“A BAD HARE DAY… Rabbit outlasts veteran hunter, beagles”

By Dick Ellis

Only the ages know how many times Merv Hottenstein has walked this wooded valley outside of Platteville with his beagles, waiting for new scent to inspire new song. No song to end this day, though, except the gentle babbling of spring water against stone. And with no rabbit in the gamebag, maybe a muted rendition of the canine blues.

Hottenstein put a boot up on the foundation of the spring house knocked flat by a tornado 40 years ago, listened to the original “rock’ music and watched the clear water bubble from the ground and travel down the valley.  No “spring” freeze here, or breeze for that matter, despite an afternoon temperature that had climbed to a balmy 15-degree from a dawn reading of minus-two. Just cold and blue and still.

For decades, the 80 year-old Hottenstein has hunted these 140 rolling acres, first when his father rented the land in 1950 and now as owner of one parcel and overseer of another.  Beagles have walked with him across many Wisconsin winters. And cottontail rabbits have fallen to his 20-gauge or escaped the chases to run again.

Bridgett put two paws up on the foundation and raised 14 year-old brown eyes as if to ask, “Givin up, boss? Dat der was one cagey critter, right?” Even if the master was in no need of soothing after coming up empty in a game of fair chase, the veteran beagle could have used the medicinal remedies of the spring. Blood soaked both her sides in abstract blotches; red badges of persistence earned when thorns ripped at her tail, and the tail in turn motored by constant bunny scent slapped at her own fur.

“I very much like to work with these dogs,” Hottenstein said. “You get to hear them sing on the trail, and when you can get up on a hill and watch what the rabbit does to throw them off, it’s really something. I’ve seen a rabbit jump eight feet or so on the trail, turn around, and jump right back the other way.”

“I’ve seen them sash-shay back and forth on the same trail for 20 yards.  I’ve seen them jump completely off the trail into the brush.  I think it’s instinctive rather than intelligence. In the last week of the season like this, the tough ones are left to chase.”
   
It is a fair chase, and not squeezing a trigger that brings Hottenstein back to the woods. That was apparent when the one and only rabbit we would encounter on this day busted the briars and the brambles just in front of the hunter.  “There’s a rabbit,” he hollered, never for a second entertaining an idea of raising the scattergun.

Like a slow train leaving station, Bridget, Bell, and Spotzie trudged after the rabbit, their distinctive voices opening up routinely to announce that this track was indeed hot.  Even over hill and dale, Hottenstein recognizes which beagle is talking, and audibly follows how the chase is progressing.