Hunting Was a Tradition for Us on Thanksgiving Day

Firefly

Old Mossy Horns
And it ended much too soon. Growing up as a teenager in Johnston County NC we had no Deer to hunt back in the days of the early sixties. But three friends of mine and I had a pack of Beagles so we Rabbit hunted. We always met up on Thanksgiving morning just up the road from where I lived and loaded the Dogs into the trunk of a '59 Ford . The car was owned by my friends Dad, the Beagles were kept pinned up there and it was convenient for all us big time hunters to gather up at my friends house for the hunt. My friends Dad often joined us on the hunt, he loved Rabbit hunting as good as any man I ever knew..

We already had a place picked out to hunt the Bunnies, just about anyone who owned land back in those days would let us hunt, most time the landowner would say to us, now boys just don't put out no fire in my woods. None of us smoked anyway and that was good..Sometimes we had a good hunt and killed a few Cottontails and maybe a Swamp Rabbit, sometimes we struck out completely but it was always good to hear the Hound music as the little Dogs were hot on a Rabbits trail..Some of the area's we hunted were just too thick to get off a shot at a Rabbit, especially on a farm near Bailey NC, we never killed a Rabbit up there but there were plenty of them in the thick woods..

As the time neared mid day we knew we had to load up the Dogs and head home for our Thanksgiving feast..Every Thanksgiving morning I remember those three friends of mine and those hunts we went on now so many years behind us.. We all scattered after high school and went our separate ways, three of us to military service and one to college where he earned a Doctorate in education and went on to be a school Principal..Two of my friends are still living, one killed himself a couple years back when he came down with Cancer and just couldn't deal with the pain anymore, RIP my friend we will remember you always.. The three of us that are left are old men now and rarely see each other, but I hope the other two remember those times like I do. It all comes flooding back for me on this special morning of Thanksgiving. Thanks guys for the memories..
 

Rubline

Twelve Pointer
Thanks Firefly for a great Thanksgiving story, the part I like the best is (loaded the Dogs into the trunk of a '59 Ford) THE GOOD OLD DAYS!!
 

nchawkeye

Old Mossy Horns
I miss waking up at Mom's and my younger brother and I heading out for a morning hunt...When we were in our teens, we mainly hunted small game, squirrels, ducks, rabbits, quail, nothing was safe!!! Mom always cooked whatever we brought in...Later, we concentrated on deer...One Thanksgiving morning, my brother slept in, told me to go kill a big one...Well, I did, a nice 9 point, with my Remington 1100 slug shotgun, right across the road...I gutted him and then went and woke him up to help me drag him back to the house...That deer had flushed a covey of quail as I still hunted down a logging path the morning before...The next morning, I was waiting for him, standing beside a big pine tree, shot him at about 6 steps away....Good times... :)
 

bluetick

Spike
we did the same four beagles and a black cocker spaniel that would tree squirrels and coons best times I ever had hunting 50years ago
 

Briargoat

Ten Pointer
I'd love to do something like that. Unfortunately deer seasons got all my rabbit spots shut down. I have 4 beagles ready to go tho
 

bryguy

Old Mossy Horns
Mine was much the same but my hunts always involved my granddaddy, uncle cedran( my granddaddy’s brother) my dad, my uncle Pete and finally me when I was about 10. We hunted every thanksgiving from 1979 till 1987. That was the last year we all hunted together as my uncle cedran passed that next summer. That kind of took the fire out of my granddaddy(and having a bad knee didn’t help). Me and my dad and uncle kept on for a few years but once I went to college it all stopped as a group hunt. That was when I started deer hunting hard and I have hunted every thanksgiving since I was 10 years old. When folks say something is in your blood, that is what hunting and saltwater fishing are to me. Thanks for the great memory. I grew up not to far from Bailey, over around rock ridge


