THE CHASE IS STILL ON<br/><span class='hl2'>But hunting rabbits with dogs is a vanishing tradition in Oklahoma</span>

CHAIN RANCH — Standing in the middle of a trampled maize field on a very breezy February morning, the sound of baying beagles could be heard beyond the clump of cedar trees.

"Listen,” said Max Watkins, who had unleashed his beagles on the trail of some cottontails. "Ole Red's done ‘er again.”

Red and her gang, Bocephus, Blue and Lemon, had the scent of another rabbit, hopefully one that the dogs would run into shotgun range of some wind-blown hunters.

"All good rabbit dogs are beagles, but all beagles ain't good rabbit dogs,” Watkins said.

Watkins' beagles are good rabbit dogs. They had these Dewey County cottontails panting like a lizard on a hot rock most of the day.

I was just a kid the last time I had gone rabbit hunting and had forgotten how fun it can be, especially with a pack of beagles.

Watkins' beagles were hunting new territory on this day. They had come to the Chain Ranch in Dewey County where the gun company, Smith and Wesson, was introducing some magazine writers to an old Oklahoma tradition: rabbit hunting.

Watkins, 66, of Meeker may be a dying breed. He's one of few die-hard rabbit hunters left in the state.

There are still some beagle clubs in the state that keep this hunting tradition alive, but not as may hunters pursue rabbits anymore.

"There are very few of us anymore,” said Watkins, who has been running beagles for 30 years. "The hard gunners that really gun over beagles are a few years older than me, and they've gotten too old.

Page 1 of 2

1 2 Next