Bunnies & Hares: A Great Winter Tradition

Ham and eggs go together like cottontail rabbits or snowshoe hares and beagles, some tracking snow and a favorite shotgun. Add some sunshine to this mix, and a brace of hounds, and it can be a grand way to spend a mid-winter day.

Snow is a relative thing. A little bit is better than a great deal, and that's about where rabbit hunters are right as we make our way toward that hunting season. Sure, it's but few people hunting hares or rabbits until after January 1 when the late archery season opens.  There may be a bit too much snow in some locations, but warming days has helped settle some of the white stuff and a gentle dusting of new snow after New Years Day is something many sportsmen look forward to with great anticipation.

The load of snow that fell over the past two weeks is now just about right. There is enough to cover old tracks, and it's not so deep that it requires snowshoes to get around in. Much of the snow has enough crust that dogs and hares or rabbits can travel over the snow without breaking through.

 The best time to hunt hares & rabbits is only two weeks away.

Any fresh snow makes it easy to spot fresh tracks, and it covers up and cancels out old ones that are meaningless to a brace of beagles. An inch or two of fresh snow is just about right for beagles, and if they can smell hare or rabbit scent, they can work the bunnies fast.

Many a time we've hunted snowshoe hares with two or three times this much snow, and snowshoes were necessary for mobility. Often with varying hares, the white bunnies will sink into soft powder snow and I once watched a hare travel 20 feet under the snow without ever being visible.

The animal was running under the snow. He'd push up the snow a little each time he took a running step, and then he popped up out of the snow just a short distance away, and I popped him. It was the only hare we saw that day.

Hare numbers have plummeted over the past 20 years across northern Michigan counties where they were once plentiful. The easy answer to this decline is that snowshoe hares are cyclic. Their numbers go up and down, but in the past two decades, hares seem to have taken after ring-neck pheasants. There no longer is an up-and-down cycle. There numbers are very low, and anyone with a hotspot doesn’t talk about its whereabouts.

Hare numbers are down, and continue to fall. Some hunters blame an abundance of hawks and owls. Others blame disease or shrinking habitat, and I lean toward the latter option. If a hunter knows of a good hare hotspot, keep it a secret, don’t over-hunt it, and if possible, just let the dogs chase the swamp ghosts and don’t pull the trigger.It's also easy to blame overhead predation from hawks and owls, and a major increase in coyotes takes many varying hares each winter

There's no better feeling than listen to the hound sounds of the chase.

My idea of Heaven on Earth is a pair of 13-inch beagles with a throaty bawl or yelp on a hot trail, a fresh snow, sunshine glinting down through the cedars and junipers or evergreens, and two hours of listening to the chase with great satisfaction. Shooting the hare would be anticlimactic. The orchestration of hound music is enough to make grown

There can be a point where cottontail rabbits will find tough going if the snow gets too deep. They won't always move well in very cold or very snowy weather, but on a day when a pale lemon-yellow winter sun peeks out on occasion, the rabbits will lay down plenty of tracks.

Cottontails, once in the minority in northern counties, seem destined to take over where the hares left off. The smaller bunnies adapt well to human habitation, and ornamental shrubs and small trees keep cottontails fat and healthy near houses. The rabbits breed like, well, like rabbits, and they seem to spread out wherever farmland and timber meet.

They thrive in such country, and live wherever brush piles are found. Old abandoned orchards are key locations for cottontails, and they often run from one pile of brush to another. Pushed too hard, and they pop down a woodchuck hole.

Hares and rabbits have provided me with many years of winter enjoyment. I’ve hunted both species without dogs, but it begs the question: why bother?

Hunting with a beagle with a good voice is great fun.

It's been my good fortune to have hunted with champion beagles over a period of many years near Rogers City. These dogs were first-rate, a bit up on legs, and a 15-inch beagle will cover ground and deeper snow than a 13-inch hound. I once hunted with a beagle-Walker hound cross, and this dog possessed all of the best features of both breeds.

It stood 17 inches high at the shoulder, had a mouth like a choir bell, and cared nothing for running coyotes or foxes. He was well suited to deep winter snow, never ran deer and hazing snowshoe hares through thick cover was his game.

He had a nose like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, and once those molecules of hare scent tickled the insides of his nose, he would let out a howl that sounded somewhat between a moan of ecstasy and a primitive hunger. We'd cut him in on the track, he'd stuff his nose deep into the snow, point his nose at the sky and let out a moaning howl that sent shivers down your spine.

From that point on, his nose was down in the track and he was fast on his feet. Snowshoes often run hard and get 200 yards ahead of the hound, and then stop until the dog come within sight before dashing off again. Snowies seldom had that opportunity with this mixed-breed hound. He would burn up a hot track, and often would be sight-running the hares.

Hunters had to be careful when shooting because the hound was often within 10 yards of the hare, and sometimes much closer.

I like hunting cottontails but much prefer hunting snowshoe hares. There is something about the areas of thick cover that snowies love that also appeals to me. It’s close and thick cover, and cedar boughs are always ready to drop a big load of snow down your neck. There is no other place I’d rather be during the winter.

Hound music is why we hunt these animals. We enjoy hound music.

There's something about standing deep in a conifer thicket, listening to the hounds take a hare almost out of hearing, and then hear the chase turn the corner and start heading back. The hunter is smart to stay close to where the hare was originally jumped because it will almost always head for home.

Often, the first sign of a running hare will be puffs of snow flying into the air, and then the animal will be seen as a white-on-white moving object. But before that happens, we must stand where we can see 20-25 yards and watch.

Hares have very good vision, and it's wise to wait until the animal goes behind a tree before lifting the shotgun. Lift it when you and the hare are visible, and they will often spot the motion, and juke one way or another. Miss the first shot, and seldom will there be time for a second chance.

There is something haunting about hound sounds in the  depths of a big swamp where almost every step requires looking for new shooting lanes. Somehow, if a hare is out there in front of a hard-charging hound, and the swamp is filled with dog music, it really doesn't matter much whether a cottontail or snowshoe hare is taken.

Just being there to experience the sounds of hounds in full cry on a hot track is a good time. Seeing the bunny or hare is just frosting on the hunter’s winter cake.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors