The following article was first published in the September 2019 issue of
the american beagler
magazine.
Subsequently, The October issue of
THE RABBIT HUNTER
magazine.
It is presented here with additional photography and information for your reading pleasure by authority of the author.
From Western
Pennsylvania,
And
The World Headquarters
of
The Big Woods Hare
Hunters of the Allegheny
REDEMPTION
Written
By
Joe Ewing
High HareMan
Of the
Big Woods Hare
Hunters of the Allegheny
Photographed by
Michelle M. Murray
and
Joe Ewing
 |
| The Clarion River near Cooksburg, Pennsylvania |
 |
| The Clarion River, the playground of western PA |
“The hunter that travels out into the woods is
lost to the world, yet finds himself.”-Unknown.
Redemption was not bestowed upon me in any one
defining moment of triumph. Atonement came during tranquil moments of
self-reflection, contemplation and soul-searching. Deliverance came during
moments of quiet self-examination in the great outdoors.
I like to keep records.
I’ve kept paper records or a journal of almost every rabbit hunt or training
run in which I’ve participated. I’ve concocted a paper form which I now utilize.
I enjoy referring to these notes. These simple scraps of meaningless looking paper
never cease to bring back pleasant memories.
Not long ago a beagling
friend called me on the phone. During the conservation he mentioned his beagle was
pregnant and that’s all he said. After hanging up the phone a thought went
scurrying through the not yet dead segments of my minuscule brain. I combed through
my paper notes, found the last time he and his female beagles hunted with my
males. It had been exactly 60 days.
The next night the phone
rang again and my friend began with, “Say, when was the last…?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I rudely
interrupted. “You’re having puppies next Friday.” To make a long story short
his female wasn’t pregnant and the litter didn’t materialize for reasons too
extensive to expound upon here. The bottom line, I had my records and I didn’t
have to rely on my declining recollections.
In the late 70s a bunch of
us hunted eastern cottontail rabbits hard. I mean intensely. We were young and seemed
to have an obsession with the sport of rabbit hunting. We were out in the
fields before daylight every chance we could possibly find and according to my notes
there is no way I could’ve returned home until after dark most days. I loaded
beagles in the dark in the morning, I fed hounds in the dark in the evening and
I skinned cottontails in the dark of the night. Many days we spent as many as 9
or 10-hours hunting rabbits. As long as there was daylight, we chased beagles.
Everyone filled their bag limit most days. According to my archives, on at
least one occasion, Andy and I led dogs across the breast of a beaver dam in
the dark of night. We then leashed hounds another two miles to the trucks. My
records don’t show if we got our feet wet.
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Courtesy: Google Earth
|
My records also don’t
indicate our beliefs, opinions, conceptions or misconceptions, but I know we
were fanatical with hunting to the point of excessive, single-minded zeal. Our
motto was, “Hunting isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” We hunted rabbits
anywhere and everywhere we could find them. Holding down a job was our only inconvenience.
We hunted the abandoned
strip-mines of southern Clarion County, Pennsylvania. A co-worker owned a small
hobby-farm and ran a greenhouse/nursery operation surrounded by abandoned
strip-mines and he literally hated the cottontail rabbits which ate his nursery
stock and vegetable garden. His farm and the abandoned strip-mines were loaded
with rabbits. Ed didn’t care if we shot cottontails in his back yard just as
long as we killed rabbits. We tried to be careful around the farmhouse; however,
the greenhouse suffered a few BB holes on occasion. It was fortunate the
greenhouse wasn’t made of glass. After old Ed’s passing his farm was obliterated
from the face of the Earth by the strip-miner’s dragline. It was sad to see the
place in which Ed took so much pride and the place we loved to hunt rabbits disappear
with one fell swoop of a D-9 bulldozer and the ravenous bite of the dragline.
Strip-mining
(open pit mining) is a type of surface mining for coal and other minerals
including petroleum. Strip-miners opened up a long strip of land and removed
the coal. They moved the soil and rock (overburden) to the side, dug as deep as
possible with the equipment they had available, removed the coal seam and were
gone. The greedy coal barons never worried about restoring the land, back-filling
or acid mine water. Many creeks and streams in Clarion County still display the
bright orange of sulfur mine drainage. At one time the Clarion River was the
most polluted river in Pennsylvania. I’m sure rabbit hunters across
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and many other states know all about the
curse of strip-mining. Thanks to the volunteer work of conservation groups like
the Mill Creek Coalition the Clarion River runs clean and was voted
Pennsylvania’s river of the year.
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| An old abandoned strip-mine, unrestored, overgrown and worthless land. |
The strip mines we hunted in were covered with slow growing
non-native trees and shrubs. Native varieties of trees would not grow in the
acid shale spoil piles or “spilly piles” (local jargon) which the strip-miners
left behind.
A spoil pile, also called boney pile or slag heap, is a pile
built of accumulated overburden or other waste material removed during coal and
ore mining. These waste materials are composed of shale as well as sandstone
and various other residues.