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Firefly

Old Mossy Horns
Thanks ncHawkeye and Bryguy for your stories as well. I wish others would chime in with a few more..And thanks to everyone for your input to this thread. Yeah I hunted with my Uncles also years ago but us teenage boys could go hunting more often than most of our Uncles back in those days. The farm up near Bailey was nice to hunt but the woods was nothing but a thicket and Rabbits held up in there and plenty of them.. We only hunted it a few times some friends of ours owned it and they hunted with us. It was just useless to hunt that area the Dogs got a good work out but the Rabbits were surely safe in that place from human hunters. I Rabbit hunted for many years down in SC after moving there in my early life for work. I had Beagles for 20 years but after they all died I quit hunting in the early nineties and never picked it up again. Deer hunting I went with friends occasionally on the club they had along the Great Pee Dee River, never killed a Deer and never intended to, I never cared for it..Quail, Rabbits, Dove and Squirrels I have killed my share. I used to love Coon hunting in the Great Pee Dee Swamp also friends of mine had Coon Dogs, we went many nights back in the day..

Yeah Rubline, those old '59 Fords two of the friends I hunted with their Dad owned one both cars were almost identical about the same color and 292 V8 with the standard three on the tree gear shifter..Wish I had an old '59 Ford today..
 
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Rubline

Twelve Pointer
Rabbit hunt

I was a senior in Highschool back in 1971 and me and a friend decided that we wanted to go rabbit hunting, we didn't know anyone in our area with rabbit hounds
so I called my uncle in Duplin county and asked if we could come down and join him on a rabbit hunt.
He told us to come on down but he was busy and we would have to hunt by ourselves.
I borrowed my Mothers Oldsmobile Delta 88 4 door and we took off for Albertson, NC in Duplin county.
When we got there my uncle said he would need his truck but we could put the hounds in the trunk of the car and drive across the creek and turn out in a good spot.
I really didn't want to put the hounds in the trunk of my Mothers nice car but he said it would be ok, we weren't going far.
Well we put three hounds in the trunk and just as I was closing the lid one of the hounds moved and I slammed the lid down on his tail!!!
It was dark in there and he must have thought one of the other dogs had his tail and they went to fighting and scrambling around in that trunk and it looked
like the back end of that car was going to come off the ground.
We were in a panic and the keys were in the ignition, by the time we got that trunk open there was blood and hair all in that nice clean Olds. We cleaned the hounds
up and put them back in the lot and decided just to walk and jump shoot instead of trying the hounds
We had to stop on the way back home and buy some towels and go to a carwash and clean the trunk.

Firefly, when you mentioned putting dogs in the trunk of a car it reminded me of that bittersweet memory.
 

Banjo

Old Mossy Horns
Great read sir.

Growing up in WV, my family owned 262 acres of prime hunting land. All of the men on my dads side of the family hunted our farm on thanksgiving day. We all gathered at my grandparents house on Sunday after thanksgiving for a fabulous feast. This went on from the time I was a little boy until I graduated high school and enlisted in the Air Force. Even while in the service I would go home for hunting season. My grandmother passed away in 2005. The farm was sold and our tradition died. This time of year always makes me miss that time.


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23mako

Ten Pointer
I was a senior in Highschool back in 1971 and me and a friend decided that we wanted to go rabbit hunting, we didn't know anyone in our area with rabbit hounds
so I called my uncle in Duplin county and asked if we could come down and join him on a rabbit hunt.
He told us to come on down but he was busy and we would have to hunt by ourselves.
I borrowed my Mothers Oldsmobile Delta 88 4 door and we took off for Albertson, NC in Duplin county.
When we got there my uncle said he would need his truck but we could put the hounds in the trunk of the car and drive across the creek and turn out in a good spot.
I really didn't want to put the hounds in the trunk of my Mothers nice car but he said it would be ok, we weren't going far.
Well we put three hounds in the trunk and just as I was closing the lid one of the hounds moved and I slammed the lid down on his tail!!!
It was dark in there and he must have thought one of the other dogs had his tail and they went to fighting and scrambling around in that trunk and it looked
like the back end of that car was going to come off the ground.
We were in a panic and the keys were in the ignition, by the time we got that trunk open there was blood and hair all in that nice clean Olds. We cleaned the hounds
up and put them back in the lot and decided just to walk and jump shoot instead of trying the hounds
We had to stop on the way back home and buy some towels and go to a carwash and clean the trunk.

Firefly, when you mentioned putting dogs in the trunk of a car it reminded me of that bittersweet memory.

My grandad is from Albertson NC. Plenty of ole hares down there.

Wayne, always a good story. Enjoyed reading your stories about the hog killings as well.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!
 

Blackwater

Twelve Pointer
Alright Firefly, you about have me wound up now. Just got home from my son's up near Mocksville, the turkey is wearing off, and it's time to rabbit hunt.

My Dad usually kept several beagles around; Crybaby, Boy, Pet, and a number of names I can't remember. My Dad had bought a small farm and suffered three consecutive years of crop failure; black shank disease, drought, and the third year the hail beat it into the ground so he lost his :donk:donk:donk and the fourth year he was back share cropping. He and three of his brothers sharecropped adjoining parcels belonging to Rev. Baucom and there were many great places that held rabbits. This was before all the drainage ditches were replaced with terra cotta drain lines so the uncut ditch banks, briar thickets, small branches, broom straw patches and brush piles always provided lots of action. We'd always make a morning of it on Thanksgiving day and usually got enough cottontails to feed the dogs and send every uncle home with one or two if they wanted any. My Daddy could vocalize to those beagles in his high voice like nobody I ever heard, enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. He could sound just like an English huntmaster's horn and when he jumped a rabbit and cut loose with that wail those dogs fell all over each other trying to get to him because they knew the chase was on. I have to think that cry has to date back to our English forebears who ran foxes with large packs of hounds in the day. We'd hunt from Danny Chavis' down the Raft Swamp woods edges, over by the Ellis farm, down the White Oak branch to the Raft Swamp then back across my Grandfather's farm and the Smith place, up the Holy Swamp to Great Uncle Lawrence's and by then we and the dogs were out of steam and time, cause it was soon time to put on the feed bag and follow that up with the cursory nap.

Thanks for bringing this thread to life; it makes me long for those days of fun and innocence which we'll likely never see again like it was then. I took my granddaughter for a two mile hike on my son's place today to introduce her to the art of reading sign and just general woodsmanship and hope to get her into deer hunting if she ever moves back home. At least we got out into the woods.
 

dbcrowbar

Six Pointer
spent many a Thanksgiving chasing cottentails with my dad, granddad, great uncle and a couple cousins. sometimes we had as many as 20 beagles thrown together in a pack, and when they got after one it was either the frying pan or a stump hole. God i miss those times! of course granddad and uncle are long gone ,lost my dad this past October. one of the best memories i have is we have a picture of Dad myself and my son sitting on the tailgate of Dads ole truck, my son holding a rabbit and Dads shotgun that now belongs to him.my sons neighbor has dogs and they always came up at least once a year to hunt. Dad could barely walk but he acted like it tickled him to death to come outside and listen to the dogs.
 

roundball

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
".....Every Thanksgiving morning I remember those three friends of mine and those hunts we went on now so many years behind us.. We all scattered after high school and went our separate ways, three of us to military service and one to college where he earned a Doctorate in education and went on to be a school Principal..Two of my friends are still living, one killed himself a couple years back when he came down with Cancer and just couldn't deal with the pain anymore, RIP my friend we will remember you always.. The three of us that are left are old men now and rarely see each other, but I hope the other two remember those times like I do. It all comes flooding back for me on this special morning of Thanksgiving. Thanks guys for the memories....."

Great post Firefly...
 

