Good year for rabbits

[JackRabbit]

I believe it's gonna be a good year for rabbits as they are all over.every where you go around here, every where you look rabbits.cotton tails and jack rabbits.i don't think i've ever saw so many.should be a blast this winter.;)

[wrenchman]

I have never got a jack how do they compair to snow shoes in size.
I have shot cottons and snows

[GoodOlBoy]

We have very few jacks in east Texas (mostly they are out west) but we have LOADS of cottontails and swamp rabbits.

I have to agree I have seen more rabbits running down the side of the roads this year than I have in the last five years combined.

GoodOlBoy

[Lilred]

Dern straight it's been a good year fer em..I got rabbits tormentin my dogs to death here in the yard..my dogs'll be busy as all git out this winter ;)

[JackRabbit]

Hi there,wrenchman.The jack rabbits we have around here are european hares and they are quite large and quite fast to.Fun to shoot as well.The last couple of years have been awesome,and so far this spring I'm seeing lots all over.;) Ken

[JackRabbit]

How many cottontails are you allowed in central Va.each day. I like cottontail best, but jacks are good eatin to.We are allowed 6 cottontails and 6 jacks a day. ;) Ken.

[GoodOlBoy]

I dunno about Va. but in Texas the limit is as many as you can pack a day. IE the bigger truck ya bring the more you can shoot. . . . And we have no closed season on rabbit.

GoodOlBoy

[JackRabbit]

no lmit,wow!must be a ton of rabbits in texas.they must breed year round I guess. Is there a best time of year when they taste best or do you hunt em any time you want.Here the cottontails will breed as long as it's warm.The jacks are ready all the time.;)

[Lilred]

Without checkin the regs..I think it's 6 a day..aint no jack rabbits here..just fat lil cottontails. Our season runs from 1st week in Nov till 3rd week in Feb. Plenty of time ta git the dogs some runnin in ...:D

[GoodOlBoy]

There were a ton of them until the fireants set in on them several years back. If you consider that total we have less than a month of truely cold weather a year you will understand why we have so many rabbits and squirrels. We have a tremendously long growing season as well.

GoodOlBoy

[JackRabbit]

our jack population was very low for many years until the banning of certain pestcides.then sudenly they are everywhere.cottontails also exploded.wish i had a good rabbit dog,i use to and it sure is fun.but it's not hard limiting out without one and it's great exersise to.and our season goes from nov.1 until feb.28-29 always best once snow falls.

[drummer]

In the U.S. ,I noticed a lack of interst in rabbit hunting west of the Mississippi River.When I was in OK talking to a biologist,he told me that despite a plethora of cottontails,few OK residents hunted them.He marvelled at the alacrity of the southeasterners from TN and Miss that run rabbits with beagles.Most Okies I know seem to regard rabbits as nuisance to their bird hunting.I have a friend in Gonzales, TX that didn't seem to grasp the concept of rabbit as the primary, intended target. I'm a true Kentuckian and I love my rabbit hunting,but I don't like to eat them like I used to.

[GoodOlBoy]

I was talking with my grandfather awhile back and he told me that several decades back(He was not sure if it was 50 or 60 years ago) oklahoma had quite a rabbit problem. The okies used dogs and horses to run the rabbits up against a long 2x4 wire fence they had erected and blasted them with shotguns until they were all dead. My grandfather (having missed more than a few meals growing up in the era he did) was more than a little pissed off when he heard about it weeks after it happened.

We use to rabbit hunt here when I was a kid, problem is fire ants just about wiped them out. Now if I see a rabbit and its the right time of year he goes in the pot, but I don't purposefully just hunt them like I do squirrels.

GoodOlBoy

[drummer]

I'll bet you that if you look real hard, you'll find subtle changes in the overall cover of the landscape since you were a kid.I'd also wager a small sum that those changes have adversely impacted rabbits and quail in your area.
I'm no expert on that part of the world:the furthest I've been is Clarkesville.

[GoodOlBoy]

Don't have to be an expert to see times changing there buddy, and you can bet yer behind you are right. I remember a time when you couldn't walk across a cow pasture without flushing quail, dove, and rabbit. Nowadays it is an oddity to see them in East Texas. Back then almost all the pasture lands were surrounded by lowland hardwoods, or upland hardwoods and pine. Now the earth is being scraped bare around here. People keep wondering why the ground won't hold moisture, and why it is so much hotter than when I was a kid. I try to tell them that it is in great deal due to a lack of trees and shade, but they look at me like I have a thrid eyeball. There are places here now where you can see for over a mile across open pasture that was once edged in oaks you couldn't reach around with several buddies. They cut them down so they can get four more rolls of hay from the property. . . . .

GoodOlBoy

[drummer]

I try not to dwell on the negative, but since I like to chase the birds and bunnies,I can't help it.
Driving south from Texarkana, I saw a lot of clean fencerows,and I haven't found a rabbit yet that can can thrive in a clean fencerow.:(

[GoodOlBoy]

Yep. They clean them off, and now the highway department drives up and down the roads in the "wilderness areas" spraying chemicals to kill out any grass or foliage that "might" cause a problem later. Of course this causes us to have massive grass fires on the sides of the road every summer, but the state believes that to be an unrelated matter. IE we have a few idiots in the house and senate making these decisions when Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas A&M, UT, Baylor, and any number of other sources are telling them it is the wrong thing to do.

Anyway off of my soapbox. . . .. or I would be if we could get some people with common sense to make the decisions in this state.

GoodOlBoy

[drummer]

For what it's worth I agree.Legislature and (gulp) courts should not be involved with wildlife issues, because they invariably screw up.Leave it to those of us who know what we're doing (well, most of the time.):rolleyes:

[GoodOlBoy]

Yup. Like you said I hate to keep dwelling on the negative, but there danged sure is alot of negative out there when it comes to hunting.

Wildlife Managment - yet another Oxymoron

GoodOlBoy

[Nulle]

Western SD has tons of rabbits this year and they must be at the peak. Jacks have been high the last two years and now the cottontails are all over. Like was said before these little buggers are driving my dogs nuts coming up to the kennels ect.
Very little if any hunting on these and fox numbers down to 0 yet.

[drummer]

Landowners west of the Miss. River might be surprised at the business they would get from easterners that love to rabbit hunt.If I owned a big chunk of property out west, I would advertise heavily in the southeastern U.S. the phenomenal rabbit hunting to be had.I'm serious.