Photo by Ron Sinfelt

TerryJo’s bark was an excited blend of whiny squeals and growls. The little feist dog was bouncing up and down off the ground as if it were a trampoline, his front feet pushing against the trunk of the tree at the top of each bounce.

“Now that’s a good sign,” noted Ronnie Coleman, TerryJo’s owner and trainer. “He’s got eyes on that squirrel. Old TerryJo doesn’t get that excited all the time.”

With Coleman directing us to positions around the big oak, we advanced on the tree; once we were set, he ordered TerryJo to calm down. The little dog immediately sat back on his hind legs, his eyes never leaving the treetop.

Coleman began following the dog’s line of sight up the mostly leafless tree. He was looking for what had gotten TerryJo so excited.

“There it is,” he said, “crouched on that sort-of-black limb. It’s sort of laying flat on the limb. Follow the trunk 10 feet above the fork, then look at that limb sticking out to the right -- he’s on that limb about 6 feet off the trunk.”

I finally found the limb, but couldn’t see a squirrel. I eased a bit to the right and got a new point of view. There it was.

“I got a shot,” I said to Coleman. “Send your boy over here.”

Coleman’s son, 13-year-old Henry, started easing around from the other side of the tree. Smart like his dad in the ways of squirrel hunting, he moved slowly and quietly so as not to spook the squirrel and send it running through the trees. Circling back behind his dad, the teenager ended up standing at my side.

I pointed out the limb, and the young man quickly found the squirrel in the scope of his .22 rimfire rifle. I heard the safety click off; I raised my .410 shotgun to serve as a backup.

It wasn’t needed. Henry Coleman’s shot was perfect, hitting the squirrel just below the ear. The bushytail fell to the ground with a thud.

“Attaboy!” Ronnie Coleman hollered. “Good shot!”

TerryJo was on the squirrel in a heartbeat, standing over it to make sure that it didn’t escape. The lack of movement in the squirrel satisfied the dog before any of us got to it, and TerryJo quickly went back to hunting.

Sliding the squirrel into his vest, Henry Coleman called to the dog: “Get us another one, boy! Hunt ‘em up!”

Five minutes later, we could hear TerryJo’s agitated, whiny yelps about 100 yards down the hardwood bottom, and we hurried down to get Henry another shot.

While most Mississippi sportsmen were out chasing bigger game that early January morning last winter, the three of us and that little feist dog were enjoying the thrill of simplicity that is the heart of small-game hunting.

Sure, deer hunting is the Magnolia State’s biggest participation sport, an estimated 200,000 hunters driving the wildlife management system and creating the funding that keeps the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks afloat. But in terms of longevity of tradition, it’s a Johnny-come-lately, having only emerged as the top sport in the last half-century, growing in step with the whitetail herds. Prior to that, small game played a dominant role in the shooting sports, and scenes such as what was described above were once commonplace. Nowadays, however, hunts such as the one we shared with the Colemans in southern Rankin County are becoming harder to find.