Today was my last day of vacation and I got the dogs out for about 2 hours. I've only carried a gun a couple times this year and have only shot one rabbit on my farm ( and a couple on public land and the one at my in-laws). So I figured I should start thinning out the produce loving vermin a bit. Well the weirdest thing happened while I was waiting for the dogs to find the first rabbit of the day to chase. I was on one side of the thicket and they were on the other. Next thing I know I hear high pitched squealing so I walk around to find my male with a live rabbit in his mouth. It was injured and couldn't run so I finished it off and put it in my game pouch. I'm not sure what the heck happened, but I was thinking that was a good way to save on ammo to have the beagles just catch the rabbits. LOL! It wasn't even chewed up too badly.
The dogs had three runs, but they all ended relatively quickly in holes. The sudden change in weather from this weekend was brutal on my face. We had about an inch of fresh snow on the ground. One of the holed up rabbits must have been in a fairly shallow hole because when I caught up with the dogs, my male was digging frantically. I had to laugh though as he was digging not right at the hole opening, but just a bit away from it. He put forth good effort, but his technique needs work.
Looks like my rabbit hunting (or rather I should say productive rabbit hunting) is going to come to a screeching halt. 4-8" of snow forecast for tomorrow and then again the same on Wednesday. We'll still go out some in deep snow, but it makes it much harder to get a rabbit to show itself.
