# Laid off hunt.



## alleyyooper (Sep 3, 2020)

Being a young fellow with no major bills to worry me being laid off was like a vacation.





Things always slowed down in the winter but in the early Bush years the slow downs were so bad we worked a week then laid off for 2 weeks. Of course at the time we did not know things would get worse.





But this Saturday morning we, my brother and I were going hunting, rabbit hunting.


We had got 8 inches of snow over night but had quickly cleaned up around the place. We had installed the tire chains on my CJ made up a snack pack loaded the guns and dogs in the back, not as nice for them as in Robs jeep but mine was more fun in the snow.





We make the slow journey down to the state land and head down a logging road to another one. Not any one had been out yet with a snowmobile even but this trail was a dead end trail. It ended in a large clearing the logging crew had used about 6 years before when they nearly clear cut every tree from the area. There were large hills and valleys here and hunting would be a lot of fun and excerzie in the knee deep snow even before the nights before 8 inches. Snow shoes were defiantly required.





My Britt dog I loved so much had died in the spring, My mom has attempted to find a dog I would like as much but she failed to allow me to get over my best girl who liked to ride in my PU as a head rest behind my head. 





But we had Robs dog skunk yet and the new dog was my dads named Beaver. We had been down cutting fire wood, mom had went shopping in Cadillac then came to the woods before going to the house to show dad his new dog. Let her out of the Eagle and she grabbed a chunk of wood and started chewing on it. Now how could she have any other name than Beaver? 





So we made it back to where we were going to hunt and let the pups loose and got the guns ready. Once ready we sent the dogs off to check the tracks made during the night.


Skunk one of the greatest hunting dogs I have ever hunted behind was not a great rabbit dog. Skunk sight ran the rabbits so when she lost sight of them they used to be lost till Britt who used her nose found them again. Well turns out Beaver being short was a scent dog too so she would get Skunk back on the track.





Wasn’t long and we had 2 snow shoe rabbits each and one cotton tail in the bag. I was standing on the edge of a deep valley when a 5th snow show was going to cross I felt it was a long shot but do able when I fired and it fall and kicked around till skunk come and retrieved it for me.





It started to drizzle rain so we went back to the jeep and got the pups inside. Put every thing else away and drove out of there.


Once home we cleaned our gan then the guns and gear. Got things ready for another hunt the next day.

Al






A


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