Last Missouri Rabbit Hunt for the Season

It was a cold day, and the wind cut like a knife, but the persistent rabbit hunters were in search of yet another cottontail. The ice covered everything. As we battled through the ice covered vines and briars, the dogs jumped a rabbit.

After the next couple of circles, we had figured out the path of the wily fella'. It would run up the ditch into a patch of ice covered grass, then come back down the ditch. Finally, a shot echoed, and the rabbit was hit. The dogs caught up with it, and caught it, but nobody knew that. In a bit, one hunter decided to check and see if a silenced dog had caught the rabbit. Sure enough, the beagle had caught it and retrieved it to the hunter.

Now, there were more rabbits, but I won't bore you about them. Here's one for you though. The dogs jumped this rabbit, and it started running like a south bound train, popped into the open, and darted back untouched. The dogs brought it back around (of course), and I'm tellin' you, it sounded like machine-guns going off (if a .22 can sound like such), but you get the point...these hunters like the sport of it more than killing the rabbit. If a rabbit is taken for the day...bonus...nice dinner at the end of the day. Thirty-one .22 shots at a single rabbit and only hit twice. Everyone got a nice chuckle out of this. The dogs eventually caught up with him, and a young hunter with a shotgun in his left hand and a rabbit in his right hand emerged from the timber with a smile on his face!

With two rabbits ran, there was still time for one more. No sooner than you could say, "Great Swamp Rabbit in Mississippi", the scent of a cottontail was picked up by the dogs, and away they went. Up the road, down the road, across the road they went. At long last, the rabbit "took a wrong turn at Albuquerque," right into a hunter's line of fire.

With a chapter of rabbit hunting closing for this year, memories were made, and hunters and beagles will dream of the next season when the song of the beagles will once again be heard.