If you fall, I want to go to the hospital with you cause I want to hear you explain to the doctor why you have a deer’s antler shoved up your butt.
But he didn’t, just like he didn’t score a ringer on one of our preseason exercises.

It was a good hunt though we could have used another couple of standers. The rabbits had a tendency to run down the hill into a water filled bottom for a short loop, then exit on the other side, race up the hill and down the other face into another bottom to continue the race.

And if you think that we were whupped at the end of the day, you should have seen the dogs.

I didn’t get three rabbits that should have been in the game bag.
I waited on a power line for one before getting antsy and moving down into a bottom. I was looking left when the rabbit ran on my right, up the power line.

The next one came during a looong race where not only couldn’t we hem him up for a shot, but we couldn’t even see him.
“Bobcat”, Cuz called out when one crossed near him coming from where the “girls” were running.
I edged up the relatively clear bottom in time to see something large bounding towards me.
A big buck rabbit.
I cocked the .410, lifted it to my shoulder and waited till he crossed behind the trunk of a large oak.
And waited.
I heard something in the leaves and glanced down to see the rabbit only a few feet from me. I snapped the gun down and fired…. Shooting over his head.
Good thing to. At that range, it would have been messy. And, any closer, I would have been checking my boots for the shot pattern.

Funny thing about that, even funnier than me missing a point blank shot (not that that would surprise most people who are aware of my legendary shooting skills) was that 30 minutes later Cuz killed the rabbit the girls were running, a small sager. Somewhere in the race, they switched rabbits.

The last “shoulda been” saw me and put a tree between us as he did a 180* back into the briars he was coming out of

The half a rabbit each that was awarded to us came when Plunker shot at a buck that seconds later came by me like a grey streak. I popped a round off. The dogs fell silent after fifty yards. I met them coming out single file and not hunting. Kate didn’t come out. That told me that the rabbit was dead and Kate was standing guard over it till I showed up. She’s pretty protective about the dead rabbits. I’ve seen her pick up the rabbit and bring it to us on occasion.
Anyway, while Plunker says that he is almost positive that his was a clean miss, I can’t say with certainty who put the single piece of lead into it.

I cut Cuz off and killed a small sager, our first rabbit of the frosty morning. The girls came over and smelled it, then resumed trying to track the rabbit. Their attitude was “yeah, we see that rabbit. We’re looking for the one you shot at.”
Even among the dogs, my shooting skills are remarked on

Cuz got two after lunch for a total of 3


Rye got two

Plunker 1
Brag 1
Rimfire 2
We tried to get into double digits, but couldn’t jump that last rabbit on the way back to the truck. I think the girls were a little relieved. They had reached the stage of “you jump them and we’ll run them.”