The weather has been calm lately, and snow not too deep, so I threw together a quick plan to capitalize on the conditions. Grabbed my .22 and a pack full of gear, then headed off on a solo trip to still hunt snowshoe hare.

The lowland cedar swamps were filled with tracks- wolf, bobcat, coyote, fisher, marten, otter, porcupine, deer and of course, hares. Even found some bear sign, but it was just an old marking tree with hair in it. Man I saw some great cat sign and a few real big ones. I'm happy just reading sign and woods bumming, but sniping hares was supposed to be the mission goal, I kept reminding myself. LOL

I walked several miles, 3 to 5 steps at a time then pausing to scan 180 degrees. Must have done that 10,000 times. LOL When I encountered a good trail like this one, it was game on....




Hunting all day Saturday, I fired 4 shots and bagged 3 hares. All head shots, threading the needle at 20-30 yards in cedar/balsam thickets.

Heres a typical walk-up scene, you can see where the hare would spend his day "roosted" or bedded on this small knoll, the heat of his body creating an ice patch.....



Around sunset, I propped my phone in a tree and took this selfie.....




...then I cleaned the hares, leaving the scraps for those bobcats...



I was hungry and still quite aways back in, so I pulled out the flint and struck up a fire to roast some backstraps. Glad I did, it was delicious but I gotta bring some salt and pepper next time....



Satisfied with a good hunt the day before, on Sunday I went prospecting an all-new area, accepting that I risked getting skunked. As it turned out, I hunted for 5 hours and only found one good pocket of hares, in the center of a huge swamp. I went 2-for-3, again with off-hand headshots. I dont know how I missed that one but I think I pierced his ear, judging by the way he ran. LOL

Propped-up the phone, took this pic, cleaned the bunnies and headed home...



Hope you guys enjoyed the story.

-NC

Awesome hunt. We don’t have snowshoe hates here. I’d love to try that. Seems like an awesome time. I used to hunt Canada. After I got my deer I would spend the day searching for sheds and shooting grouse. Nothing better than a warm fire, fresh grouse and a cup of tea for lunch. Great job

Many years ago I was in a dall sheep hunting camp waiting for our extraction plane. The clients had tagged out and I was bored. Went after snowshoes with the .338! No knife work needed to remove heads!

Yeah, I saw quite a bit of grouse tracks and was thinking the same thing, but never saw a bird. I did come across two different porcupines and briefly thought about turning one into lunch, but just let them be. I wasnt that hungry, yet. LOL Good idea on the tea though, I'll have to throw some tea bags, sugar and a metal cup into my pack next time.


My .17HMR does the same thing, nothing but a small scrap of skin is left where the head used to be. Makes such a gross mess in the game bag and its overkill, thats why I use low-velocity .22 when shots are close.

-NC

Good post!

Very nice post It just goes to show that hunting is what you make of it .Something that is rather simple can still be a great adventure .

Congrats

Used to take my rabbit dogs to Northern WI & hunt Snowshoe Hares every March. The wolves got so bad up there I quit going. Sure do miss running them big white bunnies!

Dangit N.C., you are rubbing salt in my wounds! That is one of my old favorite things to do on a sunny winter day. If I can pull it off, I'll try to send an old 40+ year old picture of a pal and I back in the day.....it was taken during a camping/hare slaying trip we made in 1975. That was back when those things were so thick we were combing them out of our hair (hare?!) I believe this was the bag from 4 long days of stomping, so your average was quite a bit better than ours.
Also, we were serious about meat hunting and both carried (gasp!) 20 gauge shotguns. Oh, I'm the skinny rogue on the right.

Back when I was in high school there was an area within a half mile of my home where a large amount of pulp logging had taken place and there were brush piles left all over the place. It was infested with snowshoe hares and at first my friends and I would hunt them with .22 rifles. We would kick a pile and the hares would run out a short distance and stop thinking they were hidden. It was so easy to pick them off we resorted to using .22 handguns and if I remember correctly we took 72 bunnies out of that area that winter. It was great fun and all of us still talk about how great it was. I have never seen a concentration of them like that since and that was 55 years ago.

Let me guess, you guys each wieghed over 300 lbs when you started on Day-1, right? LOL

Hunting cedar swamps while wearing snowshoes will either make you a man of steel or kill you. Been there, done that. Thats why I watch for nice "muck boot" conditions and sieze the moment, when I can. The snow was almost to my knee in some places but generally only about 10-12 inches I guess, I didnt really dig down and measure it. You guys must have really been sore after 4 straight days!

Thanks for the old pic and thanks to everyone else for the comments.

-NC

Good post,gotta love a day hunting in the bush in winter.

I quit shooting hares many years ago. Still run beagles normally 150 miles a month if the weather cooperates. Think about that. 15 days of 10 miles a day. Just not enough hare left in the swamps. Even msu posted a study on the decline of michigan hare, dnr still hasn't changed bag limits or put a stop to the shooting white hare with no snow.

Super cool post-great pics-looked like you had fabulous day in the woods!!

love it!

Northcountry, that photo is from a December hunt. The snow was about tennis shoe depth.....6-8 inches tops. We had snowshoes along "just in case", but luckily didn't need them. Back then it would have been a lot easier for me to do it, even on snowshoes.....nowadays I'd likely just croak if I tried that.

Great story Bill makes me miss hare hunting up there. Good job on the fine tasty treats

great story thanks for sharing

I run beagles on hares also in Northern MN, and have observed the same decline you have. But, it is not hunting pressure that has caused the decline. Hardly anyone hunts them anymore, but everyone you talk to "used to hunt them back in the day, when hare were thick". Too often the first thing management agency's do is restrict hunting (or trapping) when a species declines, even though hunting has nothing to do with it. Then ignore the real cause for the decline.

I don't hunt them any more also because of the numbers aren't good. I remember seeing them all the time now it is a rare sighting.