The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Struttin’ Time: Dear rabbit hunters, please call me



Welcome back, this time to a new decade.

I have lost count of the Struttin’ Time years. Maybe someone at the The Mountain Eagle has kept up. I have written about kids and grandkids, and I have enjoyed every story. Now I want to ask you one simple question, “Are you any better off now than you were in the middle of the last decade?”

I can’t answer that for you; it is left up to you. I left the last decade with a confirmed case of the flu. I had taken the flu shot, but caught the other strain. Two weeks later I am still down, but I am ready to walk out of this valley of tears and get on with life.

This is the time for my favorite season, rabbit hunting. I miss the 1980’s when I had fine rabbit beagles and started a new bloodline, called Blue Tick Beagles. My wife Sharon and myself drove to Tennessee to get our mating pair from a beagle named Hanks JoJo Blue. We paid $900 for the pair.

One of the sons, Ben Blue, was a television star in the mid-eighties. Kids would come from all around to see Ben sit in his rocker on the porch of the “Dog House.” They would talk to him, look at his rabbit hunting pictures, and take their own pictures.

The eighties were exciting years for us rabbit hunters.

I have seen as high as a dozen hunters in my yard at daybreak, ready to load and ride. In fear of leaving anyone out I won’t name them all, but some of the finest would and will always live on in my mind. Some are still with us; some have gone on to hunt rabbit in the sky.

Who could forget Coy Morton? Blind, but still loved to rabbit hunt. Bobby Pennington always hunted with Coy to try and keep him on shot. Never a better man lived than Bobby Pennington, who, like Coy, has left us. Then there were Clyde Hatton, Clyde Frazier, Paul Combs, James Woods and, of course, everyone’s friend Jerry Coots. They all have left us, but their memories live forever.

Some of our gang, which we will go into detail about later, are still here, like John Banks, former Sheriff Steve Banks, Astor Taylor, Jim Mack, and of course Gale Dean Campbell, Wendell Hogg, Leonard Fleming, and Wid Fleming. We always had a blast.

As soon as I get well I would cherish just one more rabbit hunt with any or all of these men.

Yes, although I have hunted most of the states killing anything from elk to wild boar, rabbit hunting with my friends on a cold frosty morning still tops the list. Just give me a few days to heal, and I am a phone call away from a rabbit hunt. Welcome to 2020.

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