COTTONTAILS
 

No quail left so the best small game hunting now is rabbit. But we don't know how long that will last with idiots proposing that one can't run dogs (all breeds) unless you have 1000 acres. Hunting with a cousin and his grandson it is usually an all Parker day (unless I change). We killed five in a half day Saturday; all we feel like hunting in our advanced days but we had chases all the time in the worst thicket you have ever seen. My cousin skins them as they are killed so one is being skinned in the first photo of three and finally two came to me after the first three killed by them. Parkers went 5 for 6, a good average.
Top to bottom: 12 Trojan, 16 DHE, 20 Trojan. All with open chokes in the right barrel. 2nd photo my two with the cylinder choke of the DHE 16,

One really has to rethink gun mount when moving from flushing quail to bounding rabbits. I don't shoot at rabbits enough to be any good at it. Looks like you guys did yourselves proud. Do you fry them at the truck as guys in the Ozarks do?

Thanks for posting. It's a snowy day here in North Missouri, and our rabbit season runs to the middle of February. You've given me some inspiration!

Garry,

No we soak them in salt water before cooking so not at the truck. My cousin who owns the dogs started skinning them as they were killed so one does not have to do it when he gets home. The plastic bags from retailers are good for something. I wear gloves so I don't get bloody and I still have a fear of disease from them for I have known a person who got "rabbit fever" and spent time in the hospital very sick.

My Father always warned us not to shoot at rabbits as it would give the dogs bad habits.

My only rabbit hunting experience was opening weekend 1972 in Southern California where the Naval Infantry provided us swabbies with a wonderful hunting preserve (aka Camp Pendleton). We were allowed eight per day but the three of us didn't want to be game hogs and only took 68. One of the guys had struck a deal with the Philippine Stewards at Miramar Naval Air Station. We took eight and sold them 60. I've always wondered if they ate the rabbits themselves or fed them to the officers.

I remember my first cottontail from my 12th birthday in January of 1960.
Here is an excerpt from my yet-unpublished book.

I have rarely hunted rabbits exclusively, most often they have been a nice addition to the game bag when hunting pheasants, grouse and woodcock. And, as Dave says, never have I shot at a rabbit while hunting with a dog. It really can spoil a good bird dog, nevermind how dangerous it can be for the dog. My cousin in Ohio shot his own dog while rabbit hunting. He saw it streaking through the tall grass and thinking it was the rabbit, he fired, critically wounding it. I can’t even imagine how terrible it must have been for him to administer that second shot relieving him of the pain and agony...


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The only dogs that a rabbit should be shot in front of are beagles. My dad always kept them and I have spent many cold, frosty mornings afield listening to hounds chasing them thru the river bottoms and fields of the South.

Over the last year, having lost all of his older dogs, my cousin has put together the most motley looking pack of five beagles one could ever see. No uniformity of size or color; voices that go from a hound to a squeal. There is Tiny with her high pitch, and Ruby and G.P. named after his parents. But we have been into lots of rabbits lately, jumping twelve in one day and this had made them into a great pack.

On the other hand my wife worked for a "Beagler." With a pack of thirty dogs all the same size, the same speed, the same coloring, and the same voices. No rabbits are killed as a group of like minded folks follow the hunt master. Dogs that don't fit in are culled. I've got one given to me when I wanted a lone rabbit dog to hunt with. I could never catch the fool and he barks at me constantly to this day. He now sleeps all day in our bed and my wife won't let him out of the house for fear he will run off. Worthless to me but she loves him (it now).

On shooting rabbits in front of bird (quail) dogs, we all did it. It probably goes back to the depression and trying to survive. It never seemed to affect the dogs, and often they would track down a wounded rabbit you hit and bring him back to hand. They stood rabbits in the bed just like it was a bob white.

Nice assortment of rabbit guns Jerry.

Beagles are the dog for the job Reggie.

I cut my hunting teeth on rabbits behind beagles using a Savage 311 which I still have to this day. Every once in a while the dogs would flush quail. Talk about a rabbit hole involving SxS's and birds. We used to hunt where now sits BWI international airport. Now, if you showed up in that area with a shotgun the swat team would be on top of you. I'm not a big fan of progress.

I find it funny how people think about dogs. Growing up my uncles had "treeing hounds". They primarily hunted squirrels during the day and opossum at night because raccoons were supposedly scarce in the day. Well the coonhunters swore that hunting squirrels with coonhounds would ruin a good coon hound. And the foxhunters who ran dogs at night claimed that hunting rabbits with foxhounds would ruin a good fox hound.

