When World War II broke out all bird hunting came to an end and no one was allowed to have a gun unless you had a permit. My grandfather, Charles A. Rice, was one of those who had all the
When World War II broke out all bird hunting came to an end and no one was allowed to have a gun unless you had a permit. My grandfather, Charles A. Rice, was one of those who had all the permits that he needed.
On Kipu ranch we grew corn and sweet potatoes which the pheasants loved better than a kid loves candy. So without anyone hunting them and an over abundance of their favorite food they multiplied very rapidly.
One day Mamoru Matsumura and I walked up to the fence of a 2 acre field of sweet potatoes and just stood there and watched the pheasants fly out of the field. We counted 42 birds leave the field by flying away. We figured that many more scurried out of the field between the rows and many more just hunkered down and waited for us to leave. This just set the stage for what was to come next.
From the beginning of hostilities Kipu supplied the submarine base at Pearl Harbor with corn and sweet potatoes. One day in October of 1944 my grandfather informed me that he wanted to take a couple of Navy men hunting. When the Navy men arrived with their shotguns I found out that one was Adm. Furlong, the Commandant of Pearl Harbor, and his adjutant. We had no hunting dogs so we had to flush the birds by walking through the pastures. We started next to the nearest sweet potato field and before long we had 18 cock pheasants in the bag. The admiral said that this was enough and we quit. I was happy because I was the bag boy and had to carry the birds as they shot them.
