I am a depressed hunter who needs some help. It is a long long time until next fall and I still have the hunting bug real bad right now. I looked through the MN regulations and it looks like I can still hunt rabbits for another month so I figure I have got to try.

Thing is I have never hunted rabbits and I don't have any idea how to start or where to find them.

I would be hunting in a heavily forested/swampy area of north central MN.

There is snow and all the water is completely frozen.

We have snowshoe hares, jackrabbits, and cotton tails in MN but I am not sure if cotton tails range in the north.

I don't have a dog right now so it's just me and maybe a friend.

Any help you can give is much appreciated.

Are you using rifle or shotgun?

I used to get into a rabbit bush and find some good trails etc. Then stand still and slowly glass with your binos. They usually hold pretty tight and you'll eventually see them. Alternatively you could get the truck, beer, and spotlights....works quite well at night I'm told

quote:

Originally posted by lal:
Are you using rifle or shotgun?

You tell me what works best.

I shoot hare as its all we have, however I employ 2 methods and 2 different firearms. I walk an area during the day with dog and shotgun and flush them from cover. Hunting at night is different. I use an air rifle for shooting hare at night. Normally a friend accompanies me and we take turns holding the Maglite. We walk newly planted fields looking for them and then try to get to within shooting range which is usually about 35yds with an air rifle. Precision shooting here!

MN

You know your always welcom at the cabin. SO far the only real technique I have is to sit around Playing cards and drink beer and carry a gun with you when you go outside to pee off the deck. It works trust me.

You never know you might get a snowshoe hare or even a white wolf.

Try hunting the edges of fields in the early morning and evenings. you should be able to scare something up.

quote:

Originally posted by Akshooter:
MN

You know your always welcom at the cabin. SO far the only real technique I have is to sit around Playing cards and drink beer and carry a gun with you when you go outside to pee off the deck. It works trust me.

You never know you might get a snowshoe hare or even a white wolf.

I am trying to go rabbit hunting here in MN right now but it has always been my dream to shoot a white wolf like the one I saw you take in this photo Akshooter.

quote:

Originally posted by wetdog2084:
Try hunting the edges of fields in the early morning and evenings. you should be able to scare something up.

Thanks for the info but no fields where I hunt just bigs woods interspersed with big bogs/swamps.

Favorite weapons - short barrel cylinder bore 20 ga Rem Model 11 and a .22 revolver for finishing and all around back up. The particular revolvers I like are the 9-shot H&R Model 999 "Sportsman" and the S&W Model 34 "Kit Gun".

Favorite type of rabbit - swampers. There're big and meaty. I'm in the South where they're common. Next favorite - cottontails.

Favorite methods - walking ditch lines and kicking around in brushpiles early in the day. That would be for cottontails. Also, a real favorite is, after hard rains where the rivers and creeks rise, islands are temporarily created on which rabbits congregate. When it's just right you hardly even need a gun. That type hunt requires hip waders.

Favorite time to go - I enjoy hunting in the snow, probably because it's rare here.

quote:

Originally posted by Shack:
Favorite weapons - short barrel cylinder bore 20 ga Rem Model 11 and a .22 revolver for finishing and all around back up. The particular revolvers I like are the 9-shot H&R Model 999 "Sportsman" and the S&W Model 34 "Kit Gun".

Favorite type of rabbit - swampers. There're big and meaty. I'm in the South where they're common. Next favorite - cottontails.

Favorite methods - walking ditch lines and kicking around in brushpiles early in the day. That would be for cottontails. Also, a real favorite is, after hard rains where the rivers and creeks rise, islands are temporarily created on which rabbits congregate. When it's just right you hardly even need a gun. That type hunt requires hip waders.

Favorite time to go - I enjoy hunting in the snow, probably because it's rare here.

Thanks for the info Shack

North central,eh? I grew up around the leech lake area.Where about are you?

