RABBIT HUNTING

At the age of fourteen our church youth group took a trip to the World’s Fair in New York City. This was a huge trip in those days (as the World’s Fair was a huge deal). I recall we made and sold hoagies every other Saturday for months beforehand to raise money. Nobody in that era had a hundred bucks or so laying around the house to give their kid for a trip to New York City. So we took orders during the week and then got up early on Saturday and set up the hoagie assembly line at church. We may have had more fun making the sandwiches than we did on the trip. Once again, you’re asking yourself what could the World’s Fair have to do with rabbit hunting. As we made our way through the Canadian exhibit there in New York City I was looking for a present to bring my mother. I’m not sure why I only bought something for her but I did. For some strange reason a tanned rabbit hide caught my attention (what was I thinking?). I imagine it probably cost about a quarter (this was 1964), which was right in my price range so I pounced on it. It was really soft and a nice mottled tan color. I figured she would love it. Of course you had to know my mom to appreciate her response. “Oh, a rabbit fur,” she exclaimed, “It’s wonderful.” I’ll put it right over here on the coffee table and put Aunt Grace’s doily somewhere else. It’s so soft!” I don’t think Mom ever said a negative word about anything.

Cottontail rabbits were plentiful in Western Pennsylvania. It was the one upland game species that you could always count on getting a shot at in the field. Even when a pheasant or grouse could not be found, it was the rare day that a rabbit wouldn’t cross your path. I guess it is true what they say about rabbits multiplying.

Rabbits were one of my dad’s favorite game species, probably because he grew up hunting them for food. Even though Dad wore glasses his eyesight was keen in the field. He could spot a rabbit’s eye in the brush and take its head off with a well-placed shotgun blast, spoiling none of the meat. Dad was my hero when it came to shooting sports. It seemed there wasn’t anything in that area he wasn’t good at.

Many of my friends had beagles, which, of course, are the classic rabbit hound. Some folks used springer spaniels which were known for hunting both rabbits and birds. We had neither so I, as the youngest in the group, became the “dog” on many occasions. I didn’t mind this unless it meant going through a briar patch. You will recall the story of Br’er Rabbit and how he encouraged Br’er Fox to throw him into the briar patch – because that’s exactly where rabbits are most comfortable. Like Br’er Fox the briar patch was a tough spot for me to get through. The cover we hunted in the Slippery Rock area was pretty diverse but there were plenty of farm fields that had not been cultivated for years. They were in the process of returning to their wild origins and in many cases were covered with thick, tangled underbrush. I recall looking at certain fields and thinking to myself, “Every animal in the county could be in that brush and you’d never see them.” Whether I was too dim-witted to know better or just too anxious to get some shooting, I often would pick my way slowly through such a dense tangle of barbed wire-like vegetation. My dad wore brush pants that were specially designed to protect your legs from briars. I wore blue jeans which provided very little protection (in those days hunting clothes came via hand-me-downs and nobody had outgrown any hunting pants yet). It is interesting to note that years later Dad did hand those pants down to me when he no longer used them. I recall at the time they were huge and there was no way I could wear them. I kept them in Dad’s old Army foot locker in the basement with all my other hunting clothes. I tried them on again in my early fifties and found them to be uncomfortably tight (how could they have shrunk so badly while in that foot locker?). I also found that the cuffs were filled with a variety of dried seeds from his last trip to the field decades before. I got that same feeling as the archeologists who discovered the grape seeds in the ruins of Pompeii and used them to grow a new vineyard 2,000 years later.

Clothed in my minimal protection I would carefully wade into a briar patch intent on spooking a rabbit out into the open. This was always attempted when you were hunting with others as, if you were alone, there is no way you could get a shot off in the middle of a briar patch. Sometimes you could get through by crawling on your hands and knees. This procedure normally meant the overhanging briars picked your hat from your head on numerous occasions. Other times the best option was to grab large stems with gloved hands in an attempt to navigate from bare spot to bare spot. Of course all the while it was necessary to assure you didn’t scratch your shotgun. Dad afforded us great guns to hunt with but also demanded that we treat them with due respect. What you were always looking for was that elusive brush pile or tangle in the middle that might be holding a rabbit or two. Often times after a grueling effort one would be disappointed to find a hole in the middle of the patch into which any self-respecting rabbit you were chasing would have long since exited.

