![]() He loved it – still does – but over the years the rabbit numbers waned. He could park his ATV and wait on the beagles to run rabbits to within shotgun range of him. ![]() For a while, rabbit hunting remained Ricky’s passion. They built gun rests for his ATV, and carried ramps and boards with them to the field so that he easily could get on and off. ![]() With the help of his buddies, Ricky began fine-tuning his new approach for the woods. I knew I could get back out in the woods again. I threw my leg over it, climbed on, and it was one of the best feelings of my life. One day I looked at that three-wheeler and decided I was going to get back on it. “I just had to adjust the way I went about it. “There was no doubt I was going to keep going,” he said. But he had no intentions of giving up on his passion for hunting. The accident left Ricky paralyzed from the waist down. I woke up in a hospital in intensive care in Jackson, Tennessee, and then when I really came to, they’d moved me down to Memphis.” There was a hole in the road, and the front tire hit that. They say three-wheelers are dangerous in themselves, but I don’t know. “We were on our three-wheelers, checking out spots on a farm we hunted down in Tennessee. “I was 28 years old when I had my accident,” he said. He was a rabbit hunter to the core, but a deer and squirrel hunter as well. Ricky grew up hunting the farm country of southwestern Kentucky and Tennessee. He depends on his rifles to cover the ground that he himself cannot. He loves to hunt, but for the last 28 years, he’s been unable to walk. In some ways, Ricky was forced into being a long-range rifleman. But when he’s forced into it, he’ll often take it to another level entirely. When a man enjoys something like that and practices it a lot, he gets good at it. Head shots at 100 yards are a cinch.Ī squirrel in the head at 100 yards is a feat – I don’t care what you’re shooting. “How far can you kill a squirrel with that thing?” I asked. 17 Mach 2 with a 20-power scope, I believed it. Looking at his squirrel gun, a heavy-barreled CZ. We both hunted on the same farm, and through the farmer, I’d heard he was a rifle expert. He’s 56 years old, polite and unassuming the essence of a Southern country gentleman. I’d met Ricky once before, but just briefly. I smiled, embarrassed for messing up his hunt, but intrigued by what he held in his hands. “But I’ve got plenty of them here for a meal.” “I was having pretty good luck, too,” he said. “You must be the only other guy in western Kentucky squirrel hunting over deer hunting right now,” I replied. “I’ve been listening to you coming for 30 minutes,” he said with a smile. I was startled when I looked up and saw Ricky King sitting silently on his four-wheeler not 30 yards from me, a furrowed brow on his face and a near-limit of gray squirrels at his side. I might as well have been sneaking through a pool of cornflakes. My attempt at slipping through the timber and squirrel hunting wasn’t going well. It was a stone-still evening in early November dry and cold, too, the kind of day when you can hear a deer’s footsteps from 200 yards.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |