I am not flying.

And you have no idea how good it feels to be able to say that.

We're due for a line transect survey of my largest antelope herd. Now, line transect surveys are both the easiest and the most difficult type of flying to do.

They are easiest because all you do is fly perfectly straight lines across the country, and keep track of the antelope you see in four narrow bands out the side of the plane, marked by little black wooden dowels on the wing.

They are the hardest, because you have to keep your head and eyes fixed at exactly one point against the window in the plane, so those bands don't shift , and concentrate solely on what you see in those bands. For up to 50 miles or so. No looking around at the scenery, except on the brief moments when the plane turns around from one line of flight to the next.

This survey should take about nine hours of flying, with an observer on each side of the plane.

Which is much better than the 50+ hours it used to take to try to do a total count of the herd. Last time we did that, 36 of those hours were my butt in a plane. And we know how much my stomach loves to fly.

But we have some controversy over this herd. It's been three years since we last flew it, and we don't really know how many antelope we lost in the 2000-01 winter. Looking at the number of yearlings in last summer's classification surveys, it doesn't appear as though losses were that great.

And punching those numbers suggests we should be issuing hundreds and hundreds of hunting licenses for does this fall, to keep the herd about where it is.

The two wardens for this herd don't agree. They feel we have a lot less antelope than the numbers would suggest, and are concerned about killing too many does. Which is good for me, because that means they are eager to see what this survey finds for antelope numbers.

And they are the two people in the plane that took off just 20 minutes ago.