The Drawing Came and Went

The drawing for special elk permits has come and gone, and for the first time in memory I didn’t care.

Filling out an application for a special tag was something I used to do every spring without fail. It increased my odds of killing an elk, and guaranteed I‘d have an elk license in my pocket come fall, a general elk license being the prerequisite for the drawing.

I loved to hunt elk. Over the years I managed to kill 20, evenly divided between cows and bulls. Whether I drew a special tag or not didn’t matter, but I always sought the advantage it provided.

Mailing the application was a big deal. I typically waited until the last day to drop it off at the Post Office. Then there was the long wait for results. Now it’s all done online and the results are posted much quicker.

Since moving to Malta from Bozeman nearly 20 years ago I’ve been applying for special tags every fall. I’ve drawn quite a few, but I’ve never killed an elk up here. I’ve helped a buddy pack out a few, but my heart has never been in it.

The time I used to spend chasing elk is now taken up with bird hunting and bird dogs. I’ve lost the desire to drag large pieces of meat out of the mountains.

Oh, I can still see them, especially the bulls.

My first, a raghorn that appeared broadside in a clear cut on Eagle Creek above Gardiner, fed my growing family for the winter. Its meager antlers hang on the wall in my gun room alongside the antlers of much bigger bulls that came later.

After drawing a cow tag last year and never taking it out of my wallet, I decided it was time to stop acting like I was going to hunt elk again. Surely there’s a younger, more passionate elk hunter out there who could use the tag.

So like a lot of things seem to do these days, the drawing came and went without me. That’s just fine. Give the advantage to someone else.

Anyway, I’m old enough now that if I wanted to shoot an elk I’d simply knock on a rancher’s door and play the old-man-just-wants-to-shoot-one-last-elk-before-he-dies card.

There are advantages to getting old, after all.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]