Rabbits

Are their rabbits..?

Holy crap man, what part of AB you in? If you are anywhere South of Calgary there are lots of White Tailed Jackrabbits, and plenty of cottontails in the coulee draws long the bigger rivers. If you are in the parkland, mountain or boreal areas there should be snowshoe hares around; this winter has many more than last (at least in the Rimby area).

Get out after a fresh snow and track them little buggers down. BTW, don't let anyone tell you those Jacks do not taste good, they are great and have enough meat on them to feed a family of four! Damn good!

Happy hunting,
Ian
 
I live near Sundre and set my snares along the FLUZ to the west of town. Haven't lost any to coyotes yet but when I was in Fort McMurray there was a wolf that would follow my snare line before I did every morning and pull the hares out of the snares. I'd pick up and move my line, but he'd find it again a few days later. He ended up getting about 1 out of every 4 rabbits I caught.

One way I get them is to make a 6 foot diameter corral of sticks in the snow with about 5 to 6 openings left in the corral. I set the snares in the openings and bait the center of the corral with apples. Normally will pick up 5 to 6 rabbits from the same corral over a space of 3 days.
 
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This is all great to hear !

As for the corral deal. You're just making a corral on a good trail and snare it out? Sounds deadly.

Get any grouse or anything in the snares?

How many snears are you setting out.
I remember back home litttle spots of woods that would have enough wire set in them to make a sattelite dish.

I usually put out about 30-50 in the one area. It's just a fun outdoor bit of fun for me, so I find that's plenty. (back home that is, up here I guess i'll find out)
 
around here rabbit population realy changes year to year.last year there was the most rabbits I have ever seen around.I saw 23 at one time when I came over a hill at night.they were every were.but this year I just see a few around.anyone know why this is?I always thought winters but last winter was realy mild and there was lots of food this summer.
 
When I was kid in Manitoba, we hunted rabbits and sold them to a mink rancher, whole and frozen. All we had to do was pop them and keep the frozen until we had a truckload. And we shot hundreds. I think they were at the top of the cycle when we started, we walked/hunted the same couple miles of bush road year after year and there were always plenty.

When we got older, we became pre-occupied with , well, things that pre-occupy teenage boys.;) We stopped going out regularly. When we did return, we found the population dwindled, and those we did shoot were infested around the eyes and ears with huge ticks. I often wondered if when we were keeping the population under control, the ticks couldn't get a foothold. When we stopped, perhaps the ticks were able to spread?

Anybody else see this happen?
 
Snowshoe hare populations run in predictable cycles, don't they? I don't know about Alberta but in northern Ontario we have Lynx that do very well when the hares are plentiful.
 
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