My hear goes out to today’s generation
Hank Reeves
The picture is typical of a day’s hunting 70 years ago.
The fourteen rabbits and pheasant were harvested by four hunters and five beagle hounds.
In 1944, daily game limits were six rabbits, six squirrels, 10 quail, three grouse and two male pheasants; 30 total pheasants in one season.
Thanks to Andre Burnett, of the New Jersey Fish and Game Division, for the limits information. The division calls it harvesting.
Today, small game hunting as we know it is no more. Hunting today offers turkey, geese, woodchuck, opossum, raccoon, crows, fox, coyote, deer and bear if you can find a place to hunt other than the pine barrens.
Up until the 1970s, after deer season hunters and farmers got together every Saturday to fox hunt. A turnout of 30 or more men and boys was standard along with a cast of 12 foxhounds. One year, a harvest of 97 fox was made with the late Bobby Bell, of Sykesville, being the head huntsman.
What stopped this comradery — the qualiy time spent between fathers and sons, uncles and grandfathers and sometimes daughters — people opposed to hunting. A law was passed that a hunter must have written permission from the landowner to be on his property. This would be impossible sometimes in the pursuit of a red fox. Three to six miles would be covered with more than a few farms and properties being crossed. And, so, fox hunting as we knew it, much to the joy of anti-hunters, came to an end.
With no more fox hunting, a few took up shooting pigeons — called by some as rats with wings because of the mess they make along with some 11 diseases they carry that can be passed on to people.
With decoys set up in a field, there was no shortage of targets as the oncoming pigeons were unending. One day, over 300 ended up in three burlap bags. One hundred of which became pigeon cacciatore served the following Tuesday night at a deer club dinner.
When shooting over decoys, Ken Coulter, alias ‘Top Gun,’ would wait until incoming pigeons would cross over each other then shoot killing two with one shot. He did this to a point where it almost became routine.
Well, no doubt some of the gentle people who love calves’ veal and have never been to a slaughterhouse saw pigeons being knocked out of the sky and said this must be stopped. So, along comes another law protecting winged rats.
Back at the end of the 1800s, shooting pigeons on the beach in Asbury Park was one of the big entertainments. That was when housewives could dispatch Sunday’s chicken dinner with an ax.
My heart goes out to a few of today’s generation sitting in front of the TV; playing video games all day. That few who will never look down on a cold morning and see frost has turned the gun barrel white just as a pack of beagles in hot pursuit and full-cry turn a big swamp rabbit in their direction.
Hank Reeves is a retired district insurance agent and registered representative who grew up in Chesterfield and now lives in Columbus.