One of the hazards of strip-mines are “highwalls”. A highwall is the unexcavated face of exposed overburden in a surface mine. The coalminers dug straight down leaving a hazardous
cliff-like precipice. Although I’ve witnessed cottontails make their escape up
a highwall, on many occasions the beagles would chase the cottontails to the very
brink of the highwall and there the chase would end with the beagle catching
the rabbit. My beagle, Honey, would show up with the rabbit, wagging her tail
and feeling very proud of herself.
Numerous iron furnaces operated from 1829-1867 in Clarion
County. The county was often referred to as “The Iron County.” There are many
iron ore strip-mines in the county. One of these abandoned iron ore strip-mines
is within a few yards of my back door. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when
I moved into the house where I now live. The iron mine was covered with great
rabbit cover and full of rabbits. On many evenings I came home from work,
placed my favorite legal beverage in my pocket and within minutes the beagles
would be on a rabbit. I trained and hunted cottontail in the abandoned iron
mine for many years until civilization and development crowded me out.
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| Helen Furnace, one of numerous iron furnaces in Clarion County, was built in 1845 on the Alexander McNaughton farm. This cold blast furnace operated until 1857. In 1856, within a 26-week period of operation the furnace generated 26 tons of iron. |
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| More Clarion River. |
In the late 1970s
Congress passed a new law which changed strip-mining practises
dramatically. The law regulates the way coal miners reclaim the land. We hunted
for eastern cottontails in the reclaimed strip-mines
of central and southern Clarion County, Pennsylvania during the late-80s and
all through the 1990s.
The mining companies planted thousands of non-native evergreen
trees which made excellent rabbit cover. The restored land soon became virtually
overrun with rabbits and we hunted them with obsession. The ground was
compacted from the restoration process so there were no holes for the rabbits
to escape. They never stopped running. As the non-native pine and spruce
continued to grow, they shaded out the understory. These trees are slowly dying,
the sun is reaching the ground and the rabbit habitat is slowly returning.
One
Thanksgiving morning years ago we stopped at a promising looking cover, just to
try it for a few minutes. We each had promised to be home for Thanksgiving
dinner. The few minutes turned into a few hours and everyone was late for Thanksgiving.
I never promised to be home at noon again; however, we hunted this new cover
for many years.
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| Numerous whitetail deer abound in the area. |
In 1987 my son
turned twelve years old and started hunting rabbits with the gang. He had
trailed along on many rabbit hunts and now it was his turn. I let him shoot
most of the cottontails we ran which felt good to me. He was having fun
shooting rabbits in front of the hounds and I was having the time of my life as
the dog handler. I only had two safety rules: unload the shotgun and “safety on”
while gutting the kill and, mainly because my beagles were fast, I allowed “no
jump shooting”. The beagles had to circle the rabbit one full circle before we were
allowed to shoot. I didn’t want any hunter or beagle to suffer during my watch.
I often told young hunters, “I don’t care if you shoot me in the backside;
however, if you shoot one of my dogs I’ll be upset,” or, something to that
effect.
It was about
this time we really got into snowshoe hare hunting. The more we hunted them the
more we loved it. During a moment of quiet
introspection, it became apparent we couldn’t shoot them all and still have
hare for the beagles to run. At some point along the way it became more about
the dogs than about the killing. We were gaining respect for the magnificent
snowshoe hare as we discovered what an elusive adversary the hare really was.
During a hunt to the Adirondacks our guide
asked if his son would be allowed to shoot a hare. “Sure,” was the answer, “no
problem.” Soon, I heard a bawl from a beagle and the immediate report of a
shotgun. The lad had shot the hare on the jump right out from under the beagles.
I had travelled to New York to listen to the beagles run. It was cases like
these which led to the “one-hour-rule”.
On a trip to the Tug Hill Plateau in New York
the pair of beagles kicked up a hare and were running expertly in the deep
snow. As the hare ran past the first hunter a report came over the hand-held
radio, “the hare just ran past.” As the hare ran past the second hunter, “hare
on the run.” As the snowshoe hare ran past another hunter and then another the
same report was relayed. By this time our guide was completely beside himself.
He had never heard of such a thing.
I’ve taken many hunters snowshoe hare hunting
over the years. On many of these hunts the hare would amble by and the hunter
armed with a 12-guage would miss. The snowshoe hare would run for another two,
three or more hours before the hunter would connect. It was after a few of
these hunts, after moments of
self-reflection, contemplation and soul-searching,
the “one-miss-rule” and the “two-hour-time-limit” were added to our rules of engagement
etiquette. It was becoming “all about the beagles”.
I’ve been chastised, castigated, made fun of,
laughed at, ridiculed and even belittled because of our rules and of course it
doesn’t matter to me or anyone I hunt with. Actually, it’s all part of the fun.
We believe in our cause and we’ll never veer off course.
I’ve received redemption in the great outdoors.
Is it wrong to shoot a magnificent snowshoe hare? Probably not, however, you’ll
do better if you show respect for your quarry. It’s all about the beagles,
first and foremost, and all about the snowshoe hare.
“Go afield with a good attitude, with respect for the wildlife you hunt and for the forest and fields in which you walk. Immerse yourself in the outdoor experience. It will cleanse your soul and make you a better person.”-Fred Bear
