There's not many species I haven't hunted in the contiguous 48 states up to and including Elk, but my all time favorite hunt would have to be either quail hunting over my two best Brittanies (both long gone now), and my favorite old Ithaca pump shotgun, or an early morning stalk through a dimly lit and damp forest floor watching the treetops for grey squirrel (tree rats), with a little .22 single shot bolt action, and BTW the animal that I consider the "biggest small game" and/or the "smallest big game" animal there is. Both of these hunts are very special to me for very different reasons, but if I had another hunt in me, it would have to be one of these two.
Over a lot of years I've taken way more than my share of white tailed deer and if I never took another one it wouldn't bother me even a little bit. Same for wild turkeys. And feral hogs, shoot, I don't think I can even estimate just how many of those things I've taken, by every available means. Gun hunting, bow hunting, dog hunting, trapping ...... you name it I've probably done it concerning hogs. Many we've brought in live, tied up and in the bottom of my airboat, to be grain fed for several weeks to fatten up for a benefit cookout for someone. Most of these are what we typically call 'piney woods rooters 'cause they live in the natural pine and palmetto woods with roots and grubs being mostly their diet.
However occasionally I'd get an opportunity to hunt them off some local farm or ranch which was great. On most cattle ranches around here, they feed a lot of molasses before spring shipping. They basically just place old bathtubs out in the pastures on the ground and fill them from time to time with surplus molasses for the beefs. As often as not the hogs will get into the readily available molasses and if they've been feeding on it for a couple weeks, when you take one and cook it they're much like 'maple flavored' bacon. As an aside, I've actually seen those short legged hogs try to reach a little too far into those tubs for the molasses and actually fall over the side and into the molasses. Damn, what a mess that creates. Not much of any funnier than a hog nearly drowning in molasses in a bathtub almost too deep for him to get back out of ........ he'll squeal and struggle for a couple minutes, then he'll calm down and eat !!! Then repeat!!! LOL!!!
Anyway, as I got older, tireder, and softer, I moved away from the hard azzed hog hunting and got myself a couple bird dogs. A pair of young Brittany Spaniels that were dumb as stumps but had the hearts of champs. That first season I knew it was the right thing even though they were still young pups. We didn't get a lot of birds in the bag that first year, but just watching the two of them work so hard searching those quail out, then watching their best attempts at a 'locked up point', was sheer magic. The three of us over many years managed to get a whole bunch of birds up in the following years.
In fact even today, I still have an old Britt girl here at the house. She's a little over thirteen years old now with the heart of a hunter, but not the legs. She and I've been together for several years now, but both our times are coming. We've not ever hunted together, she was too old to hunt real hard (well, so was I) when I got her from a Brittany rescue service, same as my last several Britts. But I love her dearly. As an aside .... Brittanies are real hard to beat for both bird hunting and companionship.
So, in the final analysis, I'm going to have to say if I could do one more hunt it would have to be a long, easy afternoon of watching two fine Britts chasing those illusive little grass chickens we call quail. Two flashes of 'brite white' occasionally breaking through the tall pasture grass, and every now and then one of them actually jumping high enough to look back to see me over the tall grass.
It's funny, but I really think they like to know where I am, or at least that I'm still there, as much as I like to keep and eye on them. If we jump a few coveys and get a few birds down, that'd be great. If we don't get a single bird, that'd be OK too. But just that one more hunt would be worth it all.
If you've never tried upland game bird hunting, especially over a couple really good bird dogs, you really should. As sure as I consider the squirrel the "biggest small game" or the "smallest big game" in the world, and love those mornings in the woods, they just have to take a second seat to the birds and my dogs.
Well he!!, that's all something I'll have to ponder!
regards y'all,
jumpinjoe
