Bob Sanders: Oops! I didn’t mean to kill the quail

Right at the beginning, I remind that “hunting” is the key word, not “killing.”
My main hunting and fishing buddy was cousin Ross. He and I got serious about hunting and fishing when we were, oh, 12 or 13.

I subscribed to “Outdoor Life,” and his daddy got “Field and Stream” and “Sports Afield,” and we’d read and swap. Uncle Jeff had this beautiful English setter named June. Ross would use his daddy’s 12-gauge Browning automatic. I used uncle Kelley’s single-barrel 12 that kicked like a mule on steroids; and the forearm would come loose when you shot. But I shot my first quail with it.

Don’t go blaming me for the disappearance of quail. Believe me, I did little to reduce the population. But a Bobwhite flew into my old gun’s pattern purely by accident. I had become a bird hunter! A little later, Ross got his first one. No two birds were ever inspected more closely.

Ross lived two miles up the road from us. Sometimes I’d get off the bus at my house, get my gun, and start walking toward his house. When he’d get home, he’d get his gun and old June and start walking toward me. We’d meet somewhere in there and start our hunt. No land was posted. The whole community was ours to cover. We might give a bird or two a thrilling moment. Uncle Jeff would slyly say, “Really cleaned ‘em out today, did you?” June kept her thoughts to herself.

Same with fishing. I ordered the cheapest rod and reel set in the Roebuck catalog. Ross used his dad’s Pflueger Supreme, about as high on the hog as you could get in reeldom. I caught my first bass just downstream from the Iron Bridge. A few minutes later, Ross caught his first one. We inspected every scale.

One gloomy day we did a double-header, bird hunting that afternoon and ‘possum hunting that night. The night was so cold that we found a nice, cozy gully and built a fire and hoped the dog wouldn’t tree, which he didn’t We made some coffee in an old tin can. Well, Chandler did it that time we went set-hook fishing and it was good. Ours? Terrible. But it was warm by the fire.

We came out of the woods close to cousin Hezzie’s and went our separate ways. Just before I got home, passing by Grandma’s house, it started snowing, and it was beautiful. And my bed, piled high with quilts and blankets, felt better than any bed has a right to feel.

I still take “Outdoor Life” and look at the beautiful pictures of fish and birds. And sometimes I walk around the old place with my Ithaca 16, but I use it only on some smart aleck pinecone or something.

And I’ll remember when Ross and I wandered over the community, hunting. Mostly just hunting.

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.