I Promised to Take My Boys Rabbit Hunting Every Day of Christmas Break

This story, “Christmas Hasenpfeffer,” initially ran within the December 1963 concern of Outside Life.

Some mornings are made for hound-dog music and this one in late December was as good for it as any I can bear in mind. Snow lined the central Ohio countryside in order that it resembled a wintry scene straight out of Currier & Ives. And it was chilly sufficient to make a person respect his insulated boots and fur-lined mittens. However the scene, the chilly, and the snow have been forgotten when our canine Homer instantly discovered a red-hot rabbit monitor and began excitedly to chase the bunny in our route.

“Select a stand,” I shouted to my sons, Park and Bobby, however the recommendation wasn’t needed. I noticed Park shift to his proper to take a stand beside a thick multiflora rose subject border. On the identical time, Bobby climbed onto the trunk of a fallen elm tree which afforded him a superb view of the black berry thicket throughout him.

Homer was pouring on the gas. The rabbit determined to run reasonably than dodge into heavy cowl, and it sounded as if the little beagle was respiration proper down its neck. Lastly the rabbit needed to get away inside vary of one in all our weapons, and the following factor I heard was Bobby’s 20 gauge crack as soon as … twice … and that was it.

“Did you get him?” I referred to as.

However earlier than Bobby might reply, Homer opened up once more and I knew that the bunny managed to squirt previous Bobby and now was heading towards the following county. What adopted, although, was the form of chase to make a beagle proprietor proud. The rabbit modified it stactics. As a substitute of working at excessive pace, it was a dense plantation of Scotch pines and dodged about till the canine was utterly confused. Then it zipped out into the open once more.

Homer had a troublesome time of it for a couple of minutes. Apart from the rabbit he was following, the bottom beneath the pines was a maze of tracks made by different rabbits earlier within the morning. However by some means the little beagle sifted out the recent tracks and shortly was in full cry once more. Within the language of hound-dog males, Homer is a blabbermouth. Meaning he has a form of hysterical, high-pitched yodel on the path which you can hear from distant. This morning, you may hear Homer all the best way to the top of the thicket, at which level the rabbit turned north and the canine adopted like a shadow at lengthy vary.

At first it appeared the rabbit must go close to me as a result of I noticed it coming whereas nonetheless far out of vary. However instantly it swung to the left, switched into excessive gear, and ran proper towards Parker. I noticed the boy elevate his Browning over-and-under, hesitate, after which fireplace the 12 gauge. A minute later he was holding up the bunny whereas Homer, excited as a pet, jumped up and tried to achieve it.

“Right here’s your hasenpfeffer,” Park referred to as to me.

That very same comfortable scene was reenacted a number of instances earlier than the day was over. We discovered sufficient rabbits and we had sufficient capturing to make it an event we wouldn’t neglect for a very long time. It was additionally the start of an exquisite week of searching which I’d promised the boys on Christmas, 1961, when Bobby was 12 and Park was 15. Bobby had acquired a three-monthsold beagle pup as his Christmas reward. He named the canine Homer-Hungry Homer is his official title within the registers of the American Kennel Membership — and introduced that he personally would prepare the beagle.

“By subsequent Christmas,” he promised, “Homer would be the finest rabbit canine on the town.”

“If he’ll simply run rabbits in any respect,” I answered, “we’ll hunt daily of the Christmas holidays subsequent 12 months.”

I’d made the promise for 2 causes. For one factor, with open seasons as brief as they’re, a father doesn’t get to hunt together with his sons typically as long as they’re nonetheless at school. For an additional, I like rabbit searching. I’ve been fortunate sufficient to hunt world wide, from Texas to Tanganyika and again, however winter cottontail hunting nonetheless offers me a giant thrill. Perhaps my love for cottontail searching is a component nostalgia as a result of I can bear in mind my very own first searching journeys. At the moment, we might discover rabbits on the ends of the electrical streetcar traces in Cincinnati. After the hunt was over, my mom, who was German, would plunk the bunnies right into a wealthy spicy liquor and later prepare dinner hasenpfeffer-spiced rabbit and dumplings. I by no means might get sufficient of it. Regardless that now we have to journey a bit farther to search out sport these days (the rabbits round my suburban Columbus, Ohio, house are protected by a metropolis ordinance), I promised the boys that the hasenpfeffer can be the identical.

