July 2024

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column on the disappearance of bobwhite quail from this area, citing my hunting of them from the time I arrived in Chillicothe back in the 1960s until the early ’90s, when quail numbers became so scarce that I felt I shouldn’t shoot any more.Interesting enough, cottontail rabbit populations in this area likewise have dropped during the same period, from large numbers “back in the day” to a scarcity – almost a rarity – now.My experience with rabbits is very similar as my experience with quail, with the exception that, from the time I was old enough to walk fields and forests back in Iowa where I was born and lived until the early ’60s, rabbits were pretty much everywhere in the great outdoors.I started hunting and bringing home cottontails as soon as I was permitted to carry a gun afield, starting with a “pump-up” air rifle and graduating to my dad’s old Stevens .22.Dad never owned a shotgun, so my first really successful rabbit hunts were with his old Stevens Buckhorn bolt-action .22.

Coincidence or confidence?Playing with some renewed crispness for a third-straight game last Sunday – a span which exactly matches the return of injured early-season standout Julio Guerrero to game action, the Chillicothe Mudcats closed June with a performance they hope they can repeat consistently through their July college-level baseball play in the MINK League.The Mudcats put together one of their top two or three games to date in 2024 in an 11-1 7-innings victory over Warren County (Iowa) and, for the moment, jumped back over the Crop Dusters into sixth place in the league standings.“Just a good all-around win,” Tyler Hudlow, Chillicothe head coach, commented.While not tying his team’s securing two of the three games since Guerrero’s return and its very-competitive performance against league-leading St.