With fall comes, hunting seasons and memories of those from my past begin to rush forward.
I grew up in Claymont on Wistar Street, and there was nothing but woods and fields between our house and the Delaware River. This was my playground as a kid and my first hunting grounds when I grew older.
My first hunting gun was a Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun that belonged to my stepfather who no longer hunted. I had purchased a Remington .22 rifle with money made from my paper route delivering the News Journal every evening, but while it was good for plunking away at tin cans, Coke bottles and the occasional pigeon, it was not exactly the right tool for a running rabbit or squirrel.
I would come home from school, hang up my school clothes, change into my hunting clothes, pick up the shotgun and my hunting vest and head out the door, across the back road and start looking for rabbits.
My hunting success improved dramatically when I turned 16, bought a 1951 Plymouth two-door coupe and acquired a beagle. Now I could hunt different locations. One was a hardwood forest off of Darley Road. I would go there after school to hunt squirrels. That meant I carried my shotgun in my car to school. Can you imagine someone doing that today?
The beagle did a good job of running rabbits either in the fields behind my house or other locations in New Castle County or in Sussex County. When I went into the Navy in 1961, I gave him to Mr. Layton in Sussex County and someone stole them the day before hunting season that same year.
When I returned from the Navy in 1965, I met my soon-to-be-wife Barbara Twilley and her sister Joy who was married to Bobby Woods. Bobby loved to hunt and fish and had friends, Will and Tommy Bonner, who were more into hunting than fishing.
As it turned out, Tommy and I ended up living in the same neighborhood, and when I had an opportunity to fill a six-man goose pit, Tommy became one of the six.
The opportunity to fill that pit came about because I had become friends with Capt. Ben Betts who ran a charter boat from South Shore Marina. At the time, my brother-in-law, the late Paul Coffin, kept his 22-Mako, the Little Boat, at the same marina and we all got to know everyone who had boats there.
Ben found out I like to hunt and invited me to be his guest to hunt geese on Snow Farm. I must not have embarrassed myself too much because the next year he offered me a pit to fill with my friends. That pit was on a piece of the farm Bombay Bay Hook National Wildlife Refuge wanted to buy from Jimmy Snow, and so the following year, we were offered another pit on the main farm that I later found out was used by Bruce Snow, Jimmy’s son.
This was the 1970s during the height of the Canada goose migration in Delaware. The six of us had very little trouble killing our four-bird limit on most days, but then things began to change. We had fewer Canadas and more white birds. The last year I hunted Snow Farm was 1988. We saw exactly four Canada geese. The snow geese only came close to our decoys when it was foggy.
I also enjoyed deer hunting, but most of my successful hunts were in Maryland.
My friend Dave Rockland invited me to hunt a piece of property he had a lease on and it was full of deer. Before that, another friend, Mark Leggatt, had me hunt with him on a piece of land in Somerset County, Md.
If memory serves, and at 82 it often does not, I believe I killed a deer every year except for one, when we hunted in a downpour. The eight-point hanging on my living room wall came from the Somerset County property. Another year, everyone in our party killed a deer, and when we went to check them in at the local country store, it seemed like an endless supply was coming from the back of my Fisherman Magazine van.
After I moved to Virginia in 1989, I was lucky to hunt on a property in Accomack County owned by Mr. Elliott, a prominent member of the Coastal Conservation Association of Virginia. At the time, I was their executive director. It was also covered up with deer.
Ric and Roger, my two sons, had better luck there than I did.
Roger also hunted the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge where he killed his eight-pointer.
I have not hunted for a few years, but this year I have my license and I hope to get back out again.
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Eric Burnley is a Delaware native who has fished and hunted the state from an early age. Since 1978 he has written countless articles about hunting and fishing in Delaware and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast. He has been the regional editor for several publications and was the founding editor of the Mid-Atlantic Fisherman magazine. Eric is the author of three books: Surf Fishing the Atlantic Coast, The Ultimate Guide to Striped Bass Fishing and Fishing Saltwater Baits. He and his wife Barbara live near Milton, Delaware. Eric can be reached at Eburnle@aol.com.