Ridgeline66

Ten Pointer
Contributor
Thank's for posting that, Reminds me of when my Grandpa use to meet up with his friends and go hunting, i would go some too, Good reading!
 

Firefly

Old Mossy Horns
I really thank you all and appreciate the stories about hunting you fellows posted here. Stories such as these always bring back special memories for me, very heartwarming to say the least.. Yeah I remember the Dogs fighting among themselves sometimes when we loaded them in the car, one old Beagle just had to be dominate over the others it seemed..A friend of mine down in SC had a Beagle he called Crybaby, she was quite a hunting Dog and the man pampered Cry Baby like she was his daughter instead of his Dog..At times hunting Rabbits down in SC we sometimes had as many as 20 Beagles also as several of us guys kept a pack of the feisty little Pups..Nothing was sweeter to me than to hear all those Beagles hot after a big Cottontail or Swamp Rabbit..I had a male Beagle who would not run with other Dogs, he was just that way he would go off on his own and jump a Rabbit and then his female mate would join him...The old times like the ones posted here are mostly long gone now and for sure will never be back. People who owned farms years ago passed on from this life and then their heirs sold the land off to anyone who would buy it..Such a shame in my way of thinking but everything changes nothing ever stays the same on this Earth I just cherish the simple good times many of us had back in the "good ole days" as we now call them...
 
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bryguy

Old Mossy Horns
I really thank you all and appreciate the stories about hunting you fellows posted here. Stories such as these always bring back special memories for me, very heartwarming to say the least.. Yeah I remember the Dogs fighting among themselves sometimes when we loaded them in the car, one old Beagle just had to be dominate over the others it seemed..A friend of mine down in SC had a Beagle he called Crybaby, she was quite a hunting Dog and the man pampered Cry Baby like she was his daughter instead of his Dog..At times hunting Rabbits down in SC we sometimes had as many as 20 Beagles also as several of us guys kept a pack of the feisty little Pups..Nothing was sweeter to me than to hear all those Beagles hot after a big Cottontail or Swamp Rabbit..I had a male Beagle who would not run with other Dogs, he was just that way he would go off on his own and jump a Rabbit and then his female mate would join him...The old times like the ones posted here are mostly long gone now and for sure will never be back. People who owned farms years ago passed on from this life and then their heirs sold the land off to anyone who would buy it..Such a shame in my way of thinking but everything changes nothing ever stays the same on this Earth I just cherish the simple good times many of us had back in the "good ole days" as we now call them...

Well I will say that not ALL heirs have sold off the land they have inebriated. I have owned the farm I have in Wilson county since I was 20 years old. Needless to say that I have been through some pretty lean times and it honestly has never occurred to me to sell that land my grandaddy left me. but there are many who do just that. One day it will pass down to my son, and I just hope I have instilled in him the love and passion for that farm and the memories it holds for me.
 

bryguy

Old Mossy Horns
So a quick squirrel hunting story for you. I was maybe 13 years old. the previous Christmas had been a good one for me, as I got a Remington speedmaster 22 rifle and my very own Remington 1100, just like my granddaddy's. when that fall rolled around, I was burning up the small game and birds around there. It was not Thanksgiving day, but it was the Friday afterwards(no such thing as 'black' Friday that I can recall) and my cousin Brent and his dad and my uncle Emit (my moms sisters husband) all came out to go squirrel hunting. We hunted hard all day and well the pickings were pretty slim that day. the last nest we came to was on the branch on the farm and did not look to promising, but well we went over and started shaking the nest(it was built in some grapevines and honeysuckle that had grown up in the tree) and squirrels started pouring out of that nest like crazy(there were only about 6 in the nest, but it sure seemed like a lot at the time) and everyone proceeds to shoot and empty their guns and not nary a squirrel was hit with all those shots fired. after the smoke cleared, we all had to sit down and have a huge laugh at that whole thing. Honestly I believe that the misses and busted hunts were some of the better memories I have from those days.
 
