I have heard of Thomasville GA for the at one time great quail hunting on native "buuurds"- recall a great "set-up" story about Gene Hill's friend Jim Rikkoff- a WRA rep. Supposedly Jim was an invited guest down in deep Dixie- his host provided a fine 20 bore Parker quail gun, as Jim was rumored to like the Win M59 12 ga. autoloader, and this hunt was steeped in tradition, so the only shotgun any g'entman would dare use had best be no larger in bore than a 16 ga., and it must have two barrels as well--
The host took Jim aside and told him "Jimmy- we ONLY shoot the cockbirds in a covey rise, and once the covey has flushed, we leave the "scatters" alone and put the dawgs on to find a fresh covey. AND- if any man shoots a hen bird, he is fined and has to case his gun for the rest of the hunt"-- End result, Jim was so wound up he only shot at one bird, which happened to be a cockbird- later that night they revealed the "set-up" to him, over Mint Juleps I am sure-- Make mine with George Dickel please.
I should have remembered that the main two States in Dixie for furniture are both the Tar Heel and the Palmetto States-and grownin' up in the Queen City, we were a lot closer to Dixon than to Mason in our raisin' up, and thank the Lord for that.
Havilah Babcock, Archibald Rutledge, William Faulkner and of course "Mistah Nash" hisself- none of those gentlemen, sportsmen and authors although gone now for some time, will ever be any more "forgotten" than the "old times" sung about in Dixie-
I recently heard that Scarlett O'Hara's father won TARA in a card game- if that was mentioned either in Ms. Margaret Mitchell's novel or the movie, I guess I missed that- anyone shed any light on that rumor??
