OUTDOORS: Rules of the rabbit hunt | Sports

A very well-believed-out and correctly prepared rabbit hunt is a point of natural beauty. It has quite a few main pieces, and they will have to all be taken critically. If you slack off or miss out on one particular, the hunt will suffer and your standing in the group will fall. 

Very first, the team: You need to have a good group of hunters. In my encounter, this signifies someplace about 5 to 6 people. A lot more than that and the woods get crowded. Considerably less than that and it is tough to corner the rabbit. Every group consists of the adhering to persons:

• The puppy handler. He’s the star of the show on hunt days. He’s the one particular who voluntarily feeds the puppies and trains them the other 10 months of the year that we simply cannot hunt. In some conditions, he’s also the hardest to get together with and the most anti-social, but that is Okay simply because he’s one of our team and he plays a key purpose. 
• The hunt grasp. This is the man who keeps spots for every person to hunt. He cultivates the relationships and finds the homes we all hunt. It is his legwork that keeps all of us in hunting ground. 
• The prepare dinner. Just about every team has a person. The excellent of your group relies upon on this person, however in all probability as significantly as any other. You can have rabbits, you can have excellent canine, but if you never have good food items then some thing essential is just missing. The food items does not have to be extravagant, but it greater be great. Barbecue sandwiches, sausage canine, rooster perlo, chili, venison burgers, you improved convey your A-game!
• The useful joker. This a single is a watchful find. This guy’s total position is to make sure every person is obtaining fun and that even when the canines have a poor day and it’s also warm to run or also wet to run, we all are smiling when the day starts and ends. He’s always received a joke ready and a story that may perhaps or may not be correct. 
• The hunter. This is the significant person. He’s there to acquire house rabbits! He possibly has the most costly shotgun, the most expensive dresses on the hunt, and actually,  just can’t shoot. But hey — he seems the part! 
• The guys. these are just the fellows you know that fill out the listing. They respond to the cellphone and are generally all set to go. Regular, trusted, pleasurable to be with. 

For several a long time, we experienced a wonderful group of fellas that rabbit hunted together. When I say we hunted together I imply it, 3 or 4 situations a week from the time deer time finished to the conclusion of the smaller match time. Each and every year we walked 1000’s of miles alongside one another and killed rabbits all alongside the way. Now if you glance at the list previously mentioned, I was the cook and the hunt grasp. I had the connections and I like to prepare dinner. 

On Feb. 28^, one particular calendar year (past day of the rabbit year) we have been searching more than in Lamar Co on a significant piece of property I had attained permission to hunt on. This position was Substantial! I necessarily mean, we had the run of it and there have been rabbits! Loads of enjoyable. Nicely anyway — as the day wore on we ended up truly having a superior one. We had killed at the very least 7 or 8 rabbits and we have been contemplating it was time to stop when my buddy William’s previous pet dog Rose struck a male rabbit (we contact them bucks) and off they all went. Now, towards the conclude of the period, male rabbits tend to wander some so they can breed. This sucker had arrive a approaches. He ran in a straight line for a mile or more before ever making a transform. 

When the dogs struck, we had been all standing at a crossroads and listening to all the things. The old person who owned the property looked at me and stated he understood exactly in which that rabbit was heading and did I want to journey with him to lower it off. Very well of study course I did. So off we went in his tiny 4-wheel-drive Toyota, sliding and skidding at a pace that frankly experienced me worried for my security and planning my funeral. We lastly designed it to in which he needed to be — a T-intersection. He slammed on breaks and when we completed sliding, he instructed me to get out and operate up the highway past a bend and hold out for the rabbit. I jumped out and went as rapid as my chubby butt would have me. 

When I rounded the bend, there he was.

Nope — it was not a rabbit. 

Nope — it was not Sasquatch. 

It was a black bear standing in the center of the logging highway just looking at me. I slid to a prevent so rapid my toes flew out from under me and down I went like a sinner at a Baptist pool party! The bear, it seems, laughed and then jumped into the woods. As I stood up and collected my views, my wits, and my courage, I puzzled how I was going to notify anyone about this. After I managed to get again in equipment, I stepped into the woods to continue on to head off the puppies and get rid of that rabbit. 

It was not to be. All of a unexpected that bear got me! I suggest he, confident enough, experienced me was what I thought. Out of pure self-defense and in worry for my daily life, I shot the offending creature! 

What it actually was, though, was a rabbit. A little cottontail had made the decision to pop up and scare me to death! We in no way shoot a jumped rabbit. My group of close friends is out there for the pure really like of the chase. We appreciate to listen to the pet dogs run and get pleasure from the working day. Other than for that time — I positive plenty of shot that rabbit! 

That bear was found all over again a week later by the landowner, and all people experienced to quit earning fun of me for boasting I was attacked by a bear. 

—Outdoors columnist James Pressley can be achieved at [email protected]