Hast Wildlife Adventures: Kentucky Rabbit Hunt

There is absolutely no better hunting experience than watching beagles take the trail of a rabbit. As a boy, I remember more about being walked right out of my knee boots while aching under the heavy load of a full game vest than I do about the sights and sounds of the hunt. My grandfather and his hunting buddies were, and still are, relentless rabbit chasers. Year after year they would put, on average, 300 rabbits in the bag. This meant hunting hard and leaving no thorn thicket or honeysuckle clump un-tromped. I, of course, should have well ridden in the dog box. There was no taking the easy route on the field edge, as it was one briar patch to the next for the younger people in the hunting party.

Just before Christmas I was able to join the usual crew for some rabbit hunting. Not ten yards away from the truck, the first rabbit was jumped and I was back to being 12 years old holding a 20 gauge single with a sawed down stock. Aside from the memories of the briar stomping, my first rabbit stands at the top. I stood braced against my grandfather's waist - the single bead of the 20 gauge waving wildly in the space in front of my eye. As the beagles howled in the distance, we saw the grey blur of cottontail bearing down on our position. With some form of luck never seen again, the wildly waving bead was following the wildly running rabbit just as the hammer fell on the high brass load of #6 shot. The rabbit was dead even though I had promptly jumped ship on the recoil and dropped the gun. I proudly laced the rabbit's neck under my belt and wore it the rest of the day.

My grandfather and his trusty Browning 20ga. It is impossible to say how many miles this gun has been carried or just how many rabbits it has brought to a stop. On this day, it accounted for two of our dozen.