The author stays true to his heritage as the son of a beagle man. It was in Macon County that Handley bagged the two cottontails seen here. Photo by John E. Phillips

While cleaning out a cedar chest the other day in preparation for a yard sale, I was astounded at the dozens of loose shotgun shells I'd accumulated -- both high- and low-brass in a rainbow of colors, long forgotten like the small game I used to hunt with them.

I was the son of a rabbit hunter, accustomed to the sour smell of beagles in a dog box. One of my fondest memories of my granddaddy was sitting on a tailgate after a chase, stroking one of the tri-colored dogs while watching him carve the skin off a turnip he'd plucked from a roadside garden.

"Here, try this," he handed the white chunk to me.

Granddaddy was a man of few words. It seems all he wanted in life was to play the occasional game of canasta and have supper on the table at a predictable time. His plate always had a big raw onion on it, so knowing his tastes, I wasn't eager to try my first turnip. But I took a nibble.

It was good.

Such memories are created from chasing small game.

Later on, when I could actually shoot a hand-me-down 16-gauge double-barrel shotgun, I was a died-in-the-wool squirrel hunter. There was no joy greater than shooting a squirrel, skinning and then frying it.

Quail weren't exactly plentiful in the early 1970s, but there were far more than there are today. Daddy never owned a bird dog, and I never could react fast enough to shoot one on the fly whenever a covey busted up in front of me. But if one of those birds happened to land within sight, I'd happily add it to my bag of bushytails.

My first real quail hunt came many years later at the invitation of Raymond McClendon, owner of Rockfence Station near Lafayette. That's when my priorities changed. There was no joy greater than shooting quail, skinning and then frying them.

As I stacked those weathered shotgun shells in a shoebox, this barrage of memories swept over me like a tsunami. I'd somehow lost my infatuation with hunting small game -- the thrills of trying to figure out just how far the rabbit is ahead of the beagles; collecting a limit of squirrels and dreaming of making crappie jigs with their always-saved tails; and seeing a brace of pointers lock up as if they'd spied Medusa.

But, why just settle for memories? There's never been a time when rabbits and squirrels were more plentiful than they are today. And thanks to the state's numerous shooting preserves, the tradition of upland bird hunting is still alive and, compared to other hunts, very affordable.

Let's take a closer look at some of the opportunities for rediscovering small game in the Cotton State.

Quail
Down, But Not Out
Charles Kelley knows what it's like to walk around with a metaphorical bull's eye taped to his back. The former longtime director of Alabama's Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries fought constantly to ensure both the future of hunting and huntable populations of wild game, even if it meant making enemies.

His legacy -- other than outlasting numerous governors and conservation commissioners -- is a deer herd second in size only to Texas's and a wild turkey population that affords Alabamians a liberal bag limit and a spring season that is among the longest in the nation. When Kelley took the helm, both deer and turkeys were scarce.

Even today, six years after he stopped the daily commute to Montgomery, Kelley watches over our natural resources from the sidelines. He's quick to criticize regulations he feels aren't beneficial to wildlife, as well as those that fly in the face of common sense.

But his one true regret, shared by cohorts past and present throughout the Southeast, is the inability to influence the plummeting number of quail.