Rabbits are still partly grey in NE Alberta!

Brutus

Brutus

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West of most places....and in Alberta
For those interested, the snowshoehares still have alot of grey in thier upper body fur today.

Lots of snow in the trees though. Towards the end of my early morning hunt I neglected to wipe some snow off of my shotgun, and the fore-end was frozen stiff. A few minutes in the truck cab resolved this issue. Oh yeah, extra-full turkey choke is, in retrospect, a bad idea for a distance of 9 yards in the bush! Oh well, at least the whiskeyjacks have a little extra protien in thier diet today. The best parts still came home with me. :)
And everywhere I went I observed either wolf or lynx tracks in both of my favorite small game hunting spots.
No pics today for the single hare harvested.

Cheers!
 
Brutus said:
For those interested, the snowshoehares still have alot of grey in thier upper body fur today.

Lots of snow in the trees though. Towards the end of my early morning hunt I neglected to wipe some snow off of my shotgun, and the fore-end was frozen stiff. A few minutes in the truck cab resolved this issue. Oh yeah, extra-full turkey choke is, in retrospect, a bad idea for a distance of 9 yards in the bush! Oh well, at least the whiskeyjacks have a little extra protien in thier diet today. The best parts still came home with me. :)
And everywhere I went I observed either wolf or lynx tracks in both of my favorite small game hunting spots.
No pics today for the single hare harvested.

Cheers!
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Out at Ray's? Or up the patch?

Got a bunch of snow yet?

Still raining here.

Cheers
Trev
 
just saw one with brown fur and his belly and his leg were white which i shoot ;)

here it is
20131109_155007_zpsf0cf4bda.jpg
 
trevj said:
Out at Ray's? Or up the patch?

Got a bunch of snow yet?

Still raining here.

Cheers
Trev
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Hello Trevor!

Out at Ray's again. Just last week we got out first snowfall that stayed.
About 4-5 inches of snow right now.

The predator's are working hard everywhere I walk it seems.
Kitty corner to Ray's the fresh wolf tracks give credance to thier predation on the best grouse hunting spot. Last year it was a pack of coyotes. Mr Wolf has shoved them aside it seems. At Ray's the lone lynx is giving the rabbits a good hard working over. His tracks seem to be everywhere I look on that property.
It's supposed to be a peak year for grouse, but I took alot more last year with hardly raising a finger. And no sharptails just down the road unlike last year, and niether any ptarmigan hereabouts have I seen so far this fall. Matter of fact, I've yet to see even a single spruce grouse which is very unusual for here.
 
Just the last couple of days I noted that the hares are turning white, mostly white. I usually leave them alone because they make good bait for coyotes/keeps coyotes hunting them in the area..........and then KAAAAPOW!, dead coyote.
 
trevj said:
Out at Ray's? Or up the patch?

Got a bunch of snow yet?

Still raining here.

Cheers
Trev
Click to expand...

Some days are just a mystery, and today was one of them Trevor.
I wanted to see what it's all about with rimfire harvest, so with the snow heavy on the branches the scoped Ruger was left out this equation, and the Toz-17 rifle with it's iron sights was used today. Which turned out to be second best, as everything taken was a mover today.
Firstly I missed out on the one and only grey adolescent(?) because nothing was chambered. Fine, then only minutes later, seen a white adult hare, shot at him, deflected by a twig. I even found it afterwards. But this one did not go far, shot it as it jumped to spring away. Head shot became a waist shot. I expected the worst, but the bullet kind of spun around its internal body cavity, mysteriously (Very thankfully!) missing the intestines and stomach! I think the nearly spent bullet just barely punched one lung before coming to stop. I think maybe it's spleen was punched, but I'm not sure. But for sure one entry wound and no exit hole from this solid nosed SK match ammunition.
Weird shot I could never repeat in a million years.
Pushed through to the green wall, and backtracked again, and did this three times before finally coming only upon one other hare.
The second adult white hare kept moving just moments before I pulled the trigger, but only moved about 3 feet at a time. Finally emptying the five round magazine, I sheepishly expected the hare to race across the nearby dirt road. Imagine my surprize as I viewed it at a whopping 4 yards from the end of my rifle! Again a shot was taken as it was in mid-spring and this rimfire bullet found its shoulder, soon followed by a quick finisher to the head. Thankfully, I chose to reload the stingy little 5 round magazine in the minus mid-teens cold, before I stepped out into the clear.

