Christmas in July.

Fall hunting season begins well before the first arrow is nocked in an antelope blind, or the first smoking shells are ejected from a family heirloom in the grouse woods.  Hunting season begins in the spring and it begins with a cup of coffee and a fresh copy of the new big game regulations.  Any self-respecting HHMM (or HHMW) spends many hours pouring over the newspaper print pages trying to piece together the most epic fall possible.  Google Earth tabs stay open on the computer for weeks on end.

Of course there is always dreams of drawing that once in a lifetime trophy hunt, but really it always comes down to how to put the most meat possible in the freezer.  You know the phrase "make hay while the sun shines?"  That applies to hunting big game.  You should always get as many cow tags, extra deer tags, and antelope tags as you can.  Why?  Because you never know when you will have a few tough seasons, or when life gets in the way of shopping for gourmet cuts in the prairies, canyons, and wooded ridges.  For example, the Mini-HHMM was born right around the start of the whitetail deer rut.  Getting out to hunt deer isn't all that easy with a newborn keeping you on your toes at 2:30 in the AM, but lean red meat is important to a healing, breastfeeding, new mom.  Good thing I had gone on safari in eastern Montana the previous fall.

So we waited with bated breath for that fateful moment in July, when that all important mailing comes from the state.  Like a letter from your number one college, you want to see the word congratulations in the first sentence.  Damn, didn't draw that antelope tag again.  Somehow I never do, even when the odds aren't that bad.  Pop pop and I didn't get our tags for fat cow elk either.  At least the letter from my safely school is more positive.  Emily and I will be doing our best to fill the freezer with a couple of mule deer tags this fall.  It isn't exactly the Christmas in July we were asking for, but it sure will be epic!