The Joan Leonard Memorial Bunny Hunt 2008 (FINAL THANKYOU!!)

[Killdeer]

Don't order yet, there's MORE!

2006:
 

Killdeer

[drewsbow]

Very cool , well done Brother Ken  :0)          

[Guru]

....so with that drive done and very productive, again the talk of breaking last years record of 16 kept coming up, we had 14 now.....

 It was time for Briarback mountain....Shawn takes the sitters and sends me to get the pushers set....as we get to where we where going to spread out all of a sudden Gary K. spots a bunny sitting under a bush. Gary knew haw much I wanted to kill a bunny with Miss Faith and quickly signals for me to come up and try the shot......What a guy to even think of me at time like that(thanx again bud)!  I get about 10ft from the bush and Gary points out the rabbit thru the thorn branches.  I pick out it's black eye,draw and release. And the bunny runs off....somehow I'd missed..not sure if I hit a branch...but I was sure I'd missed a golden opportunity....I guess it just wasn't meant to happen that way.  

 Briarback was probably the most dis-organized drive we've even made in 5 yrs, but still produced a phenomenal amount of shooting. But nothing was brought to bag.....On the way back out we pushed a brushy draw on the way back to do the "greenhouse push" again.....

I got another running close but no cigar shot at about 7yds.....

But Mark Fedrizzi and Stoneknife teamed up to bag another bunny....#15....

 


The start of the 2nd "greenhouse push"......

 

[Killdeer]

I was reading this and playing with a thorn that is still in the tip of my "burred" finger, and had to laugh at the bit of briar hanging from Stone Knife's hat! Briars and thorns may go away, but this hunt will stay wih me forever!

Killdeer

[Killdeer]

Here is a bit of video from Briarback. The rabbit is running back and forth on the far hillside.

 

I didn't know that the camera was running on this one, but it captures what I think is the onset of David's black eye. The film is entitled "DOH!!" When I looked down his way, he was recoiling from a thicket and a tree trunk, holding his face. Evidently he had not lost any parts, so we kept hunting for rabbits.

 

Killdeer

[Huntrdfk2]

Yeah, that was it Kathy.....it's still black and blue.   Takes more than that to stop this hunt though!


David

[Huntrdfk2]

Dang, didn't see that I was under Hunter's login.....    


David

[Shawn Leonard]

Those arrows with the orange crown and two blue and an orange feather shot gtreat out of Hope and Faith, they were 60-65s cut to 29"s with 125 up front. Curt can shoot most any bow with a medium to high wrist grip, but he shot Faith pretty darn good, as he soon will tell! Kathy and Guru with some great stories yet to come!! OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Shawn

[Killdeer]

Out in the hinterlands, eh? We can excuse you for not seeing all that well these days.

 

[Shawn Leonard]

WOW!! Video and all!!! OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Shawn

[Guru]

So we went on and did the "greenhouse push again and it was insane again!  Bunnies all over the place, I think I took one or two shots a runnin' bunnies and got to watch "Swampbuck" take a couple...good stuff to see him shoot almost at his feet,barely miss, then try to stab the rabbit as it blew by him with the tip of his longbow...priceless!!!

...at the end of this push it was Jeff Williams that came out with the record tying bunny #16,good shootin' bud.....Jeff and his son Tyler....

 


We packed up and headed back to Mr. Leonard's house(I know someone has pix of this)....we said goodbye to a good number of the hunters. Some had long drives ahead of them and needed to hit the road....the goodbye's are always the tough part for me........

[Guru]

My only video from the weekend.....

Mikey vs. Steel....

 

[adkmountainken]

Mikey looks like a Kebbler Elf in that little brown hat!

[Shawn Leonard]

Mikey may be small but has a bigger heart than all of us. I wish I would get to spend a little time with him, actually I wish I could spend more time with everyone. I am always busy running and making sure stuff is ready and such. I know one day, maybe next year, I am gonna have Curt, Damon and David take over the Huntmaster duties and bring a video camera and take all this great stuff in. I know I can get a lot of great stuff and enjoy the people this way!! Great stuff! OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Shawn

[mcgroundstalker]

Thank You Shawn... Would like to have a small group of us get together mid March. Seems the only time I see you is at your bunny hunt or at the Muzzy shoot. We gotta do better than that!

... mike ...

[Killdeer]

I thoroughly enjoyed Mikey's high spirits and wit. I never heard a complaint out of him, though he was tripped over numerous times and had difficulty shooting over the furrows in the fields. He's a heck of a clout shooter, though!

Here ya go, Curt!

 

Gitmo Bound!        
 

Killdeer

[Shawn Leonard]

Could David look more serious? Smile buddy!! Mike, if ya let me know in advance we can do that. Ya got turkeys at the camp? We could do that too!! OOOOHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Shawn

[Guru]

That was just David getting his game face on for what he knew was a head.... BRIARBACK!

[joe skipp]

Shawn...that was a look of eating too much Chili before taking the kids out...      :eek:  

The other time he had that look was early in the hunt...head long into the briars, he threw his bow out to me and yelled.."Take this thing before I wrap it around this tree.".... Then he made me check his scalp for any thorns...I checked it from a "distance"...

This "look" and "behavior" was documented by Woodchucker.....honest...I swear....  :rolleyes:

[Killdeer]

People saw all these bristling trucks coming down the road and drove across fields to get away. Looking at the pic of Drew above, which seems maybe a little less grim than the visage that David offered, I wonder that there weren't any wrecks. I guess when you see such, you are very careful not to do anything that would take drive capability away from your vehicle.

Killdeer