My father and I had a pack of beagle hounds that we used to run rabbits. They were a mixed pack, their leader being a Yellow Creek, aptly named “Old Yellar”, and a collection of Saddlebacks of various sizes and shapes, “Cleo”, “Willie” and “Keefer”. My daddy traded a .22 rifle for three of them and an old uncle gave me one that wouldn’t cooperate with him. Nothing more aggravating than a beagle that just won’t do right. While they may have been a motley sort of crew, they could really put the hammer on a rabbit. When they were all running hard it sounded like music to a dog man’s ears as they crossed the hills and hollows of south Mississippi putting pressure on a cottontail or a swamper to break into the open to give us a decent shot.

Our dog yard was about 150 yards from our house at the end of a well worn path through our garden and pasture. About twice a summer we would mow the pasture, so most of the time we followed the path back and forth to the dogyard because the grass was deep. In the summer it gave you a sense of safety from the snakes if you stayed on the path,….or so we thought.

One summer as a young boy, due to either being too busy during the day fishing or most likely due to teenaged procrastination it was nearly dark before I either remembered or was reminded that I needed to feed and water my dogs. Most of the time my daddy expected those dogs to be fed, water, and checked ahead of my own eating. He believed in and cared greatly for the well being of those dogs. I guess he figured he could birth another son easier than he could assemble another good pack of rabbit hounds. Well in being the obedient son I was, I gathered a bucket of Jim Dandy’s Finest dog feed and without a flashlight, I followed that narrow, well worn path through the garden and pasture to the dog yard and fed my hounds, checking on their well being. When I was satisfied that they were eating and doing well in their confines, I headed back to the house in the dark. There was just enough light to make out the gap in the grass where the path lay. On the way back to the house with only an empty bucket in my hand, I was stopped cold in my tracks by the unmistakable buzz of a rattlesnake. It’s hard to describe the buzz of a rattler in the dark, but the closest thing I can think of is one of those wind up toys we used to put in the palm of our hands to scare people when they shook our hands. High pitched, high frequency, non-stop buzz,…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I immediately envisioned a 10 ft long rattler with a 20 rattles and 2″ long fangs ready to inject me leading to a painful death, followed by being swallowed by this monster of the darkness. I would never be found, no trace, just an empty dog food bucket on the pathway. To say that my heart lept into my throat is an understatement and even as I write this my memories are causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. As hard as I tried, I could not pinpoint whether the snake was ahead, behind, or beside me. It sounded like he was everywhere. In the dark the sound was deceptive and frightening. My skin turned clammy, the hair on my neck rose on end , my heart rate went from 60 to 600 beats per minute instantly and I was to put it bluntly, freaking out! I believe this was my first panic attack,…and for a good reason,…a powerful, dangerous snake was bearing down on me. As I stood perfectly still for a few seconds trying to pinpoint the location of the snake my survival instincts were working at breakneck speed to figure out how to keep fangs from sinking into my leg.

I quickly figured my only recourse was to use the bucket to distract the snake so I picked a spot just ahead of me and, in the dark, threw the bucket at that spot and jumped as far over it as I could. I hit the ground in an odd run/jump fashion covering ground at an amazing clip. Without a stop watch I suspect I covered that last 100 yds, oh in about 2.2 seconds.

An hour later, after a panic stricken explanation to my mother, a clean pair of underwear and a glass of sweet tea my blood pressure and heart rate dropped from the sky back to normal. Needless to say, from that day forward that path was kept mowed and dogs were fed during daylight hours.

Later in the same summer, we killed a 6 foot rattler some 50 yards north of the dog pen while bringing hay out of the field. While I suspected at the time it was the same snake, I was later proven wrong,…but that’s another story for a later day.

“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”

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As the evening sun fell behind the towering pine trees, quiteness gently enveloped the Mississippi hardwood creek bottom where Neal and I were set up about a hundred yards apart on opposite ends of a ridge that sloped downward toward the creek. Both in tree stands, silently we waited for the chance to take a deer, buck or doe, it didn’t really matter.

Neal, a high school boy from my neighborhood, was already a genuinely hooked deer hunter, accomplished deer hunter with bow, rifle and muzzleloader. He was the type of guy that would have all his gear out, polished, lined up, double checked and ready for a hunt weeks before the season started. He practiced his already well tuned bow skills year round and went through boxes of ammo to make sure his rife hit just the right spot. His room was clothed in camo, Field and Stream, Bowhunter, and posters of deer. Every chance he got he was picking the brain of another deer hunter looking for that next tactic or trick that would enhance his odds. I learned from him to take a few small rocks to the woods with me during early bow in Mississippi to use to imitate falling white oak acorns, the equivalent of cocaine to Mississippi whitetails. Find white oak acorns, kill deer. Simple. My wife called Neal the youngest deer ‘addict’ she’d ever known besides me. I enjoyed hunting with Neal due to his pleasant nature and his enthusiasm for deer hunting.

