug on the line.

A swan song for hunters

The questionnaire arrived in the mail.

It required little time to complete.

Yes, I did hunt swans.

No, I didn’t get one.

And that may be a good thing.

Had I been successful, my wife joked she was going to tell my grandchildren that grandpa killed a swan.

My ineptitude at bagging one of the majestic birds saved me the scorn of a couple of little girls who are a bit suspect of me anyway.

“Grandpa doesn’t know Jesus,” the youngest recently told my wife.

“Oh yes he does,” Barb replied.

I’m sure, however, that my grandchildren remain doubtful of my salvation.

I seldom go to church, rarely read the Bible and no longer hold a regular job.

But they should realize, as surely as I didn’t shoot a swan last fall, I do know Jesus.

Matter of fact he was sitting next to me in the marsh. He always is. He’s there when I’m successful and he’s there when I miss three easy shots in a row.

He’s there when I cuss the dog for not sitting still and he’s there when I crack a beer at the end of the day.

I don’t expect him to make the hunt any easier or the dog more obedient.

I’ve simply come to expect him to be there. For as long as I can remember he has been.

He’s the reason I didn’t bag a swan although the questionnaire didn’t ask why. He’ll also be responsible for my success one day or my never-ending failure.

Only 25 percent of the hunters who held a swan permit in 2006 actually bagged one. I know they weren’t the only camo-clad hunters hiding in the cattails acquainted with Jesus.

If successful wing-shooting was that easy there would be a lot more waterfowlers seeking salvation in the marsh.

And surely the informational pamphlet that accompanied my swan permit would have included “get to know Jesus” along with recommended shooting distances and shot size.

My grandchildren should know that while they’re much more likely to find me in the field come Sunday morning than in a pew, or reading the solunar tables instead of 1 Corinthians, I do know Jesus.

Maybe next fall the two of us will bag a swan. Either way, I certainly won’t be out there alone.

And if I’m successful, I hope Barb won’t tell the girls. Explaining my faith to them could turn out to be a lot easier than explaining why I shot a swan.

Because of bats I live where I do

In an age of saving whales and reintroducing wolves, it should have come as no surprise, but the story about a group of fourth-graders in Bozeman selling baked goods to raise money to adopt a bat did just that.
Now I’m about as animal friendly as they come. As a kid I kept skunks and opposums as pets, caught snakes and snapping turtles just to get a closer look at them, and raised mice and gerbils until they began to take over the house.
I hunt, but years ago quit killing anything I wouldn’t eat. I’ll swerve to miss a jackrabbit crossing the road and have been known to brake for salamanders.
Bats, however, remain on the periphery of my goodwill toward critters.
And they deserve better.
Bats are responsible in large part for me living where I do.
When my wife and I began looking a real estate a couple years ago in the small northern Montana town of Malta we now call home our objective was a fixer-upper we could quickly remodel and use during hunting season.
Quickly being the key word. I didn’t want to spend all of my time working on a house, so we started out looking for something small and cheap.
Then my wife discovered an old, two-story stone house that had been vacant for a couple of years.
Too big and probably too expensive I told her. A similar fixer-upper in Bozeman, where we were then living, would sell for half a million dollars.
Of course this wasn’t Bozeman and that’s why we were here. And there was a catch -- the realtor asked if we were afraid of bats.
“They are dead though,” she reassured us.
Malta, it turned out, is home to the northernmost colony of migrating little brown bats.
About 30 of them, unable to find their way out, had died inside the house, their mummified corpses stuck to the windows and walls and nestled among the dust bunnies in the corners.
We fell in love with the house and were able to afford it, in part, I suspect, because it was littered with dead bats.
Two years later, the place is relatively bat-proof, although we hear them at times squeaking and rustling about in the rafters.
During the summer I catch the occasional bat that flies into the house through an open door, but can’t say I really relish the close encounters.
I’m told they eat mosquitoes, but at times up here, I swear they must be dining on something else.
I’d like to think I could live quite well without bats although I know I never will.
There appears to be little danger of running out of them, especially when there are fourth-graders out there selling baked goods on their behalf.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

