Rabbit hunting was my very first taste of the hunting
world. I always feel the hardest tug at
my heart strings when I think of it, and on the first day of fall this year I
can’t help but feel it coming on. I know
quite a few cut their teeth on squirrels and some on deer, but my uncles and my
cousins always had beagles, and we always had the best times chasing them as
they chased rabbits. My very strongest
and fondest childhood memories are freezing my toes off in boots and clothes
that were not nearly enough to fend off the chill as I traipsed through the
briars and weeds after the beagles. As I look back perhaps it wasn’t inadequate
clothing so much as it was my body not having enough self defense mechanisms to
stave off the cold. I think it was also
the first time I truly “toughed out” something without complaining or telling
just how bad it felt. I absolutely loved
and treasured each time I got to go with my uncle, and even more so when we
could steal away with my great uncle and my cousins.
I loved every aspect of rabbit hunting. I loved the dogs, I loved riding in the
trucks with holes rusted through the floorboards, and the smells of tobacco
juice spit into Pepsi bottles. I loved
the burnt gunpowder that lingered long in the frosty air. I even loved the smell of wet dogs as they
went through the grass. I loved getting
up before daylight and the ill-fitting hand me down clothes. I remember being too young to carry a gun and
running after the whole parade with my green camo Bear bow and a couple of
passed down aluminum arrows with missing and torn fletchings. There wasn’t anything I loved more than
hearing everyone yell as they jumped rabbits, and then one dog open and the
others make a line for it and open then take off in a cacophony of racket that
still to this day stands my hairs up and pumps my blood double time. There wasn’t a single thing about it all that
I hated more than having to stop for the day.
I never wanted to go home. I was
always proud to carry the rabbits that everyone else shot when I was younger, although
sometimes one was about my limit in the back of my game vest and even then I would
have to pass it along towards then end, but I couldn’t have been happier in
this world than doing what I was doing.
I remember hunting with my great uncle and his laugh that
was so contagious it livened up entire rooms and everyone around within
earshot. I wish so many times that I had
some way of recording it or hearing it again somehow. I was too young to get to absorb all the
wisdom from the sport he had accumulated over a lifetime of chasing beagles,
and I still try to soak up every ounce of that same type wisdom from my uncle
when we talk rabbit hunting. I could not
get enough of it and still to this day cannot.
I remember the lively nature of the bunch when the dynamics would change
with the addition of several cousins and more dogs from their pack. We could hunt the same fields with different
folks and different dogs on different days and have absolutely night and day
different experiences. 
I believe my happiest moments to date are watching my boys
soak in the same experiences that I had chasing behind the beagles and getting
to pick up the rabbits as we get them. I
don’t remember being any prouder than when I told my youngest son to stay on
the roads and edges with my uncle as I plunged into the briars after the dogs
only to look back and watch a 4 year old fighting briars right behind me as
hard as I was and not letting out any sign of pain. He has since not let up and although I cannot
provide him with the same amount of exposure to rabbit hunting as I was able to
experience as a kid due to the astronomical growth of the area we live in and
the exponential shrinking of the areas we are able to hunt, I still give him
every opportunity I can to take to the field and get in on as much as
possible.
I love rabbit hunting above nearly any other type I pursue,
and I plan to take it back up very seriously whenever I can move again to a
place that will allow me to do so. A
nice brace of fast blue tick beagles with keen long noses and bright tail tips
going through some thick briars in a huge vast expanse of thickly grown fields
sounds about as close to heaven right now as I can imagine being. God gave the rabbits a special place in my
heart and though I have strayed from that I always come back to it in my mind
and heart. When times get tough I remind
myself of my end goals and I think back on my roots and I know that problems in
life are like those briar patches we have to sometimes bull through at the
expense of tearing shirts, pants and boot laces, but the sum total of all the
events is worth it.
Genesis 1:30
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