I asked the three little girls at my feet.
"I ain’t blind you know and I’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes. That rabbit didn’t come by me."
The girls ignored me and continued smelling along the relatively new logging lane that had been cut through the pines when they had been thinned last year.
Suddenly all three girls opened up at once and dived into a patch of bushes only a few feet from me and the race was back on.
I felt rather foolish and owed the girls an apology. The rabbit had not only crept past while I faced in the wrong direction but had tried to wait out the hunters.
It was Brag, Plunker and myself, Rimfire, hunting Cuz’s hunting lease on a pine plantation near downtown Seale, Alabama for an afternoon hunt on the last day of the 07-08 rabbit season. It’s easy to know that the season was ending even without a calendar, the daffodils were blooming and the briars were greening up, becoming tougher and sharper.

Brag saw Lucy almost step on a rabbit near the paved road to start us off. The rabbit ran one large circle and tried to enter the same thicket that he was jumped in. Brag had never moved a foot.

That was all the action until we moved over near the Florida Boys stands. I did notice during the long walk before we jumped the rabbit that ended up making a fool out of me, I did notice that while some deer hunters like to “brown bag” it some were more into the exotics.

The rabbit circled and came back out on the logging trail….to far out for me to try a shot. Then back in for another circle.
This time Brag and I both lined the trail. I heard the 7 ½ shot as it whooshed up the lane.
Dang! Watch out Plunker, He’s headed your way”
A good ten minutes later and Kate had the rabbit. Brag had gotten, at least one piece of shot into it.

We dropped Plunker off at his truck and went back to hunt till dark. Lucy jumped and the final race of the day was on. It lasted till the sun was setting behind the hills and the shooting light fading.
I stood there on crest of a hill with the girls running hot in front of me, waiting for the storybook ending to the final hunt of the season.
We never got a look at the rabbit, much less a shot before the girls lost it

That’s ok.

Final score
Brag 2
Plunker 0
Rimfire, well you know I don’t keep up with such.