I want to wear out my own pants

I’ll wear out my own pants, thank you very much.
On a recent trip to Bozeman I picked up a new pair of Carhartts at a ranch supply store.
Mine are getting a bit ragged and since I wear little else anymore, it was time to get a pair that weren’t frayed, bloodstained or holey.
I’m no clothes horse, but I do know a bit about fashion. Among the many hats I wore during nearly two decades spent sitting at a newspaper features desk was that of fashion editor. I put together back-to-school fashion pages, explored the mystery behind the little black dress and held a light meter for the photographer during swimsuit issue shoots.
I know what tap pants are thanks to the fine folks at Fredericks of Hollywood who once sent me a pair.
All that, however, was back in the day.
Back when I wore khakis and button-down collar shirts.
Now I dress in Carhartts and wool and don’t worry about mix and matching camouflage patterns.
Picking up a new pair of pants requires little thought. Too little apparently.
The new pants turned out to be not what I had been looking for. While they were Carhartt brown, I didn’t realize until I got home that they were actually Carhartt light.
Soft to the touch instead of rough like all the new Carhartts that had preceded them, it turned out the pants didn’t even have double knees.
A card that fell out of one of the pockets explained that these Carhartts had “undergone a special process which results in variations of shading and color.”
I shrieked and dropped them to the floor like they were a pair of acid-washed jeans.
These were the pants all the wannabes wear.
Wannabe construction workers.
Wannabe hunters.
Wannabe Montanans.
Carhartts aren’t supposed to be soft or faded until they’re nearly done. What’s the point of buying a new pair that are already worn out.
Unless of course they’re half price.
But these certainly weren’t.
They were simply halfway to already needing to be replaced when I bought them.
Few of us still change our own oil, butcher our own meat or even mow our own lawns. Many of us, however, still like to look like we do.
We like that worn look of an old pair of Carhartts.
And while it may take me a bit longer than it used to, I can still wear out a pair all by myself.
Even the old-fashioned dark brown kind, stiff as a board with double knees.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

I turn to tree trophy hunting in December

I turn to trophy hunting in December.
Trading rifle and shotgun for an ax, I stalk the timber for a Christmas tree.
It’s a hunt I’ve taken part in since I was old enough to drive.
When I was a kid, my family always bought a tree, but by the time I was 16 I’d decided I could do better cutting my own. It was one of the few instances of my newfound independence that pleased Mom and Dad. My parents were happy to save a few bucks.
Conifers were relatively rare in the Southern Indiana countryside of my youth. Hardwoods filled the river bottoms, and everywhere else, it seemed, the land had been cleared for corn and soybeans.
Thank goodness for Mr. Peabody, made famous in a song about Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, after his Peabody Coal Co. “hauled it all away.”
The much-maligned practice of strip-mining provided my early Christmas trees. After the land had been turned upside down to reach veins of coal, the resulting spoil banks were planted with pines. Acres and acres of rolling land covered with conifers.
I’d walk the ridges, spot a likely trophy, and move in for closer inspection, eventually selecting a tree worthy of harvest.
The process used to take longer than it does now. I’d spot a tree, hike over to it, then realize it was 14-feet tall. I’d see another and think it was the perfect tree before closer inspection revealed it was actually two trees growing next to each other.
And as I grow older I’ve learned how to adjust the less-than-perfect tree. A shortage of branches on one side simply means the tree will stand closer to the wall. No branches on the bottom allows presents to be stacked higher.
But after nearly 40 years of cutting down my own Christmas trees maybe I just know what I want. Then again, my wife and I may have so many ornaments to hang that any imperfection is well hidden.
This year’s hunt took less than an hour. On an island in an ice-covered river flowing out of the Beartooth Mountains, I found a nice fir growing closely among a stand of dozens of its ilk.
A few strokes of the ax and I had the tree on the ground, tagged it with a Forest Service permit and dragged it back to the truck less than a mile away.
The tree is too tall as they often are, but a little off the top, a foot off the bottom and it will fit nicely in the living room.
For a couple of weeks the house will smell of evergreen, just like the mountains, and the backwoods of my youth.
May you all have a tree to enjoy this holiday season.
Merry Christmas.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