All summer time and into early fall, Bobby labored together with his pet. First, he tied a duck wing to a observe casting plug, then he would forged the entire thing throughout our garden and encourage Homer to chase it as he retrieved it. I’m satisfied that this vastly stimulated the pup’s need to hunt at a young age.

Subsequent, Bobby would run a barefoot path by way of the neighborhood and encourage the canine to trace him. It was a wierd sight to see a beagle working and howlingafter a boy, nevertheless it labored. The primary time he jumped a dwell rabbit at some point in early fall, he ran it like a veteran beagle. Many evenings after college, Bobby and I might additionally take the canine to a close-by thicket the place we’d take pleasure in a chase or two earlier than dinner. This was one of the best expertise of all.

However essentially the most rigorously laid plans can go awry. On November 8, per week earlier than the opening of our Ohio rabbit season, Bobby and I drove to a woodlot north of Columbus for a observe run. However a few hunters have been leaping the gun-hunting earlier than season and one in all them mistook Homer for a rabbit and shot him after which abandoned the scene. After we discovered Homer, he was a tragic, bloody mess.

Bobby was crushed, and there’s no describing how I felt as we carried the whimpering canine to a veterinarian. But it surely was an incredible reduction after we realized that the injuries have been solely superficial. By shaving Homer’s rear finish, a lot towards his needs, the vet discovered that one pellet had handed by way of his leg and 6 others have been embedded in his rump.

“He’ll in all probability be O.Okay. in per week or two,” the vet stated. “However I doubt if he’ll do a lot searching. I determine he’ll be gun-shy.”

A Beagle’s First Season

Each of us have been comfortable sufficient simply to have Homer alive. And after we dressed within the acquainted boots and canvas searching pants on opening day, we acquired an important shock. The canine was wild to go alongside. When we left him behind, he whined pitifully and tried to claw his method by way of the door. Lastly I relented.

“Let’s take him alongside,” I instructed Bobby, “and see what occurs.”

What occurred was a heart-warming expertise. The canine’s efficiency was limping and gradual, however he hadn’t misplaced a little bit of his enthusiasm for chasing cottontails. And I doubt if he even heard the appreciable capturing we did over his head that day. Apart from being very drained and sore, he was nearly as good as ever. Christmas morning, 1962, produced one other shock for Bobby. He received his first gun, a Stevens 20-gauge double-barreled shotgun, and I acquired the impression he couldn’t have been extra happy with $1,000,000.

“Santa Claus should’ve been studying my thoughts,” he stated.

The day after Christmas, as I stated earlier than, was made to order for beagles and rabbit hunters with rabbit-hunting sons. We had a good time of it. However whereas I used to be drained after an entire day of tramping throughout Franklin County’s snow-covered actual property, the boys weren’t actually warmed up.

“The place are we going tomorrow?” Bobby requested on the best way house.

“Let’s strive that spot in Morrow County,” Park instructed, “the place we discovered all of the rabbits final 12 months.”

“This week is on me,” I answered wearily. “You simply say the place.”

Morrow County is a affluent agricultural nation with neat, cozy farmhouses, and it’s out of that portion of Ohio which is so intensively developed. Fertile croplands are interspersed with farm woodlots, and right here and there among the previous buttonbush swamps are undrained. I’ve hunted a number of places within the county, however one in all my favorites is Hobe Sanderson’s farm. That’s the place Park and I had found a superb focus of cottontails in a 100-acre sugar maple and blackberry thicket. It isn’t straightforward to hunt-the briers clutch at your clothes and journey you up — however I’ve discovered that among the hardest rabbit habitat can be one of the best.

