Two more different individuals ever lived than Denny Poole and Joe Prince. Yet they were best friends.
Joe was a Virginia bachelor grain farmer (peanuts, soybeans, corn, wheat). He worked at it seven days a week, March through October.
November through February, Joe was a quail hunter, six days a week. Sundays he walked puppies and looked for quail hunting territory. One word described Joe: intense.
Denny was a Virginia county building official, or building inspector, a volunteer fireman and EMT volunteer. Two words described Denny: kind and gentle. Also a quail hunter.
Two things cemented their friendship: quail hunting, and Denny’s wife Ann. She operated a beauty parlor on her back porch, fixed the hair of all the women and girls of western Sussex County, and cut Joe’s when required.
Everyone loved Ann. She was also a great cook and mother of two bright daughters. She invited Joe to dinner at least twice a week. Joe said: “Best day’s work Denny ever did was marry Ann.”
Denny’s occupation made him a natural scout for new coveys, for in Sussex County about the only construction requiring inspection was mobil home instillations, and each presented an opportunity to look for new coveys. Later, Denny became building official for neighboring Prince George County with more residential construction but similar opportunities to find covey haunts.
Joe’s father had been a family physician at Stony Creek from 1901 until retirement about 1960. He had delivered most every baby born within ten miles of Stony Creek, thus ensuring hunting permissions for the asking for Joe .
Joe was careful not to abuse his hunting privileges by overhunting, and took birds, plucked and cleaned (never skinned) to the land owner from each hunt. Joe proudly described his territory as “anywhere within a ten mile radius of Stony Creek.” And in the 1970s and early 80s, quail were plentiful in the many pine cutovers adjoining bean fields there.
Among the many good luck moments in my life came November 17, 1973 when I was introduced to Joe by his brother David, a life insurance salesman seeking referrals from me and knowing I too was a quail hunter. From then to Joe’s death in 1997 in a tractor accident, a fate I predicted, Joe and Denny were my regular quail hunting companions. I spoke at each of their funerals, Denny’s in 2005 after his death from multiple systems atrophy, from which he long suffered. I loved them both—and Ann.
The adventures our hunts produced fill my memories. As with all dedicated quail hunters, the dogs were our consuming interest, all developed from pups we bred or acquired.
Denny was a patient, methodical trainer. Joe’s method was, turn a pup loose with a mature dog and see if it develops by imitation. Many did from the constant exposure to wild birds only. Those that didn’t were culled.
When I met him, Joe had a kennel holding a dozen home-bred mostly level-tailed pointers, all descended from a legendary ancestor named Lucky, acquired by Joe in the 1950s from a well-known dog jockey from Zions Cross Roads named Perkins. The story of Lucky’s acquisition was oft-told over after-hunt drinks.
Joe was returning from the Valley of Virginia on a calf-buying trip. He stopped at Perkins Kennel out of curiosity. Perkins tried to sell him several broke prospects. Joe noticed a scrawny, half-grown black-headed male pointer lurking in the back of its run and went in the run to inspect it. The pup slipped out around him and took off, disappearing in the distance. Perkins cursed.
Joe had no interest in a broke dog. After questioning Perkins about every dog in his inventory Joe prepared to leave. The wayward pup returned to his pen for water.
“What will you take for that pup? “ Joe asked.
“Take him. If he works out, send me $50,” Perkins said.
Thus began the oft-told story of Lucky.
A new pup at Joe’s was never kenneled initially. It went from its travel crate, in which it spent a few days to orient to its new home base, to freedom to roam. Food and water were left out for it to come home to.
Joe lived close by the CSX Railroad mainline and many public roads. No matter. Joe believed a pup must run free to develop bird sense. Some lived, some disappeared. Lucky, then unnamed, survived. When fall arrived he saw other bird dogs entering the box on the back of Joe’s pickup and joined them.
When turned loose to hunt with others, he did, wide and fast, and found and flushed birds ahead of them. Joe saw his potential and figured he would break himself. He continued to hunt, find and flush. Near season’s end, Joe looked for an opportunity and shot the pup in the rear with number nine shot at 45 yards when it moved to flush.
That day the pup was broke, never to flush again, and acquired its name Lucky, suggested by Joe’s then regular hunting companion, fellow-farmer Frank Slade, who said, “He’s lucky to be alive.”
When I met Joe in 1973 he still had one pup of Lucky’s named King, then age seventeen, a big, strong white and black high-tailed male, still hunted regularly. The others in his kennel were all descended from Lucky, mostly heavily inbred and strong bird finders. None were registered—Joe did not know Lucky’s breeding. I suspect it was close up to field trial winners.
Joe never answered my question, “Did you ever send Mr. Perkins $50?”