It was the last rabbit on the first day that beat us so bad. We had our excuses. By the time Sugar Ray jumped the bunny, we’d been chasing swamp rabbits through the Alabama wilds for eight long hours.

THREE RIVERS AREA — Standing ankle deep in the blackwater bayou, I watch the swamp rabbit. I can hear, in the distance, two beagles hot on its track, but this bottomland creature seems unconcerned.

I don’t like to hunt with a hungry man,” Dungee Taylor says. He’s a bull-sized fellow, bald, with one foot in the briers and a grin on his face, but I can read between the lines. His comment is both a ...