I used to do quite a bit of rabbit hunting when I was in my late teens,early 20's.The most productive,and entertaining way we found to hunt was to find an area that has been clear cut a few years ago,with the new poplar trees about an inch or so in diameter.
Use a scoped 22 auto,or whatever you have.Stalk along and look for a dark,round spot,their eye.It takes awhile to get used to looking for the eye,but once you get the hang of it,it works pretty well.If their is more than one of you hunting,walk about 25 ft apart,like a deer drive.
We never used any dogs,because the dogs make them run,and you never get a shot.
Move slow ,and look under brush piles and any likely hiding spot.If they run,keep an eye on them,they usually only run 30-40 feet,and will stop and look at you,giving you a shot.I dont think we ever got our limit,which at the time was 10 each daily,but we always got action.I think the best we ever did was 14 between two of us.
I was deer hunting close by some of our best areas this fall ,except now the trees are 6-10 in dia,and 40 ft tall,but there are always new areas being cut every year.

quote:

Originally posted by jb:
North central,eh? I grew up around the leech lake area.Where about are you?
.

Just south of you around Outing.

Thanks for the advice I am going to give it a try on Wed.

I shot hundreds of snow shoe hares in northern Wis by still hunting with a buddy or my self. i find a area the has hares then just still hunt looking for the black spot their eyes. With buddys we hunt 50 yards apart lots of times we chase rabbits to one and another.

Go slow look alot I use 22 rim fires a 1022 is great. We some time only allow shots at running rabbits a 30 round mag is great fun.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
I shot hundreds of snow shoe hares in northern Wis by still hunting with a buddy or my self. I find a area the has hares then just still hunt looking for the black spot their eyes. With buddys we hunt 50 yards apart lots of times we chase rabbits to one and another.

Go slow look alot I use 22 rim fires a 1022 is great. We some time only allow shots at running rabbits a 30 round mag is great fun.

Hunting this way is a blast. The muzzleloading section of our Rod and Gun club used to do this every March. Snow would be about 7' deep and of course, we're on snowshoes, hunting snowshoes! With a nice warm sun this late in winter beginning spring, they like to sun themselves by sitting against a small aspen - just the eye is visible at first.
Head shots only count, and with 5 to 12 of us, we'd usually get 3 to 10 each. Most of them would go into a big cauldron for a sweet and sour bunny stew for the Rod and Gun banquet. It was always the first 'food' to be eaten completely at the banquet - probably 60 pounds of stew - I said, "BIG" cauldron. Served with fresh home-made bread smeared with creamery butter. Yum, yum.
Anymore, unfortunately, we haven't been getting the snow and besides the wolves and coyotes have been hard on the bunny population, along with the deer and moose in the area.

The most fun I had 'hunting' cottontails back East as a kid, was with ferrets! Put him down one hole and cup your hands over the other. The bunny will come up, hammering your plams with his head trying to stay ahead of the ferret. Grag him, ring his neck, then catch the ferret as he comes out looking for the bunny.

What a blast for a 16 year old - of any age !

Daryl S.

Interesting, that ferret tchnique is used in Germany by some hunters but this is the first time I've ever hears of it being done on this continant.

They also use small dogs to do the same. I hunted with a friend in Bavaria who had his dog a Jagdterrior trained to go in fox holes and drive them out. I shot two foxes this way.

My friends wife is a vet and I remember her saying as we walked out the door that it was Saturday and she did'nt want to be sowing the dog up on her day off.

Some people may not know it but a dachshund was breed for this type of hunting. The German name for a badger is dachs.

I like the thought of ferreting also, but thought it wasn't legal in the US?

Techniques??? There has to be many, but here's the best one I heard.

How does one catch a unique wabbit?

You neek up on it - of course!!
Emler Fudd

KB

quote:

Originally posted by daniel77:
I like the thought of ferreting also, but thought it wasn't legal in the US?

Daniel - Ferreting for cottontail rabbits wasn't legal in Ontario, either. I was 16 at the time and did a few things that were not quite legal. I even exceeded the speed limit at times. Both were fun. I still speed, sometimes.

