rabbits and fire wood

When I started cutting at the farm we hardly saw rabbit track , the last 2-3 years we have been seeing a lot of rabbit sign around the brush piles

so this morning my son and I went out and shot a few we shot 2 each saw 8 total

left half as seed rabbits for next year

left 1 rabbit for my friend the farmer all cleaned

Fried bunny with biscuits n gravy!

Fried rabbit has fed many a hungry 'Mericans.
If you cut green limbs in the fall and make a brush pile, you'll have rabbits all winter. Gives them shelter and they eat the bark off the green tree limbs.

And at least one peckish Kraut. I like me some rabbit

You are uh Merican........silly......

We used to de-bone them and deep fry them after dipping in batter. Umm umm umm

My favorite wild game.

Way to go.Fun to hunt with beagles also.

My Beagle LOVES chasing rabbits for me.

Same thing here, not a bunny track to be seen until I started clearing out the woods and building brush piles.

Not as many as you but in the near future I hope.

Habitat, man, Habitat, if you ain't got good habitat it don't matter how many hawks, owls, foxes you have. Gotta give the bunnys good cover and places to hide.

beagles would be fun.

we went with the shake the brush pile method and walk the fence row

absolutely habitat is key

as Gary mentioned green is good , we don't have a ton of green this year , but the last 2 years fences were going in and the brush piles were getting very big most of those got burned so a few smaller ones were holding the rabbits today we saw the major run ways last week.

in the summer it is all pasture mix and hay around the little patch of woods.

Rabbits love tree top brush piles to eat and to shelter in.

Keith

We have 3 main brush piles for them

Trying to keep them safe for the Grandkids to hunt next year
***way to go getting 4 today

That's awesome.

I pile the apple tree limbs from pruning jobs by my wood piles. The rabbits will have them stripped bare by spring. Every once in a while you will see fur/blood where a hawk or owl got one.

I built some rabbitat at my hunting land a few years ago. I try to freshen it when I can. I did a select timber cut and had the grapple skidder push clean a 100 yard strip 15 to 20 yards wide through some low land maples. I then dug small holes and laid pallets overtop. Covering that with small brush then bigger brush. Brambles and blackberries took over the stump piles. The strip is planted in rye, food plot seeds and plain birdseed, It's a rabbit haven....Also fox, owls, hawks. I have trapped many fox here. The rabbits are taken, maybe 6 or so a year in the evening after a day of squirrel hunting. Most of my rabbits are shot from my own yard at home. I beat the buggers back every winter for cutting my raspberries and raiding my summer garden. We probably eat about 20 or so a year.

It’s amazing how easily rabbit habitat is built. Simply hinge cutting a few trees or clearing a few for firewood makes excellent habitat. That being said, the best rabbit hunting habitat around me is old junkyards. The neighbor has a couple hundred old cars out in the woods. More rabbits there than anything.

Super cool

Cool, I hunted a lot of them on snow when I was young

When I was a yougun we'd hunt a local farmers yard. He had all sort of old machinery and vehicles laying around. The area was open with lots of tall grass. When the grass died back it covered the old equipment nicely.
Had to be quick tho, one jumping on and climbing over the equipment would yeild a rabbit or two shooting out for the next nearest spot of cover. Not much time for a shot.

Back starting in 1995, i hunted and trapped an area like that in Arlington, Ohio near Brookville, Ohio on State Route 40. There was a couple of down barns, lots of scrap metal, equipment, brambles and brush. There was a decent fence around about the 2 or so acres. A lot of the scrap metal had wood attached that kept it raised off the ground. Tom, the property owner showed me that when you stomped on the metal, rabbits would run out. Once I had 6 rabbits come out from under one piece of metal. I frequently limited out there on rabbits. I had to shoot really quick and really close.

There was 1 1/2 miles of Wolf Creek on the same property. It ran super straight, with steep, deep banks. The water was really fast and mostly stayed open. It was the best place for jump shooting ducks I have ever hunted. There almost always was 2 or 3 small flocks of mallards on the creek. I would spot the mallards from very far away, look for something to mark where they were, high on the bank, walk there, flush the ducks and usually shoot two drakes on the rise.

Keith

I shot one years ago and it was literally unchewable; never shot another one since.

love rabbits to eat and hunt

Your description brought back lots of memories. I have hunted many places exactly like that here in southeast PA.

That was back before clean farming techniques, overpopulation of raptors and other factors pretty much wiped out the population in my area.

Drum roll;
4 rabbits
but did you mention how many shots ?

well the boy shot twice for 2 rabbits 1 runner and one sitting still the first of the morning. I had 2 misses both runners sort of far out

the snow had a good crust so when I went to check for blood I could see my whole pattern in the snow , which is interesting

Cottontail or Snowshoe?Our cottontails are tender,,but our Snowshoe Hares are a bit tougher.

cotton tail

never seen a snow shoe in this part of the state , unlimited bag limit on show shoe limit of 3 per person on cotton tail