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Winnie 70

Ten Pointer
As a kid growing up on the farm, my dad had a little trailer with one wheel that rotated as you pulled it, kinda like a zero turn mower. He had it for towing behind his pickup when we would go down to the coast on fishing trips...had one of these slide in campers in bed of the pickup. The trailer carried all the cooking supplies. Well, dad was having problems with the wheel on this little trailer would get all out of balance when you got up to speed, and would start to shake the whole truck...have to slow down to a crawl for it to stop shaking. Dad worked on it to no end, but never corrected it from shaking...some times you could go all way to beach and have no problem, then all of a sudden it would start this shake...my younger brother and I would die from laughter when this would happen and dad would get mad. Well, dad put that trailer up for sale and this guy shows up to buy it...said he wanted to use it to haul his rabbit dogs...dad never told him about it shaking and guy pays dad..hooks up trailer and pulls out of drive way. Never heard from him again. As he was driving away, I looked at my brother and said "Lord, help them poor dogs." We still get a laugh about that little trailer and wonder about them rabbit dogs when he dropped the gate.
 

Zach's Grandpa

Old Mossy Horns
Worst part of getting old is missing the the people that you shared life with that aren’t here. Yesterday I was thinking about when I started deer hunting in 1965 on some property near Butner. I am the only one that still hunts out of twelve. Eight are dead, two quit hunting years ago, and the other one doesn’t even remember his name let alone hunting. Sad but oh how we cherish the memories.


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Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
When I was a kid my Dad was a traveling interim pastor up until my Junior year of high school. We moved around a lot and I never went to the same school 2 years in a row until my Junior year of high school. The only constant in my life were the summers and holidays at my grandparents house in Port St. Joe, Florida , and I relished the time spent there and still do.
My grandpa and uncle ( who was paralyzed from a diving accident) ran deer dogs along with family and friends in the National Forest near Telogia, Florida. Our Thanksgivings were spent at the campsite that was established years and years ago and had a troop tent from the WWII era with an old pot belly stove to cook on and a wood fired barrel heater for warmth. This isn't the sunny part of Florida and temperatures frequently dipped below freezing at any time past late November. I remember well the fat wood burning, smoking and popping in those stoves and the smell of pitch from the stacked "lightered knots and lightning struck trees".
Thanksgiving started with a truck ride on grandpas old flat bed Ford to be placed on "stand" in a spot that was picked by the hunt leaders well ahead of turning the dogs out. You never knew if you'd be picked up in an hour...or three...but you knew that you'd be back for a family and friend feast at lunch time.
Every wife cooked for days and the limited parking at the campsight was full of trucks and cars when we got back to camp. Tables of sawhorses and plywood or whatever flat surface could be found were loaded with every kind of meat, fish, vegetable and of course desserts. Everyone would eat until they "almost busted" and naps on the army cots and 2x4 bunks were a sure thing for a couple of hours for most of the kids while the grown ups sat and got updates from folks that they hadn't seen since the Thanksgiving before.
Sadly everyone of the good folks that attended that tradition have passed, the campsite I'm sure is now just pines, gallberries and palmettos. Those kinds of traditions are fading waaay to fast and when they're gone our culture will be a little worse for it. I sure do miss those good folks, simple times and the sound of a race on a cold Thanksgiving morning.
 

Firefly

Old Mossy Horns
ZG you are certainly right about the people we shared our lives with that aren't here anymore, and yes it is sad but part of life that we have to endure as we live here...Bryguy yes not all heirs sold off the land given to them by their parents or grandparents but many of them did, a bunch of them I knew in this life... I have seen farms go because the siblings had no use for farming and did not want to live on the old farm place so on the market it went. I still know a few that took care of the land and still live on it and have for a very long time now. But to each his own for sure in this life. Thanks again for the hunting stories guys, and I also enjoyed the one about the one wheeled trailer. I agree, poor Beagles that had to ride in that thing...
 
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