As far as I know, Smokey Goodwin and Gault Beeson never met, so I am probably the only connection between the two. I met both through two of my passions — fishing and rabbit hunting.
The first time I went striper fishing with Smokey, he asked if “Puppy” could come along.
“He fishes, too,” Smokey said.
“Puppy,” a mixed-black Lab, sat on the front seat, face into the wind, as Smokey piloted us to a fishing spot on Lake Murray. Once anchored, Smokey baited one rod for Puppy and directed me to let the line down and set the rod against the side of the boat. With his line in the water, Puppy lay down and went to sleep beside his rod. After a short nap, he suddenly awoke and stared straight at the reel.
“A fish is making Puppy’s bait anxious and he’s reading the vibrations all the way up the line,” Smokey explained. “Pick up the rod and get ready to set the hook when the fish bites.”
Soon, a striped bass was flopping in the bottom of the boat and Puppy was on it like a flash, trying to hold it down while I extracted the hook. I don’t recall how many fish Smokey and I caught that afternoon — or if we caught any at all — but “Puppy” had a great day on the water, getting one bite after another.
Smokey, a retired highly decorated Marine Sgt. Major who fought from World War II through Vietnam, died in late May at 84.
Beeson founded the Pee Dee River Beagle Club, which I attended often as a competitor and once as a judge of the annual AKC licensed field trial. A highlight of the AKC trial was the rabbit hunt after the competition was over.
The hunts grew into a “Who’s Who” of beagling in the 1960s, ’70s and into the ‘80s, with many big-time houndsmen driving to Marion for the field trial and bringing their shotguns along. Regulars included fellow handlers Ralph Lamb of Inman and Willard Cobb of North Carolina, nationally known field-trial judges Bubba Estes of Gaffney and R.A. Webster of North Carolina, Bob Slike and his son, Art, who published Hounds & Hunting Magazine in Pennsylvania, and top breeders such as Art Fleming of Pennsylvania and Lamar Laney of North Carolina.
“They gave a trophy every year to the one who killed the most rabbits,” Lamb recalled. “Sometimes we’d get 50 to 60 rabbits in a day’s hunt. There were rabbits everywhere down there back then.”
Another tradition was lunch in the Marion County Prison, which Beeson ran as county administrator. Meals served in the prison dining room were great tasting country cooking — collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread and fried fatback.
Beeson helped many prisoners after they served their time. He hired one recently to clean his dog kennels. On June 5, that former prisoner approached Beeson, 85, at the kennels to ask for money. He has been charged with murder and robbery of Beeson, who was found stabbed to death.
Many former prisoners attended Beeson’s funeral, and many who could not come called to express their grief, said Beeson’s son, M. Gault “Bunny” Beeson Jr.
Outstanding citizens and outdoorsmen, Gault and Smokey live on in the memories of we who love fishing and good dogs.
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