Weird day, two hares in three hours. Then headed home. Maybe I should have just brought the shotgun instead Trevor?
 
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Brutus said:
Not really true friend. Today I was out hunting, and of the three hares I did see only one of them was still grey. The two I harvested were white indeed. Just like your's here.

BTW, nice head shot ironsighter.
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Thank you, sir. I have always limited myself to head/neck shots only on hare, but my recent switch from .22LR to .22WMR has made that a necessity, rather than a choice. ;)

Best of luck to you this season. My goal between now and May is 189 hares.
 
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Brutus said:
Some days are just a mystery, and today was one of them Trevor.
I wanted to see what it's all about with rimfire harvest, so with the snow heavy on the branches the scoped Ruger was left out this equation, and the Toz-17 rifle with it's iron sights was used today. Which turned out to be second best, as everything taken was a mover today.
Firstly I missed out on the one and only grey adolescent(?) because nothing was chambered. Fine, then only minutes later, seen a white adult hare, shot at him, deflected by a twig. I even found it afterwards. But this one did not go far, shot it as it jumped to spring away. Head shot became a waist shot. I expected the worst, but the bullet kind of spun around its internal body cavity, mysteriously (Very thankfully!) missing the intestines and stomach! I think the nearly spent bullet just barely punched one lung before coming to stop. I think maybe it's spleen was punched, but I'm not sure. But for sure one entry wound and no exit hole from this solid nosed SK match ammunition.
Weird shot I could never repeat in a million years.
Pushed through to the green wall, and backtracked again, and did this three times before finally coming only upon one other hare.
The second adult white hare kept moving just moments before I pulled the trigger, but only moved about 3 feet at a time. Finally emptying the five round magazine, I sheepishly expected the hare to race across the nearby dirt road. Imagine my surprize as I viewed it at a whopping 4 yards from the end of my rifle! Again a shot was taken as it was in mid-spring and this rimfire bullet found its shoulder, soon followed by a quick finisher to the head. Thankfully, I chose to reload the stingy little 5 round magazine in the minus mid-teens cold, before I stepped out into the clear.

Weird day, two hares in three hours. Then headed home. Maybe I should have just brought the shotgun instead Trevor?
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Dunno, dude.

Some days the gods smile, other days they are more in the mood to have a laugh at your expense, eh?

That 10-22 of mine has got it's share out there, hardly bothered with the small stuff this year though.

Those standard velocity rounds performing OK on the bunnies?

Cheers
Trev
 
trevj said:
Dunno, dude.

Some days the gods smile, other days they are more in the mood to have a laugh at your expense, eh?

That 10-22 of mine has got it's share out there, hardly bothered with the small stuff this year though.

Those standard velocity rounds performing OK on the bunnies?

Cheers
Trev
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Actually yes, once you finally connect (such as myself) it kills them deader than dead, without any additional damage. One must try to confine oneself to head shots though. Just goes to show how fragile these little beasts are to even the lower power 22 rimfire. Up here in the forest it can work fine, but in our old hunting grounds south-west of Moose Jaw, no sir!
 
In the bush, I find most of them between 5 yards and 40 yards away, which is easy with .22LR. However, some of my favourite places to hunt hare is along snowed-in FSRs bordered by "Christmas tree" sized regrowth. Often I will spot one anywhere between 75 and 100 yards up the road and as we all know they usually don't stick around and wait for us to get closer when they are wide open like that. These situations were where the .22LR just wasn't enough gun (for me) with all the bullet drop and drift. I considered .17HMR, and I am sure it would be effective, however on the off chance that a predator pay me a visit I have more confidence in the .22WMR to get the job done (speaking of defense here, not poaching).

Nice to know there are some other hare hunters out there. We are few and far between.
 
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