Blind Man Bird Hunt

This is a story related by my late uncle Ed Willis.

One afternoon after school I went by Mr. Lit Copeland's house.

Mr. Lit was Bo, Jim and Joel's daddy, Jimmy's granddaddy and Bill Sandifer's uncle. Mr. Lit was a retired man and an old fox hunter. He grew up around Gray and Milledgeville. I went to his house often and I enjoyed listening to him tell about some of his adventures.

We talked for a while and I told him that I was going home to get my dogs and gun then go quail hunting. He told me that if I had an extra gun he would like to go with me. I told him that I had a good shooting double barrel that he could use. He said that was fine and went along with me.

"Northern Bobwhite" by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I didn't really think that Mr. Lit would go with me because he had always told us that he couldn't see. But he was an adult and I thought it was alright if he wanted to go with me. (He had some black tape that covered on of the lenses on his glasses, which left only one eye for seeing. He may have even worn a patch.) I don't know if he could really see better than he said he could or not.

We went home, got the guns, and got my bird dogs, Joe and Buster. We went to the back of our farm and in a short time, the dogs pointed a covey of quail. The quail flew up in front of me and I dropped two of them. Mr. Lit didn't shoot but told me that he was going to go across the branch and sit stil until he saw some birds fly over. I said OK. I saw some birds go down and knew they were on my side of the branch.

When Mr. Lit got to the other side of the branch, he yelled so that I would know where he was. The dogs pointed again and two birds got up. I shot one and the other went across the branch. As I went to pick up my bird, I heard Mr. Lit shoot. I shot as other quail flew up. The quail that got away went to the other side of the branch. I heard Mr. Lit shoot a few more times.

When he quit shooting, he yelled for me to bring the dogs to that side of the branch. When I got there he told me that he had some birds down, but couldn't find them. I said OK and I yelled for Joe to come in close so he could look for downed birds. Joe found one of Mr. Lit's birds. Then Mr. Lit said that there was another bird in the direction that he was pointing. I began to think that something wasn't right - A blind man shooting birds.

Joe kept looking and found six birds. I said to Mr. Lit, "How can a blind man kill six birds?" He looked me and said, "Shoot at the sound, son. Shoot at the sound."

I gave the birds to Mr. Lit. I had killed five. Eleven was a lot of birds to be killed from one covey.