First snowflakes send me packing

It may have been the weather.
Following two months of sunny days and balmy temperatures, fall abruptly turned the corner toward winter last week.
Then the general hunting season closed and it was time to put away the rifle.
Whatever the reason, I was at the computer Monday making reservations for a campsite on Tampa Bay.
Salt in the air.
Palm trees on the horizon.
Fish on the line.
Have I become such a wimp that the first snowflakes of the season send me packing?
Not quite.
There’s a month left to hunt pheasants, follow wild-flushing sharptails into the next county and shoot a ruffed grouse or two in the foothills of the Beartooths.
I may even pull out those plastic grocery bags in the pocket of my hunting coat and use them to try to lure a white goose into range.
But when the mercury drops out of the thermometer and my hands are too stiff to feel the safety on the Browning my thoughts will head south, to sea trout and redfish, bars accessible only by boat, and sunburned feet.
Although I never considered myself a snowbird I find I’ve become one. For years now, my wife and I have hitched our boat to the truck and driven to Florida for the month of March.
Maybe it’s because we live out of a tent when we’re there, avoid retirement communities and don’t play shuffleboard that I consider what we do different.
However, it’s really not. While we endure most of winter‘s wrath, we don’t stick it out until spring. We flee Montana unashamedly on March 1, driving as fast as the law allows to reach a warmer clime.
And even though our departure is months away, I’ve already refolded the tent and readied the boat for the road.
It’s hard to embrace winter in northcentral Montana. Unlike the mountainous regions of the state where folks enjoy months of skiing and snowmobiling, winter recreation up here is limited to ice fishing on windswept lakes and trying to stay on your feet as you cross the frozen Albertson’s parking lot.
Fortunately it’s not winter yet. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
There are still roosters to roust out of the cattails and Hungarian partridge huddled together on the edge of the stubble.
There may even be a late elk hunt in the mix.
It’s been a spectacular fall and a change in weather was long overdue.
So what do I have to complain about?
After all, there are palm trees on the far horizon.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

So that's what four-wheelers are for

I’m a slow learner.
Maybe that’s why it took me so long to appreciate the value of 4-wheelers during hunting season.
After all, it remains illegal to drive them off-road on nearly all public land in Montana, and they’re about as welcome as brucellosis-infected buffalo on private land.
But open just about any hunting magazine on the rack and there’s a picture of a camo-clad hunter riding one. Turn on the Outdoor Channel and it’s apparent 4-wheelers have even become a necessity for duck hunters.
So what was I missing?
For years now -- decades actually -- I’ve been hunting without one and enjoyed a relatively high rate of success. At the least I’ve enjoyed the quiet.
Then it dawned on me that I rarely see one on the ground. ATVs are almost always perched in the bed of a pickup truck.
Last weekend it finally became clear, 4-wheelers are simply ballast, sandbags for the 21st century.
I was hunting breaks country an hour from my home where the common, albeit illegal, method of hunting is to drive the flats above the broken country and glass for game.
My son-in-law and I had just picked up his muley buck from a two-track where he had dragged it when we saw a truck speeding along a high ridge above us. At a distance it appeared there were hunters riding in the back, but a look through the binoculars showed a 4-wheeler, not hunters, in the bed of the truck.
Two muley does and a small buck ran across the bench a half mile in front of us and we stopped to watch the action. The pickup, bearing Montana plates and four orange-clad yahoos, went racing after the deer.
And then it all became clear.
The truck, high-tailing it off-road after the deer, wasn’t bouncing at all, despite the rough terrain. The ATV in the back was apparently providing enough weight to keep the truck on the ground at 50 mph across the short-grass prairie.
We watched as the pickup skidded to a halt and a hunter jumped out, resting his rifle on the hood. But the deer kept going and the hunter leapt back into the truck and off it roared.
Although we never did hear a shot, it was a pleasure to watch such a quality hunt unfold, especially now that I understood the meaning of it all.
One question, however, remains.
Aren’t sandbags a lot cheaper?
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net