the rabbit hunt!
Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 1:40 pm
my grandpa used to love to hunt, especially rabbits. he made a wonderful concoction called rabbit stew that was full of (rabbit of course) meat, many spices and veggies, and other more mysterious things. just to smell it cooking would cause your stomach to rumble and thunder in mortal hunger...
anyways, this one hunt he went on was a real ringer... lol. he got his double-barreled shotgun, his daddy's own gun, a Parker, that had been handed down to him. a very nice shotgun back then, pretty expensive... and one of those old fashioned ones with the big, outside hammers.
as it was late in the fall and fairly cool, he put on warm clothing including his coat and hat, and last but not least, his hunting boots that my own father had given him for christmas the year before. these were Red Ball outdoorsman boots, high (above the ankle) laceups and all leather, but well-oiled to keep out moisture.
feeling fully prepared (and braced by one of my grandma's fine breakfasts complete with Standford coffee strong enough to whip a grown man's ass,) he set out across the timber-covered ridge north of the farm house. he'd crossed the ridgeline, and moved down into the small hollow on the otherside, when he came to a large tree stump that he'd chopped down himself the year before. he decided to step up on the stump to see across the hollow better, and as he got up on it, he spied a pair of loafing rabbits messing around some thirty or forty yards away near a patch of blackberry vines.
aha! he thought, a rare two for one shot! as both of the rabbits were sitting nearly side by side and nibbling along mindlessly on some small tidbit of grass. both were easily withing range of the 12ga. Parker, and would be easy to nail with a single barrel. he eased up the shotgun, so as not to alert them with a quick movement, sighted down the barrel, and slowly pulled the right trigger.
KA_BLOOIE! and the shell in the right barrel ignited. but what grandpa didn't know (and had forgotten to check) was that a damned dirt dauber had made a nice mud home in the right barrel of the old Parker. a very dangerous situation... and one that 'could' have cost him his life... but in this case he was rather fortunate, for all it did was split the barrel wide open for a length of about six inches and curl it outward sort of making it look like one of those old bell-muzzled musketoons that the English used to carry about in the old days. ---and of course the savage backblast/recoil from all of that tossing/slamming him right off the stump about five feet or so and into a puddle of icy spring water that was seeping out of the high ridge above.
the brutal jolt and fall actually knocked him senseless for several long minutes... and when he came to, he shook his head to clear away the fog in his eyes---and spied the same two (unharmed) rabbits now crouched up on the same tree stump he'd just gotten blown off of... staring at him strangely as if he were nuts or something.
lying there in the mud and water, he raised the Parker that he still had in his hands, and sighted along the 'left' barrel... then thought better of it and said to hell with the hunt.
LOL!
and it was a long spell before he went rabbit hunting again. and he NEVER would fire another rifle, pistol, or shotgun, without damned near taking the thing apart and carefully inspecting the barrel for obstruction first. a valuable lesson learned, eh?
Beowolff
anyways, this one hunt he went on was a real ringer... lol. he got his double-barreled shotgun, his daddy's own gun, a Parker, that had been handed down to him. a very nice shotgun back then, pretty expensive... and one of those old fashioned ones with the big, outside hammers.
as it was late in the fall and fairly cool, he put on warm clothing including his coat and hat, and last but not least, his hunting boots that my own father had given him for christmas the year before. these were Red Ball outdoorsman boots, high (above the ankle) laceups and all leather, but well-oiled to keep out moisture.
feeling fully prepared (and braced by one of my grandma's fine breakfasts complete with Standford coffee strong enough to whip a grown man's ass,) he set out across the timber-covered ridge north of the farm house. he'd crossed the ridgeline, and moved down into the small hollow on the otherside, when he came to a large tree stump that he'd chopped down himself the year before. he decided to step up on the stump to see across the hollow better, and as he got up on it, he spied a pair of loafing rabbits messing around some thirty or forty yards away near a patch of blackberry vines.
aha! he thought, a rare two for one shot! as both of the rabbits were sitting nearly side by side and nibbling along mindlessly on some small tidbit of grass. both were easily withing range of the 12ga. Parker, and would be easy to nail with a single barrel. he eased up the shotgun, so as not to alert them with a quick movement, sighted down the barrel, and slowly pulled the right trigger.
KA_BLOOIE! and the shell in the right barrel ignited. but what grandpa didn't know (and had forgotten to check) was that a damned dirt dauber had made a nice mud home in the right barrel of the old Parker. a very dangerous situation... and one that 'could' have cost him his life... but in this case he was rather fortunate, for all it did was split the barrel wide open for a length of about six inches and curl it outward sort of making it look like one of those old bell-muzzled musketoons that the English used to carry about in the old days. ---and of course the savage backblast/recoil from all of that tossing/slamming him right off the stump about five feet or so and into a puddle of icy spring water that was seeping out of the high ridge above.
the brutal jolt and fall actually knocked him senseless for several long minutes... and when he came to, he shook his head to clear away the fog in his eyes---and spied the same two (unharmed) rabbits now crouched up on the same tree stump he'd just gotten blown off of... staring at him strangely as if he were nuts or something.
lying there in the mud and water, he raised the Parker that he still had in his hands, and sighted along the 'left' barrel... then thought better of it and said to hell with the hunt.
LOL!
and it was a long spell before he went rabbit hunting again. and he NEVER would fire another rifle, pistol, or shotgun, without damned near taking the thing apart and carefully inspecting the barrel for obstruction first. a valuable lesson learned, eh?
Beowolff
*runs*