Rabbit and hare hunting have never been easy for me over the past 40 years. I’ve tried shotguns from the diminutive .410 gauge to the more-than-adequate 12-gauge scatterguns. Additionally, rimfires have been employed at times for an added challenge not entirely necessary in the name of fairness. It’s not that I’m that bad of a shot, either, although I’m far from an expert with a smoothbore.
Without a good dog, several factors contribute to the degree of difficulty: Tiresome trudging through deep snow and the element of surprise. Deep snow speaks for itself, when foot travel is cumbersome at best and impossible other times without snowshoes. Hard work and snowshoes go hand-in-hand, although they can be the only means to get into bunny country at times.
But, I must confess that it’s the explosive nature of a fleet-footed rabbit that often leaves me wondering if someone switched my shells to blanks.
A most successful outing came in northern Michigan during a March thaw when the ground was absent of snow leaving snowshoe hares sticking out like an honest politician in Washington.
It’s not that dogs have not been there to help, either. However, the dogs I used were good at finding rabbits and running them into the next county. They didn’t bark and they didn’t run the rabbits in a circle back to me. Sometimes, I believe it would have been better to leave the dog home, but they enjoyed the hunt as much or more than I could imagine.
For the reasons mentioned, I always wanted to hunt behind a good rabbit hunting dog. Finally, after all these years, I was to get such an opportunity.
My friend and neighbor, Dave, mentioned we should do some rabbit hunting. My response was, “We have snow and you have the dog. Let’s go.”
Joe, my hunting partner and I met Dave and his 10-year old beagle, Bill, at a location suspected of holding some rabbits. Bill was already getting excited, as Dave prepared to turn him loose. The minute he was released, it was game on, as a rabbit ran for heavy cover amid a towering brush pile, where it remained in fear for its life.
Before long, Bill began the unmistakable beagle barking, indicative of a fresh track. Sure enough, a cottontail streaked across the fresh snow directly away from Joe’s and Dave’s attempts with Bill hot on its tail.
We listened to the distant sound of Bill heading away but Dave instructed us to be patient. The beagle’s relentless pursuit could still be tracked, and the sound was getting closer to us. The element of surprise was being minimized, because we knew the rabbit was heading toward us. We were all prepared and on high alert when the bunny bounced into view and quickly succumbed to a game load of #6 shot from my Remington 1100 model 20-gauge.
Bill continued to run rabbits for the remainder of the morning and gave our trio plenty of opportunities. Now, if I can just find out who’s responsible for those blank loads.
