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Season Ending Luck

by Justin Riewestahl :: Featured: February, 2002

February 28, 2002 was the last day of the season in North Carolina. I went with my great uncles Wayne and Willie, along with two good friends of the family, Percy "Tommy", Howell and my uncle's son-in-law Kevin. The day started at about 5:45 in the morning. I got dressed and went to the barn. Everybody goes to the barn on hunting days to drink coffee and eat pancakes. After we all finished eating, we got all the dogs loaded in the trucks. Wayne had six dogs and Tommy had one. Apparently, the rest of Tommy's dogs were in heat. We got to a spot just outside of Coats, NC; put the collars on the dogs and dropped the tail gate. Right off the get go we had a race. It was short, but it was still a race. Willie and I got posted on the opening and just knew that the rabbit was going to cross in front of us. We didn't know that we had a swamp rabbit, and he went right to a pond where the dogs lost him. The next rabbit came when I threw a brick into a brush pile and a dog right beside me laid it to him. I made a dash back to the opening that I was in from the first bunny, and the dogs just got farther and farther away. Kevin came on the radio and said that it was a swampy. He saw the rabbit but uncle Wayne's rules state that the dogs must run him a little before the kill. The dogs lost that rabbit at the same pond too. We then went about half an hour before Wayne's little puppies, Tom and Sue, jumped a cottontail that ran three good circles before almost disappeared off the face of the earth. He headed for another little block of woods. We decided to split up -- half of us went one way and half the other. I just had time to get into the briar patch when I looked down and Sue was trailing something at my feet. I stopped and looked in front of me and a rabbit laid under a half fallen tree. Sue went to her like a bat out of hell and the others soon joined in. Everyone got posted, then the dogs just stopped. I don't know if they lost it or not. I went to where they were and the dogs started smelling all around and barking. The first thing I thought was that the dogs had a rat or something and were just playing with it, then I saw a rabbit come slipping by with the dogs in hot pursuit. Uncle Wayne went into the field. They were long past him. "The dogs are blowing smoke on him!", Wayne said on the radio. By then I had hopped on top of a stump and could see all around. I heard the dogs coming back, then "bam, bam", Kevin got him. The dogs soon had jumped another one and it made a short circle and a mad dash for me and my stump. I heard Kevin on the radio say "He's going your way Tommy. Watch out!" I looked up and saw him coming; put the bead on him and fired. I had to run to get to the rabbit before the dogs got there. I made it just in time. By that time it was almost time for dinner, so we got to a nearby trail and headed for the trucks.

After dinner, we headed off to another "race track". We worked the dogs for about half an hour. I began to think that we would never find another rabbit on this hunt. Howel, Tommy, Willie, and I were in and around a little trash pile when I heard Howel say, "Hey Justin, come look at this rabbit in the drum barrel." I said to myself, " He's just pulling my leg." Nope, there he was with his head out the back door (a rusted out hole in the back of the drum) looking at Tommy and Howel. They kicked the back of the barrel and the race was on. They ran way back in the woods, then turned back. The rabbit ran in front of Kevin, but he let him go. The rabbit then got to a hole and that was the end of that race. We went on toward a swamp and next thing I knew, uncle Wayne said, "We've got a swamp rabbit." I saw Tommy and Willie head to one side of the swamp, then Howel yelling at me, "What's going on?" "What did Wayne say?" After I informed him of the swampy he said, "Get across this mud hole and in the swamp by that tree. I'm going down to the other side." No sooner was I in the swamp at my tree when I saw the pack of dogs and I just knew that I had missed the rabbit by a few seconds. If you have ever hunted a swamp rabbit (also called a blue tail and mud rabbit) he will only run just out of sight of the dogs and stop, stand up and listen for the dogs. So I got on the radio and said, "Watch out for him Howel, he is on his way." After about five minutes the dogs were on their way back. That pack of dogs had no reason at all to still be on that rabbit's trail with amount of water in that swamp. It was a good three to four inches deep in most spots -- unless you found some tree roots to get on. But the dogs were hot on him, and I just knew I'd be knocking him over in a matter of seconds. The dogs started to turn and I thougt it would be another near miss, when I happened to glance to my right. The dogs were right there. The rabbit was twenty yards in front of the dogs and only ten feet from me! He was toast! I harvested a cottontail that morning and a swamp rabbit in the afternoon -- the hardest to hunt of any rabbit, I think. So I was the man!

We walked around to the back side of where we had parked the trucks and Tommy saw a rabbit. The dogs went right to him. The rabbit ran two good circles and stopped in front of me and uncle Willie. He said, "Get him, Justin!" I think if I hadn't moved, then he would have ran into me. I moved a little and he stopped in front. The rabbit ran in between Wayne's legs and that was it. That double barrel 28 gauge Franchi did the job.

It was about 15:30 and a very good day, so we decided to hunt back to the trucks. The dogs went right to a little strip that we hadn't tried yet, so we though, "Why not?" They soon jumped another rabbit and were really blowing smoke on him. They just kept getting closer and closer. The rabbit hopped out of a drainage pipe and back on to the rocks, then jumped back in to a pool in front of the pipe when I shot him "on the nose" as Tommy would say.

That was a great day. I was almost so proud of the dogs that I could have given them the rabbits right there. I said almost that proud -- not quite.

I hope you all have good Seasons Ending Luck.