It was even colder than the morning after Christmas after we parked my station wagon beside an previous cattle gate, stuffed the pockets of our searching coats with shells, and began out on foot. I used to be utilizing a Remington Mannequin 870 12-gauge pump. The automotive radio introduced it was 10°F , and it felt prefer it. However Park, Bobby, and the canine didn’t appear to note it in any respect.

“At present goes to be my day,” Bobby stated.

What he meant was that he deliberate to bag his first rabbit together with his new double. The day earlier than, Park and I had break up our last bag of 4. Bobby hadn’t fairly related on the a number of photographs he had. We pushed off right into a waist-high patch of briers with Homer sniffing backwards and forwards in entrance of us, his nostril poking into the snow like a vacuum cleaner.

“If he retains that up all day,” I stated to myself, “his nostril will probably be badly chapped or frostbitten.”

Bobby hadn’t traveled 20 yards earlier than he virtually stepped on a rabbit that appeared to blow up from the snow beneath his toes. However he was too stunned to even elevate his gun. As a substitute he shouted to me {that a} rabbit was coming my method. I noticed a blur of grey because it bounced away forward of me, however I didn’t have time for a shot. It didn’t make any distinction, nonetheless, as a result of Homer additionally noticed the bunny and went in full cry after it. Following even a recent path on such a chilly morning is homicide for a hound canine. Even one of the best and most skilled beagles have bother following a monitor beneath such situations. Evidently the scent doesn’t maintain on the frigid floor of the snow, or maybe the footpad of the rabbit doesn’t depart sufficient scent to detect. However Homer held onto the monitor for 150 yards or so earlier than it appeared to evaporate. After making a number of circles to attempt to decide up the scent, Homer trotted again to us with a one thing’s-wrong-look on his face.

“We’re going to need to work more durable for our sport at present,” I instructed the boys.

I used to be proper. Although tracks have been considerable, many of the rabbits which made them gave the impression to be underground, in all probability in woodchuck dens or previous drainage tiles. Wherever it’s attainable, rabbits retreat into such locations when the climate turns extraordinarily chilly or damp. We hunted arduous for an additional hour earlier than I flushed a second rabbit from beneath a rusty roll of fence wire which was grown over with poison ivy and different brush. I used to be startled when the bunny flushed, however recovered in time to make a superb shot.

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“This,” I bragged, holding up the fats cottontail, “is learn how to do it.”

With the ice damaged, we started to have extra motion. Homer poked his chilly nostril right into a brushpile and a cottontail catapulted out of the opposite finish. Each Bobby and I noticed the rabbit flush, however we didn’t shoot as a result of it was too near the canine.

“That’s good, fast considering,” I recommended Bobby. “It doesn’t pay to take an opportunity in a spot like that.”

Homer had a superb chase going for a number of minutes and I assumed perhaps he would be capable to push this rabbit in an entire circle again to us. However one thing went incorrect once more, and this time we discovered the place the rabbit had taken refuge deep in a hole, fallen log.

“How will we get him out?” Bobby requested.

“We received’t,” I answered. “He made good his escape and we’ll go discover one other.”

Round midday we constructed a blazing fireplace, brewed a pot of cocoa, and broiled a number of venison chops I’d saved from a Minnesota deer hunt a month earlier. It was a nice interlude, however the boys didn’t wish to linger.

“Let’s get going,” Park stated. “There’s a rabbit round right here with my title on it.”

We doused the fireplace and slipped the leash from round Homer’s neck.

“Now go discover me a bunny,” Bobby pleaded.

