When I was a kid, and growing up without a living grandfather, we "adopted" and older former Texas League ball player and then trapper by the name of Wilbur Davis as a stand in. He was a noted coon hunter in the area (peninsular Virginia), and my brother and I loved his coon hounds. I especially loved "Stupid," a black and tan variant of some sort. Stupid would go squirrel hunting with me all the time. I remember Wilbur lamenting to my mother, "Miz Gawden, that boy done ruint my dawg!" I always saw his wink to her when he said this. At his death, his wife said he wanted me to have Stupid. We had no place to keep him where we lived, and so I had to turn him down. I still think about that every now and then.
I won't let my dogs chase rabbits, but if they point them on a slow day (and we have many in 21st Century Missouri), I just tell them "bunny!" and they know not to chase. If I would shoot rabbits over my dogs, and if I could shoot bucks over their points (not to mention turkeys), I'd be eating rabbit stew at every meal, and would be in the Boone and Crockett record book several times over.
Sorry to ramble, but Jerry's bunny hunt got me to thinking. Thanks, Jerry!
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers )
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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