Kevin McCormack
11-24-2011, 10:27 PM
Rousted myself about 2 hours before dawn this morning to make my annual Thanksgiving Day hunt. Today it was to the local duck roost, hard by the hedgerows against the flooded timber for some pass shooting along the Potomac River, brought to near flood stage by the recent heavy rains here in MD. After 46 years in the field, all the motions fell into place: check gun, calls, proper nontox shot, license and stamps, etc.
With the river in flood stage, not much shooting from the mainstem of the Potomac, but by a half hour after legal time, big flocks began moving from the timber roosts out into the sloughs beside the river. Managed an impossibly high pass shot on a lone mallard drake streaking over the treetops into the flooded timber. Satisfied with a single bird in the bag against a spectacular sunrise of a bluebird day, and with nothing else flying, I called it a morning.
When I reached the truck on the way out of the timber, I lit a fine imported cigar and began the drive home on the long, straight road to civilization. About a third of the way there, I came upon a lovely young woman dressed in English riding togs, standing in the middle of the road waving her arms over her head. I stopped my truck and was about to ask her what was up, when I saw a double line of mounted riders, some of whom were replete with bright scarlet waistcoats and tunics, leading smaller groups of horses and ponies across the road.
Bolting out between and among them was a pack of English foxhounds, skittering along with their peculiar lope, charging the horses and coursing forward along the route. It turned out to be the hounds and riders of the Potomac Hunt, out for their traditional Thanksgiving Day fox hunt. In the brilliant November morning sunshine, it looked like a Currier and Ives print from 200 years ago. After they had safely crossed the road, there was a line of about 20 cars on either side of them, many of whose drivers jumped out of their cars with cameras to take pictures of the pageant.
When the whipper-in gave the stopped cars the signal to pass, we drifted by them single file. The clothes, trappings and mounts might as well have been from the 1700's, since this area was one of the ancestral grounds of George Washington's hunting buddy, Daniel Bowley, who owned thousands of acres in and around the area in colonial times. If I hadn't already lit a fine cigar, I would have done so at the mere sight of them!
On the rest of the drive home, I reflected on how embracing the traditions of the sporting life has enabled us to appreciate what we experience in this country of ours today; the freedom to pursue our outdoor lives with dogs, guns, horses, whatever. We are indeed blessed and have so much to be thankful for on this, our American Thanksgiving Day. My very best to you and yours, whose ancestors helped to "carve from the wilderness" this great land of ours!
With the river in flood stage, not much shooting from the mainstem of the Potomac, but by a half hour after legal time, big flocks began moving from the timber roosts out into the sloughs beside the river. Managed an impossibly high pass shot on a lone mallard drake streaking over the treetops into the flooded timber. Satisfied with a single bird in the bag against a spectacular sunrise of a bluebird day, and with nothing else flying, I called it a morning.
When I reached the truck on the way out of the timber, I lit a fine imported cigar and began the drive home on the long, straight road to civilization. About a third of the way there, I came upon a lovely young woman dressed in English riding togs, standing in the middle of the road waving her arms over her head. I stopped my truck and was about to ask her what was up, when I saw a double line of mounted riders, some of whom were replete with bright scarlet waistcoats and tunics, leading smaller groups of horses and ponies across the road.
Bolting out between and among them was a pack of English foxhounds, skittering along with their peculiar lope, charging the horses and coursing forward along the route. It turned out to be the hounds and riders of the Potomac Hunt, out for their traditional Thanksgiving Day fox hunt. In the brilliant November morning sunshine, it looked like a Currier and Ives print from 200 years ago. After they had safely crossed the road, there was a line of about 20 cars on either side of them, many of whose drivers jumped out of their cars with cameras to take pictures of the pageant.
When the whipper-in gave the stopped cars the signal to pass, we drifted by them single file. The clothes, trappings and mounts might as well have been from the 1700's, since this area was one of the ancestral grounds of George Washington's hunting buddy, Daniel Bowley, who owned thousands of acres in and around the area in colonial times. If I hadn't already lit a fine cigar, I would have done so at the mere sight of them!
On the rest of the drive home, I reflected on how embracing the traditions of the sporting life has enabled us to appreciate what we experience in this country of ours today; the freedom to pursue our outdoor lives with dogs, guns, horses, whatever. We are indeed blessed and have so much to be thankful for on this, our American Thanksgiving Day. My very best to you and yours, whose ancestors helped to "carve from the wilderness" this great land of ours!