I always kind of thought that a good treeing dog would tree anything and a good running dog could "run" anything and a good pointing dog would point anything (preferably flying things).

When I was a kid, and growing up without a living grandfather, we "adopted" and older former Texas League ball player and then trapper by the name of Wilbur Davis as a stand in. He was a noted coon hunter in the area (peninsular Virginia), and my brother and I loved his coon hounds. I especially loved "Stupid," a black and tan variant of some sort. Stupid would go squirrel hunting with me all the time. I remember Wilbur lamenting to my mother, "Miz Gawden, that boy done ruint my dawg!" I always saw his wink to her when he said this. At his death, his wife said he wanted me to have Stupid. We had no place to keep him where we lived, and so I had to turn him down. I still think about that every now and then.

I won't let my dogs chase rabbits, but if they point them on a slow day (and we have many in 21st Century Missouri), I just tell them "bunny!" and they know not to chase. If I would shoot rabbits over my dogs, and if I could shoot bucks over their points (not to mention turkeys), I'd be eating rabbit stew at every meal, and would be in the Boone and Crockett record book several times over.

Sorry to ramble, but Jerry's bunny hunt got me to thinking. Thanks, Jerry!

Our bird dogs would point rabbits but would never chase them at all. Even if you killed one in front of them. They seemed indifferent to them, and we did not kill that many. But my uncles each had a setter, two from the same litter, and cats were a different story. One would chase the cat while the other lay in wait for the kill.

I grew up learning to hunt and be responsible by hunting rabbits. The man wore a faded red leather cap and a red tie afield. He kept a pack of beagles chained to dog boxes in the back yard they ate Purina dog chow and table scraps from a bucket that was kept right in the kitchen. You didn't start till 9:00am exactly on opening day typically the last Saturday in October. The man would put me on post between two briar thickets and make sure you had 5 .410 shells. It was made clear you were to stay there until you were called. And not shoot anywhere near the dogs. And away would walk the man in the red hat never a single look back. Jumping Dog was often first strike and Blackie would lay them out and keep them moving. Many days a limit was the reward for staying put. When we walked a field the man in the red cap taught me to walk a zig zag, because you miss a lot of them walking a straight line.
Today 50 plus years latter, I still walk a zig zag across the man in the red cap's ground, though now mostly when teaching a birddog pup to quarter or remind an older dog we don't want to miss anything.

Speaking with experience on the subject of not "spoiling" a good bird dog, my 3 year old Griffon (Werden) will transition from pointing a bird one moment to pointing a cottontail 25' away the next. My 1 year old Griffon (Parker) has been hunting with us the tail end of this season and is following suit. They will both hold a staunch point even once I spook the rabbit and shoot. I must say I did not intentionally try to train them on this. Our bird cover in CT often has many more rabbits than birds.

yes...beagle and rabbits go to gether like mustard on a hot dog...lots of memorys chasing rabbits through cotton patches....thanks jerry.....charlie

We went Friday 1-29 in a twenty mph north wind and well below freezing chill factor. Dogs had a tough time running. I took the first double I ever had, a Davidson import from Spain. I never could kill anything with it, especially doves. It was a 20 and supposed to be IC & Mod. Well the reason was for a kid who was slow on the trigger cylinder and light mod meant the game was out of range most of the time. But once I found out the chokes fifty-five years later, it is ideal for rabbits, so I take it once or more a year now. It was my prized possession at Christmas 1966, so I still cherish it even though it is not worth much. Also a picture of Patrick, my cousin's grandson with the Parker I gave him. I convinced him he did not need an 12 ga 3.5" auto to kill game, and the IC choke made him a much better shot. We only got three, one apiece, in five and a half hours of continuous walking while freezing. Isn't hunting fun?

way to go jerry a man cannot kill a bunny staying in the house...I need to take my own advice...charlie

I grew up with setters and beagles and we hunted them separately. If we were out with the setters, no rabbits were ever shot or shot at. Squirrels either. Only grouse, woodcock or pheasants.

When we were out with a beagle, we would shoot at the rabbits that were chased by us and any other small game that we encountered. Back in those days there were pheasants that were released by the State and our beagles would run them just like rabbits. Once we knew the dog was on a pheasant, someone would have to run ahead along the hedgerow or wherever the bird was running to try and get ahead of it. Lots of fun. Many times I saw the beagle rush into a likely grouse or woodcock thicket and flush a bird. We always shot at them in that scenario.

I no longer have beagles but I encounter rabbits these days with my setter. If I suspect he is scenting one, or a squirrel, I give the command "Nevermind!" and he seems to understand.