Rabbits

Rabbits

At a very early age I learned to appreciate rabbits.  My papaw raised rabbits and I did not know it at the time, but they were some of the most prolific and easiest to keep and raise of all the critters he had on his farm.  He would keep great quantities of them and sell or eat them.  They were much quieter than his chickens and much smaller and easier to house than his larger critters like hogs and goats. 

Getting old enough to start hunting I learned a new appreciation for them as table fare and as very apt quarry in the field.  I learned to love the development of beagles who would pursue them and learned the importance of habitat to keep them safe from their natural predators which have since decimated the populations locally.  I fondly remember the rabbit hunts I used to go on with my dad and my uncles and my cousins. 

Rabbits seem to be a great indicator species for the health of a habitat in an area.  I notice they seem to require just a bit more than other more adaptable animals such as squirrels or even deer.  Though I might have strayed in my interests into waterfowl hunting, or other upland and wingshooting quarry, my heart always brings me back to my love of the pursuit of rabbits.  There’s something special about watching a beagle work a brush pile or hearing and seeing a pack of beagles burn up a rabbit trail.  I hope that the rabbits make a come back around my area and I appreciate them all the more now that they are not as common as they used to be.  The farmers have begun cleaning their fields down into the ditch lines and leave nowhere for the rabbits to hide and escape their predators. 

Rabbits are one of God’s most efficient creations that can eat nearly any vegetation and survive on nearly nothing.  They can even re-process their own waste if need be.  They live in the roughest and nastiest thickets and brush and they repopulate an area quickly when allowed to be left alone.  I’ve heard it said that the rabbit doesn’t have a friend in the world, the coyotes and the house cats and hawks have really worked on them here and the owls have taken a toll at night, but still my nature seems to be naturally drawn to this efficiency.  I for one am glad and thankful that they are out there.  I hope that our farming practices can in the future allow for them to return to their former numbers and that my children and grandchildren can enjoy pursuing rabbits in the future.

Proverbs 30-26

Rabbit Hunting

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. 

 Soaking It All In

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. 

 Family

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. 

                                                        True Pride

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. 

Goals and Aspirations

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