On this particular evening, since I didn’t have a truck and Neal was riding with me, in my Honda Civic we followed a narrow road across the pasture behind my mother’s house, through a narrowing in the woods into the hay meadow and parked. From there we walked another 500 yards, crossed the small, white sand, crystal clear water creek. I took a spot in pin oaks near the creek and Neal went on up the ridge. I climbed my tree with a climbing tree stand and settled in. Neal, who used line crew spurs and a lock on stand, settled in as well. Our wait began.

Just before dark a rather large doe made her way to me picking up acorns and munching them. I waited as long as I could in hopes of a buck showing, but it wasn’t to be. With an empty freezer, I decided to take the doe and with one shot from my 7mm-mag she dropped in her tracks. When the disturbance from the shot settled in the woods, a pack of coyotes opened up just across the creek on the next hill. Packed coyotes howling will lead one to believe there are hundreds in the pack just due to the chaotic sounds they make. In all likelihood, there was only a couple to half dozen, but enough to make the hair stand on end on the back of your neck. By the time they stopped howling it was pitch dark and both Neal and I were still in the stands. In a few minutes I could hear the coyotes crossing the creek and yipping as they came towards the downed deer, smelling the blood, ready to feast until only the carcass was left. I shot towards them in the creek and yelled “Get out of here!”, then started climbing down. As I gathered my stand, I listened to hear if Neal was coming down the trail and I heard nothing. I yelled to him “Neal, come on! Let’s get this deer out before the coyotes take it!”. He yelled back with fear in his voice,…”Mr. Carey, I’m not coming down! They’re not getting me!” I couldn’t help but laugh and yelled back “OK,…stay where you are and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Well,…a few minutes later as I field dressed the doe in the dark I could hear him clattering down the trail, lock-on stand, rifle, clinging spurs and all. Sounded like a runaway old plow mule in trace chains. He ran up to me just about the time I finished the field dress job, grabbed the doe by one leg and took off pulling it towards the creek. I worked to catch up with him and help. In between laughs at him and struggling with getting a deer across a creek and to the back of my car in the dark, those coyotes decided to lay low and stay out of range.

Needless to say, we made it out safely and another deer hunting memory was written seared in our minds. Neal finished high school, went on to pitch college baseball at Ole Miss, married and is now my insurance agent. He’s a fantastic man, a great hunter and a pleasure to know. Good thing the coyotes didn’t get him!

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Trying to describe the sounds of a steamy, hot July night in Mississippi is about as difficult as describing the sounds of an orchestra. For a couple of boys born and raised in the Deep South, it all sounded perfect. Hoot owls, screech owls, grasshoppers, crickets, tree frogs, peepers, and the ultimate summer time quarry,…bullfrogs the size of the old black rotary telephones,….”Whhhhhuuummp! Whhhhhump!” Monstrous bullfrogs seeking out a mate sounded like music to our ears. Our taste buds were salivating thinking about fried frog legs.

David and I stopped the truck at the locked gate on Mr. Landers’ place because we really didn’t have clear permission to be doing what we were planning to do. We sort just decided between the two of us he wouldn’t mind, especially if he didn’t know, if we slipped into his big pond and grabbed a few of those big, old, soul mate searching, “whummping” reptiles. They really are eating. Our walk with marginal headlights and a spring loaded grabber on the end of a hoe handle soon delivered us to the levee of a pond ringed with water hyacinth out to about ten feet.

With lights off we silently eased around the pond, hoping not to encounter the evil Mr. Water Mocassin, until we were within reasonable range of a trophy bullfrog. At this point, the problem we encountered was we had a 6 foot frog grabber pole attached to a 3 foot arm and the prey was about 10 feet out into the pond. The math just didn’t work so we quickly hatched a new plan. A plan that would surely be successful if we just both worked together. Since I had on short pants with a belt, David would hold onto my belt with his right hand and a small tree with his left hand as I leaned out toward the frog. At the right point, I would grab the frog and he’d pull us both back in. We couldn’t miss,…famous last thoughts right? Like the famous last words of most rednecks “Hey guys, watch this!” Well,…seems my best friend, David, had another trick up his sleeve. Likely hatched at this moment to retaliate for me placing a green pine cone underneath the tail of his horse a few weeks earlier and laughing at him while he played rodeo. Just at the he gave me the extra foot to grab the frog, he let go of my belt and I fell headfirst into the water hyacinth in total darkness. I screamed on the way down imagining I was falling right on top of the evil Mr. Water Mocassin. I didn’t and I came right back up only to see David and his headlight running at full speed back to the truck. When I got the truck, he had all the doors locked and was laughing in stitches. I was covered in water weeds and pond muck. To get him to open the door I had to promise not to shoot him or grab his privates with the frog grab.

South Mississippi boys will do the darndest things for amusement,….

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