Recent Floor

By now the brilliant solar had had some impact and it was getting hotter, although the temperature nonetheless hovered round freezing. The change was useful to Homer, and he instantly sounded off when he nosed a rabbit out of a brier patch. Bobby had a snapshot at it, missed, and the goal shifted into excessive gear. Homer wasn’t far behind. Although this was his finest chase of the day to date, Homer couldn’t fairly flip the animal and produce it again to us. A couple of times he misplaced the monitor and recovered it, however after the third loss, he by no means discovered it once more. Perhaps the rabbit ducked underground; perhaps its tracks dissolved within the snow. We couldn’t inform.

Earlier than the afternoon was completed, we bagged two extra bunnies and Homer did run a profitable chase. He jumped the cottontail himself and, apart from the truth that Bobby didn’t rating, wound up a contented day within the subject for a drained father. At house later that night, we had a name from Joe Fodor who farms a picturesque little bit of countryside in Medina County. That’s north of Columbus and never too removed from Cleveland. I normally spend a day or so each fall searching with Joe. His farm work was fairly nicely caught up and he had time to make our regular tour.

“Come on up tomorrow,” he stated, “and produce the boys. We’ve acquired a number of rabbits across the place.”

I can’t bear in mind ever seeing so many rabbit tracks engraved within the snow as I did within the hole and brushy woodlot behind Joe’s home. There was hardly a sq. foot of snow with no rabbit monitor on it. However discovering rabbits above floor was one other matter. We needed to kick deep into brushpiles and grapevine thickets the place they’d taken refuge. And even after we flushed them, Homer had a tough time following. Nonetheless we had our share of motion, and that goes double for Park who bagged 4, which is our state’s authorized restrict. After the final one, on which he made a high-quality shot at a quartering goal, he was the happiest 16-year-old in the entire Midwest.

We didn’t hunt all day daily throughout the remainder of the vacations as a result of I nonetheless need to work to earn a dwelling. However I took the boys out for a minimum of a few hours daily, and I’d like to inform about a type of events.

The Biggest Christmas Ever

The place we went to is sort of inside strolling distance of our house, however we drove to save lots of time. It’s deserted, closely overgrown farmland which, sadly, will quickly be developed right into a residential space. It’s filled with rabbits, and I felt that perhaps this could be our final probability to hunt them. In any case, we had an ideal day for the snow was melting barely and the solar felt nearly heat.

Homer had a rabbit going nearly instantly, and he by no means stopped chasing it till it circled again towards me. I bagged it on the primary shot. A minute later, Park kicked a second cottontail from it’s squat in a clump of excessive bluegrass and rolled it earlier than it was out of vary. Then Homer jumped a 3rd rabbit and commenced a wild pursuit which was pure pleasure to listen to and watch.

He’d flushed the rabbit from the pretty open face of 1 hillside, and we might see it journey right down to the frozen creek on the backside, cross the creek in a single soar, after which dart up the steep slope on the opposite aspect. Homer adopted the monitor as if he have been glued to it. It isn’t typically you’ll be able to watch the maneuvering of a rabbit the best way we did this one. It modified instructions typically and even crossed again over its personal path, however Homer rigorously unraveled the difficult course. He pushed so carefully that the rabbit had to surrender its fancy ways and head pell-mell for the other hillside the place it had first flushed and the place we have been ready.

At first I assumed the rabbit would take the deep gully between Park and me and that one in all us would get a superb shot. However midway up the hill, it shifted sharply to the left and headed straight for Bobby. I held my breath, hoping he would see it in time and get a superb shot at it.

I shouldn’t have apprehensive. Bobby was watching the rabbit all the best way and had his doμble prepared. When the rabbit approached a gap proper in entrance of him, he flipped off the security. Then he calmly clobbered his first bunny together with his Christmas gun.

The boy held his rabbit excessive for Homer to see, and Homer climbed throughout him to sink his tooth into the critter. It was fairly an image. On the best way house, Bobby summed up the vacation searching in a single brief and acceptable sentence. “This has been the best Christmas ever,” he stated. I knew what he meant. I additionally knew there can be aromatic, strong hasenpfeffer awaiting the three of us on our return house.