We use ferrets all the time for rabbiting, either shooting the rabbits with shotguns as they bolt, or by bolting them into long-nets or purse-nets set around the rabbit warren. My deer stalking partner is a professional ferreter - using 100 yard long nets and a team of 20 or so ferrets, we've cleared up to 250 rabbits a day in Scotland. Ferreting has a dedicated following over here and is a really effective way of clearing big rabbit infestations. It's also seriously good fun once you've got rabbits bolting into the nets left, right and centre - you've hardly dispatched one bunny when you've got to grab another.

Being bitten by a big, bad tempered hob ferret isn't quite so much fun - and if you spend more than 10 minutes with ferrets, you WILL get bitten!

Most rabbit shooting over here is done with heavily silenced .22LR rifles and sub-sonic rounds at sub-100 yard ranges - usually from a truck or quad at night using a Lightforce lamp with a red or amber filter. It's very effective - I shot more than 2000 rabbits last year using this method.

Adam.

We also used to hunt snowshoe hares in March, wearing snowshoes ourselves to stay on top of the 6-7feet of snow. Last bunch of years, we haven't had the snow for it.

The muzzleloading section of the club used to do this - 1/2 doz. to a dozen of us on a sunny day. Walking around the bush, looking for that little black eye against a small aspen tree- that's the first thing you would see - that black eye, then the rest of the bunny would become visible. Head shots only allowed - as a contest. We'd get 20, up to 40 or so 'for the pot'.

The stripped and cleaned bunnies would go into a huge cauldrun in which my bro would make sweet'n'sour rabbit stew for the rod and gun club game banquet - great stuff - great eating!

Adam's spot-on - Ferrets bite quite hard and hang on, but they're fun. The two I had were white albino runts with pink eyes and they'd sit on my shoulders, heads out of the neck of my sweater, or back to my chest, hang on my sweater's front, heads out the V neck. If you hear snufff, snuff snuffing around an artery, you have to grab them quick. They're hungry.

Are you sure that's a wolf? Sure is nice and white. p[erhaps some form of brush wolf, or wolf/dog cross? It's not demonstrably bigger than our coyotes. No, I don't live in Texas.


This is a Canadian Timber Wolf, the kind that's killing off the Elk in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. They'll be soon to move into Oregon and Washington to look after the elk, moose and deer there, as well.

My favorite is a couple good beagles on snowshoe hare.... it doesn't get any better.

Stepchild

My favorite is a half dozen really good medium speed dogs on cotontail rabbits.

Comparing a cottontail race to a snowshoe race is like comparing a model A to a Corvette.
Cottontails will most generally dive into the nearest hole or brush pile, while a snowshoe will run for hours and lead you to believe they are running a deer, and sometimes are.
You don't mention where you are from but trust me, there is no comparison, i've done both.
As far as pack size, I used to field trial and 60-70 hounds was about normal, I guess that's why they call it Large Pack on Hare.
I didn't mean this to sound sarcastic, just to point out the difference.
And as far as walking around the woods looking for a black eye, I'd just as soon swat flies, to me it's the chase that matters most. YMMV.

Stepchild

You want to hunt Rabbits ?? you should come down to New Zealand where they are classed as a pest. Every year we have the Easter Bunny Hunt. This year a bunch of Guys shot 23000 in a 24 hour period

Last one I potted with 17HMR in my garden just before dark. Got head-shoot them with a 17, it will really mess up some meat. While deer hunting we often scare up cottontails or what we call in AL "Cane Cutters" or "Swamp Rabbits". They look like cottontail but can weigh over 5 lbs. dressed! Hunting from elevated box blinds on green fields we also get shots when theycome out to graze. .17 HMR, .22 LR (Ruger Mk II w/ mini red dot). Best shot I ever made was w/ .25-06 @ 115 yds. Hit it right @ the junction of the ears!

I have been doing pretty good during dove season shooting cottontails. I am shooting 1-1/8oz #6 in a 16ga imp cyl. So far I am 3 shells two wabbits.

Andy