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One summer morning when I was surf-fishing in the Atlantic with my Uncle Tom, I caught a runt of a striped bass on a piece of bloodworm. When I unhooked the fish and prepared to release it, Uncle Tom stopped me.
"Never give back a gift from the sea, or the sea will give you no other," he said.
At the time I thought Uncle Tom's golden rule was nothing more than an excuse to keep and eat everything he caught, which he frequently did in those years before size limits. But his words came back to me late in the afternoon of the day I let the snowshoe hare go free.
It made me wonder if Uncle Tom's observation didn't have some validity after all, and whether it might serve as an overall hunting and fishing jinx.
Curse of the Snowshoe
It was 16 degrees below zero that February morning when I gave the hare a pass. A small group of us had met for the first of what would become an annual winter rite: a northwoods snowshoe rabbit hunt along the New York-Canada border. Had the temperature not been so terribly cold, the pack of beagles we hunted behind would no doubt have lived up to their billing as crackerjack rabbit dogs. It started off well enough. We had barely gotten out of the trucks, strapped on snowshoes and grabbed shotguns when one of the hunters flushed a hare from the ditch beside the road.
Four of us immediately started moving off in opposite directions to take up flanking positions as Merle Crain, the owner of the hounds, turned out a boxful from the bed of his pickup. As the beagles did what dogs always do when they've been penned up awhile, I moved a few yards into the spruce. I stopped, waited and listened. The beagles hadn't opened up yet when I spotted the snowshoe, gingerly hip-hopping perpendicular to me behind a deadfall about 10 yards away.
How easy is this? I thought. I raised the pump shotgun to my shoulder and sighted along it to where the hare would appear from behind the deadfall. It did, but I didn't shoot. It occurred to me that Merle had brought his dogs from central Illinois to upstate New York to run snowshoes, and that the rest of us had bundled into several layers of clothing for the privilege of hearing hound music.
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Comments (1)
Ive had probaly my best rabbit seasons in the last 2 years, the snow has come late in the season and has made for easy pickings.The hare's white winter camoflague isnt much good if theres no powder on the ground.Ive never hunted them with beagles, I mostly still hunt them with a .22 rimfire.
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Ive had probaly my best rabbit seasons in the last 2 years, the snow has come late in the season and has made for easy pickings.The hare's white winter camoflague isnt much good if theres no powder on the ground.Ive never hunted them with beagles, I mostly still hunt them with a .22 rimfire.
Post a Comment (200 characters or less)