I suppose would be the title to this post from a purely personal point of view though “18 shot rabbit“ would be the name from the more entertaining part of the day's events.

We hunted a piece of our club’s deer lease that is located in Pittsview. It’s a small section that has been mostly clearcut and didn’t draw our attention till this late in the Alabama rabbit season.
That was a mistake. The remaining portion of the property was thick with honeysuckle mixed with a thin of briars and good aerial cover in the form of fairly young pines.

The first race didn’t take long to start after we crossed the exceptionally thick border seperating the parking spot from the thinner, though still rabbity, main body.
The bunny raced down a hillside and crossed a old, seldom traveled, logging road before circling back towards the pines.
I waited near the edge where some pines met a thin hardwood bottom. It was only a few minutes before I saw him coming towards me, angled for the edge of the hardwoods. I flipped up the Fox and instead of shooting as I came on target I tried to aim.
That was a mistake.
I got on him three times, but doubts and, I suppose, fear of missing such a easy shot froze my trigger finger till I finally gave him a farewell salute as he passed out of sight.
It was a empty feeling in the pit of my stomach as I called out that the big buck was heading for the road.
I heard two quick shots from Brag’s 20 ga. double barrel followed by the cry from Brag warning Cuz he was heading towards him. Cuz rolled him.
Brag’s missing took some of the sting from freezing up out, especially with the description from Brag and Cuz about how Brag had mostly missed a really close shot.

It was only minutes later that we were into a second race that ended with Plunker making a close shot. Maybe a tad to close with the 12 ga.
The races came close together that morning with rabbits being jumped while other rabbits were being run.
My humiliation continued when a rabbit ran straight at me and I missed with the first barrel only to blow up a mound of dirt that the rabbit ducked behind with my second

The “18 shot” rabbit was a long race that had the hunters jockeying for position. Like most races, the hunt takes on characteristics of a dance with the hunters determining the angle of the rabbits track and his probable line of travel. Then the circle of hunters respond by slowly closing in only to have guessed wrong about not only the location, but how far ahead the rabbit is ahead of the dogs and slowy expanding back out.

Plunker finally guessed right.
Bam!
Bam! Bam!
Then a bad word slipped out. Understandable.

The rabbit ran towards me.
You can probably guess how this went.
Bam! Bam!
The rabbit confused and slightly wound, turned, ran towards me and stopped, blood leaking from his nose.
I was busy trying to find a shell. I usually get them from my left side which was now empty.
I fished one from my right and slipped it in the left barrel. The rabbit continued sitting there as I lined up on his head and pulled the right barrel trigger.
Click!
The rabbit kept sitting there.
I lined up carefully on his head, the distance being so close that I didn’t want to disintegrate him.
Bam!
And he was off and running.
Sigh!
If I didn’t know better, I would think that someone had emptied my shells.

My fiasco was quickly followed by Brag firing at the rabbit also a clean miss.
The dogs followed the trail to a two trunked hollow tree. The dogs were trying to get into it.
Brag slipped a cane briar into the hollow and we could hear the rabbit climbing up the inside of the tree.
It was then that Plunker and Brag got worse than a dog worrying a old bone. They just wouldn’t leave without that rabbit.
They ran their arm up it
They poked sticks up it

Brag climbed up it and tried to get to him from the top.

They shot a hole through the trunk and tied a rope to the top. Not having enough rope they tried using a vine to pull the tree down.
They tried to chop down the tree by shooting holes in it. Unfortunately, they started their “chopping” at 5 ½ feet. Turned out that the rabbit was at five feet with a lid of solid wood between him and the next hollow. And that was after topping the wrong hollow trunk.

Cuz, Rye, the “girls” and myself thought watching all this was worth the price of admission, but we grew weary of watching. As we walked the dogs back in the general direction of the trucks, we could hear Brag and Plunker whaling away at the side of the tree with a oak limb. Just as we got to the trucks, we could hear cries of victory as they drug their prey out.
Shame there wasn't a honeybee hive to really liven the situation up


And Brag and I think that we understand how a fairly good rabbit dog like Mystery came to be alone collarless, starving in Chambers County. Mystery disappeared on the walk back to the truck. Even though we briefly heard her “strangled chicken” cries as she jumped a rabbit the sound died quickly. We didn’t see her again until she came walking down the dirt road to where we had moved the truck to, having left “Kates box” to check on the next day. She had a spring in her step, looking lively compared to the other girls. Amazing what a three hour nap can do for you.
We suspect someone got tired of looking for her and took her collar off, saying “Ok miss your ride home this time”

After lunch we got two rabbits as the “girls turned sorry again. This time I hit a running rabbit on an abandoned railroad trestle and Cuz made a shot I still don’t believe. I don’t see how he saw the rabbit much less hit it considering the distance involved and the thickness of the briars, palmettos and muscadine vines. Of course, his buck rabbit was substantially bigger than my little sager I prefer the little ones, more sporting, you know?

Tomorrow’s hunt is supposed to be the bird hunters place in Pittsview

Final score
"we" got five
Cuz 2
Plunker 1
Rimfire 1
And the one that's kind of hard to give credit. I will tell you that 18 shots including two 00 were fired in getting the rabbit though only 7 shots were in the chase and those were within a one minute time span.