Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Hunting Season - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Hunting Season

November 15th was a special day each fall while growing up. It was the first day of hunting season; the only day each year I was allowed to skip school. Literally, all the farm boys in my class would go hunting that first day which actually started at midnight going coon hunting with my uncle Bob for a couple hours to kick off the season. Those escapades were documented in this previous blogpost. Then after a couple hours of sleep, I’d be up early not to milk cows but to set traps for muskrats and rabbits. A few days earlier, I would have placed the muskrat traps in the creek running through our farm and the rabbit traps in culvert entrances, but would not set the traps until the season started. That morning was the one time each year Dad would relieve me from having to tend to the milking. After setting the traps at daybreak, I’d proceed to hunt for rabbits. The best places were usually harvested corn fields, unless they were too muddy, and the clover fields that had been planted under the wheat the prior year. Rabbits loved to eat the kernels of corn and the tender clover leaves.

As a budding hunter, Dad didn’t trust me with a shotgun, so I used a rifle. That meant I had to see the rabbit nesting and take a shot before it took off, which required keen eyes, stealthy movements and a quick shot. Eventually, when old enough to use a shotgun, the hunting became a little more enjoyable, but those darn rabbits never ran in a straight line, so even those shots were a challenge.

Then in my freshman and sophomore year in high school, I attended a seminary to study for the priesthood. The students there also hunted for rabbits, but with clubs! All 300 students attending would circle a field two deep, club in hand, then the first group would proceed to close the circle, while the second group would follow about 20 yards behind. When a rabbit was scared up, it would try to get through the circle. If it wasn’t clubbed then, the back-up group had a chance to club the rabbit. Occasionally a rabbit would go down a hole, then a third group of “hunters”, armed with shovels, would literally dig out the rabbit. One year we got over 100 rabbits from the 300 acre farm surrounding the seminary. Great fun! (PS: I left the seminary after my sophomore year once the hormones kicked in!)

Because of my rabbit hunting background, I was on the rabbit cleaning crew after the hunt. We were rewarded by the nuns in the kitchen with some fried rabbit before the evening meal was served to the rest of the seminarians. Very tasty!

As I got older, my hunting became much more gentrified. For years a friend would invite me to his club called Hunters Creek, where first we would shoot clay birds for some practice, followed by a afternoon of pheasant hunting. Early in the day, the birds had been “placed” in the field, 6 to a hunter. A well-trained dog would track down the birds and point when one is sensed. The dog would inch closer to the nesting bird until it took flight, at which time the hunter closest to the bird would take a shot. If he missed, the other hunters would then take a shot. The dog would runs after the downed bird and brings it back to the hunters.

Once the 6 pheasants per hunter are chased up, we adjourned to the club house for a wonderful pheasant dinner. Meanwhile, the pheasants we shot are cleaned and packaged by the staff and are ready to take home once dinner is over. Sure nothing like the old days!

I recall years ago when we were building our current house, the goal was to have the roof on before the first snowfall. We were on track to meet that goal until the hunting season came, when literally every tradesman bailed out for a week of dear hunting in northern Michigan, leaving the roofless house high and not so dry! Once the crew returned, fortunately they made up for the lost time and soon the house was under-roof before much if any snow had fallen.

My hunting days are pretty much over, except for the “hunting” I do around out house, catching about 50 chipmunks and a couple groundhogs each year, giving them all a last swim in the lake!


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