Ice and snow leads to good rabbit hunting conditions

Sunday, February 11, 2007

With the snow and ice covering the ground and even putting a boat in the lake is dangerous, Carl Morrison, Harrisonville, decided to forget fishing and take advantage of the winter weather and go rabbit hunting since he isn't a football fan and didn't mind missing the Super Bowl.

"Although the population of cottontails is down, I know several spots that still have a huntable population of rabbits and I have always liked to hunt them with snow on the ground," he said.

Back when Morrison was in high school, he spent a lot of time in the winter hunting rabbits and had no problem finding them. "Times have changed," he said. "Back then it wasn't anything to walk out backdoor armed with a .22 rifle and a box of long rifle shells and be back to the house in less than two hours with all the rabbits we could carry. Although it's not that way today there are places where the rabbits are doing fine."

Last week, Morrison and son Jim, hit a spot in Cass County where they found good hunting. "We hadn't stepped 10 yards from the truck when a rabbit jumped out of some cover and then made a big mistake. It stopped and Jim shot the first cottontail of the day. With all the tracks in the snow it looked like a hundred rabbits had been hopping around the field. Experience has taught me that seeing a lot of tracks doesn't mean there are tons of rabbits in the area. One rabbit can make lots of tracks while searching for food and cover."

Before the hunt was over, both hunters had taken four rabbits each and even flushed two coveys of quail.

"This place used to be a real quail hotspot, but we have seen their numbers drop over the past several years so it was great to see two coveys within 40 acres," Morrison said.

Hearing the rabbit hunting story from Morrison, I recalled how good the hunting was when I was in school. Back then there was no closed season and no limit on rabbits. They were so thick that nobody local thought they wouldn't always be plenty of rabbits and maybe even too many.

However, the county conservation agent, John Madden (no relation to the football John Madden), said there needed to be a closed season and a daily limit of 10 rabbits. Most hunters thought he was wrong, but time has shown differently.

There was an old mill in town where the owner would buy rabbits for shipment to Chicago. Several of my friends and I would make spending money by selling the rabbits to the mill owner. It wasn't anything to bring several dozen rabbits to the mill each week.

We would look forward to snow so we could see the rabbits more easily and use our single shot 22s to get the rabbits. A shotgun shell would cut down on the money we could make and we preferred the rifle anyway.

Having a good dog helped us get rabbits with or without snow. The dogs would push the rabbits to a brushpile where the rabbits would make it easy to find them. The hard part was getting them out of the brush.

We never thought we would see the day when there would be more deer than rabbits in Missouri. There seemed to be an endless supply of cottontails and very few deer back then.

Although both the numbers of rabbits and rabbit hunters are down from those "good ole days," there are spots where the hunting is still good, especially for the hardy hunters like Morrison and son who take advantage of the snowy winter weather.

Morrison said, "I have put line on all my reels, cleaned out tackle boxes and checked all my lures several times this winter so it felt good to get outside for a rabbit hunt. It's less than a month before the trout parks open so good fishing is just around the corner and I'm ready."

The rabbit season runs through Feb. 15.

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