Hunterspon,
Thanks for posting these wonderful pictures. My first introduction to hunting was when my uncle took me rabbit hunting with my cousins in rural Virginia. He had 5 beagles that he was always "teaching."
I only went hunting with them 3 times, and although we jumped a rabbit or two every hunt, we never got a single one. The rabbit would jump up in the heavy brush about 15 yards away. We would see it for about 2 seconds, and then the dogs were after it. Then neither the dogs nor rabbit ever came back! We would spend the next hour trying to get those 5 lousy dogs back together and start over.
Every hunt ended in the dark, with my uncle driving up and down every country road, stopping and yelling out the car door for the dogs to return. Eventually 3 or 4 would come back, and he would have to go back the next morning to find the last ones.
We kids were all freezing cold and sick in the back seat, because we never had any decent hunting clothes, and the only thing he would give us to eat all day was saltine crackers with potted meat and Coca-Cola.
After that, I grew up and moved away, and I never had the privilege of hunting rabbits with a beagles again. I am 58 now, and someday maybe I'll get to go again.
I had a Brittany Spaniel with absolutely zero nose, but my wife use to take her out to the big fields in North Mississippi to rabbit hunt. The dog would just nose around, staying close, until one jumped. My wife would get one single shot. About 1 in 4 shots, she would kill a rabbit.
Mannyrock