I loved hunting when there was snow on the ground. That enabled you to see the various animal tracks in the snow. Of course it also became very frustrating when you saw all those tracks and no game. The crazy thing about rabbits is that while they love the briar patches and other impenetrable cover, they often can be found hiding in a small patch of grass stubble in the middle of an open field. These are the ones that shock you so badly when they flush, you often miss the shot.

This particular hunt took place on a Saturday morning between Christmas and New Years. It was as they used to say, “the second season.” A couple inches of fresh snow made things much easier. I had drawn the middle position (as always) between Dad on the right and Johnny on the left. It seemed as though the briar patch or crabapple thicket was always dead in front of me. As I carefully worked my way through these, in many cases on hands and knees, I would call out if I heard anything flush ahead of me. In some instances the noise would be followed by a shotgun blast from the left or right. If from Dad’s direction the shot was normally followed by silence. This meant Dad had killed the rabbit. On the other hand, if Johnny shot you could count on either of two responses. Whooping and hollering if he scored or swearing and muttering if he missed. I rarely got a shot off as the rabbit either flushed too far ahead of me or it did so when I was pulling my hat off a briar bush.

On this particular day; however, I did get off a shot – two for that matter. As I entered a particularly dense thicket I could see a ton of fresh tracks in the snow. As it had snowed early that morning I determined they were no more than a couple hours old. I called out to Dad and Johnny that I thought there were rabbits in this tangle. They took up decent shooting positions on the sides as I proceeded through. My target was a blown-down tree near the center of the thick underbrush. Its demise years ago had opened the canopy above, letting enough light reach the ground to encourage the thick vegetative growth. The rotting log looked to be a perfect place for hiding bunnies. I carefully worked my way toward it trying to avoid the briars and still maintain a quasi-shooting position. Every so often I would try my dad’s technique of stopping briefly to make any close-holding game think that I had seen them.

Suddenly from almost underfoot a rabbit took off. I could see its brown form perfectly against the snowy ground. I pulled the over and under to my shoulder and fired almost immediately in the general direction of the rabbit. This was as I used to call it, “a warning shot”. You see the adrenalin rush associated with such an explosive departure of any game from thick cover makes most hunters (and me in particular) pull the trigger way before the bead on the end of the shotgun’s barrel is leveled on the target. I saw a puff of snow rise as the BBs hit the ground not far in front of me and not very close to the rabbit. The good news was that this first shot must have prompted the rabbit to jump. As I finally got the bunny in my sights he was airborne and approaching the top of his arch over the downed log. This time as the shot rang out it was a puff of fur that flew, not snow. Dad and Johnny, not used to hearing shots from the center of the thicket, immediately called out in unison, asking if I had hit the mark. I shouted back that I thought so but it would take a few minutes to make my way to the point where the rabbit crossed the tree. I moved more quickly now with great anticipation through the briars. I was just hoping that there wasn’t a groundhog hole on the other side of the log. There wasn’t. On the other side lay the dead rabbit silhouetted against the white snow. “I got him!” I shouted. “Now all I have to do is find my way out of here.”

I picked the rabbit up by the back legs and felt its weight. It was a nice sized bunny. I laid my shotgun down against the log and struggled to slide the rabbit into the game pouch of my hunting vest. Hunters who shot game often got good at this maneuver but I didn’t fall into that category. I wound up taking the vest off to get it in. I crawled out of the briar patch and met Dad and Johnny on the other side. As always I described the shot in exacting detail. They congratulated me on connecting with the airborne rabbit. Then Dad added, “Just because the shotgun has two barrels doesn’t mean you have to use both whenever something flushes.” In other words, “Take your time with the first shot next time and you won’t need the second.”

After another mile or so of slogging through heavy brush we arrived back at the car with four rabbits between the three of us. When we arrived home Mom greeted us the same way she always did – “Did you get anything?” She would enjoy cooking the rabbits for supper that night after Dad had skinned and cleaned them. The one thing that he never did though was tan the rabbit hides. I guess you could only get a rabbit fur from the New York Worlds Fair.