Bill Heavey - Should the Tent Be Burning Like That?: A Professional Amateur’s Guide to the Outdoors

A Professional Amateurs Guide to the Outdoors

Copyright 2017 by Bill Heavey

Cover illustration by John Cuneo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or .

This book is published by arrangement with Field & Stream magazine. All of the pieces in this collection were originally published in Field & Stream, except for The Souths Top Gun, which first appeared in Garden & Gun (June/July 2015), and Point Well Taken, which first appeared in the Washington Post (June 1996).

FIRST EDITION

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: December 2017

ISBN 978-0-8021-2710-5

eISBN 978-0-8021-8927-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

Atlantic Monthly Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

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To Emma

Fail. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett (19061989)

The important things to know about this book are that it is crammed with the kind of practical advice that you will never use and that it contains about sixty short works (most from Field & Stream, but also from the Washington Post and some magazines) that can be read in any order. These pieces have been known to make people laugh, cry, or curse, often in their bathrooms, since that is where many people prefer to read my stuff.

Once, asked to define my job as a writer, I replied with the following anecdote: I used to spend a lot of time at a friends farm, where I killed my first deer and caught my first big largemouth bass. My friend employed a number of locals to help manage the place. One, he said, was a fan of my writing in Field & Stream and wanted to meet me. I agreed immediately, feeling the warmth that comes from having your efforts appreciated. I should probably tell you a few things about Doug, my friend said. Guys about seventy, has been divorced three times, and lives in a trailer. Hes broke, has a bad leg, but refuses to see a doctor about it. I said that sounded rough but that I didnt see how it mattered. Ill take an admirer wherever I can find one. Just then, Doug came limping into the paddock. Introductions were made. We shook hands. I really enjoy your stuff, Bill, he said. I really do. I thanked him and told him I appreciated it. Then came silence. It stretched out for a good while. Dougs features creased into a kind of perplexed and agitated state. He had something else to say but wasnt sure whether he should. Finally, he plunged ahead. I just gotta tell you this, man. Sometimes I read your stories and, well, I just feel so sorry for you. I laughed and assured him it was fine. Which was true.

When I first started writing for Field & Stream, I saw that the expert end of its masthead was overpopulated. The other enda place for amateurs with more passion than proficiency, for guys who fail more often than they succeedwas wide open. It was here that by inclination and experience I planted my flag. I confess that Dougs remark captured what I do in a way I hadnt heard before, but in time I came to see it as an affirmation and compliment. At its best, my writing makes people whom the world often judges as failures feel better about themselves. I think theres a certain nobility in that.

On second thought, there are occasions when the knowledge in these pages could prove invaluable. This book will show you why it is sometimes necessary to shoot a hunting arrow into your motel rooms phone book. Why youll never be a good bird hunter if you aim your shotgun and whyif you absolutely cannot stop yourself from aimingyou will never hit anything unless you aim at empty air. You will learn why putting a boy on his first bluegill is as high an honor as a man can aspire to in this life and that the secret to success in this iscontrary to everything youve been toldto forget about using a bobber. Why William Faulkners The Bear may be the best thing ever written about hunting. Why, when your heart has been crushed in love or by the death of a friend, the proper response is to go fishing. Why, when it comes to exacting revenge, the mafia have nothing on your teenage daughter. Why, if you are riding a horse for five hours up into the mountains on a weeklong trout expedition, pantyhose is essential. (And, if you are male, not to let the lady at the lingerie counter jerk you around. What you want is size XL, taupe, opaque rather than sheer, and regular rather than control top. Be firm about this. Otherwise, youll look unmanly.) Finally, never shy away from having your picture taken because you dont like how you look at this age. Right now you look better than you ever will again.

When the steelhead are running, nothing else matters to Mikey Dvorak. Not money, not manners, not even where hes going to sleep at night. What matters is finding a biting steelie somewhere, anywhere, on the West Coast. We went along for the ride.

The first time I met Mikey Dvorak, he asked if he could borrow fifty bucks.

At the time I thought he was a bum. I still think hes a bum, but in the same way that an itinerant Buddhist monk is a bum. Except Mikeys spiritual path was chasing steelhead.

I met Mikey through Kirk Lombard, a hard-core angler in San Francisco, who told me that if I really wanted to meet a true fishing nomad I should meet Mikey, a steelhead addict who had no fixed address and never seemed to have more than a few bucks on him. But it didnt seem to bother him. All he cares about is being where the fish are, Kirk said. Thats why Mikey often slept in his trucknot on a pad in the back so he could stretch out, but upright in the drivers seat because the rest of the truck was too full of gear. And hes such a maniac that he sleeps on the ramp.

Im afraid I dont follow.

When Mikeys steelhead fishing, he wants to be the first guy on the river. So, the night before, he backs his drift boat down the ramp, puts the truck in park, and conks out. The next morning, the first guy at the ramp finds Mikey there. The guy is pissed and bangs on Mikeys window to wake him up. At which point Mikey wakes, apologizes, and launches. So hes on the river ahead of anybody else.