Rabbit hunting
- Thread starter rauly35
- Start date
(although you'll only find snowshoe hares there, not rabbits)
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Myself I forego the warmer months for rabbit hunting.
Only because, fleas now more numerous along with ticks (Lyme disease) And internal parasites thrive in warmer months too.
Hence my rabbit gun is idle until late August.
And the extra little thing, all the females will be preggers.
No thx
But hey, fill your boots.....
Only because, fleas now more numerous along with ticks (Lyme disease) And internal parasites thrive in warmer months too.
Hence my rabbit gun is idle until late August.
And the extra little thing, all the females will be preggers.
No thx
But hey, fill your boots.....
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
I’m counting down the days till hare open back up in August, there’s a couple spots I had luck in before the season closed in the spring that I want to scout out for deer and I’ll hopefully get back on the hares as well.
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Yes, myself I love rabbit hunting preferably with a small caliber combo gun or 28 gauge shotgun once grouse season is open here. I even push my end of season to April. But they do need thier breeding season so I respect that even though it's not a legal condition in all three prairie provinces.
Thanks for your help and wanting to share your knowledge, and also thanks to everyone else who also pitched in.
What's something you know now, that you wish you knew when you started hunting?
Where abouts in BC do you do most of your rabbit or other small game hunting? Up north, interior? Okanagan? GVA?
Any helpful tips you want to share?
My goal is to get some experience hunting and eating small game, before I start hunting bigger game.
I didn't hunt many snowshoe hares last season, but in previous seasons I hunted them almost all winter. One of my favourite hunts due to the quiet and solitude - and the challenge. I hunt with a .22 WMR because it has that extra reach and punch to snipe them at well over 50 yards.
I'm in Kamloops and I have a few places within a 1/2 hour of my house where the hares are usually pretty numerous - although their numbers were in a down-swing in those areas the last few seasons. My best year, we ate 88 of them.
Tips? It's all about habitat. Find an area full of Christmas-tree sized re-growth that borders onto mature forest and/or wet & willowy areas. If you can find an area with all three of these adjacent to each other, you will find hares for sure. Winter is easiest to find habitat because all you have to do is find tracks.
Once you find good habitat, it is just a matter of "hunting with your eyes, not your feet". Take a couple or 3 steps, stop and look everywhere. Then look everywhere again - don't forget behind you. Bend/crouch down and look from different angles. No hares? Take a couple more steps and start over.
Some days are great, and some days are dead - even in the exact same area. Sometimes you see nothing all morning and then at 1pm they are everywhere for about an hour to 90 minutes, then it goes dead again...
Best of luck! Its a great way to spend a day.
By the way, snowshoe hares are not the best table fare unless you take time to prepare and cook them appropriately. Don't just roast them or fry them like a chicken and expect your family to be impressed. All that will do is ensure that they don't encourage you to hunt hares any more.
Some of the best recipes around for hares can be found over at Hank Shaw's site https://honest-food.net/wild-game/rabbit-hare-squirrel-recipes/ His "Sardinian Hare Stew" https://honest-food.net/hare-stew-hard-times/ became a favourite of mine a few years ago. Since then, the recipe was featured on MeatEater and Steve Rinella said it was the best thing he had eaten in a long time. He reminisces about that stew in later episodes. Honestly, it is a gourmet meal made out of a critter that most people would never bother to hunt.
Also note: rabbits and snowshoe hares are considerably different. Not every recipe for rabbit will produce good results with a snowshoe hare.
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For autumn hunting, I have a few old forest spur roads that I like to walk. I get there before sunrise and very slowly start walking up the road as soon as it is legal to shoot (1 hour before sunrise). At this hour, in the fall, they come out and sit on the road. I have shot my bag limit more times than I can count doing this. Usually ends up being about a 2.5 to 4 k walk. A very nice way to spend a morning.
