Yesterday was our first attempt at Hunt to Eat and we are starving. Jackson and I decided to try and hunt rabbits. Our plan was to drive to my snake hunting areas and try our luck on a State Wildlife Area out there. As we we driving, I remembered another SWA closer so asked Jackson if he wanted to try it first. We ended up spending the entire day there (well half a day because when hunting with an 18 year old, he didn't want to leave until after 11am).
As we were driving into the parking lot, a rabbit runs down the edge of the road. Jackson saw it first and I haven't heard that sort of excitement out of him in a long time. He was ready for the hunt and this rabbit had to be a good sign of what was coming. We park and read the regulations one more time to make sure that we could hunt rabbits on this SWA that is more geared for waterfowl hunting. Good to go. We start hiking.
Rabbit sign EVERYWHERE! It had snowed the night before and that made seeing the fresh rabbit tracks pretty easy. THEY WERE LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. But no rabbits. We decided to switch tree rows. As we approach the new row of trees, Jackson spots a rabbit on the edge of a very thick patch of Russian olives in a shrub form filled with tumbleweeds. He calls out excitedly to me and I rush over. I can't see the rabbit but Jackson still had his eyes on it. It moves. I see it. The shot isn't an ethical one (way too many branches between us and the rabbit) so I tell Jackson to wait. I hand him the .22 I was carrying because we were close and told him if he can shoot the eye, to shoot. We never saw the eye as it jumped deeper into the thick and impenetrable cover. In hindsight, I should have given him the instructions to shoot any rabbit on sight because he had seen this one before it got deep into the cover. All I could think about was Brer Rabbit and his Rabbit Patch for the rest of the day.
We switch parking lots and as we are eating our lunch, Jackson yells out again. He spots a rabbit in the damn parking lot! Of course we can't shoot it here but we talk a big game about it. We take this as another sign that our luck will change. It didn't. After walking and walking with long breaks of staring into the brush where there are lots of rabbit tracks, we see nothing. No live rabbit - not a single one. They knew we were coming and hid very well. In hindsight, my decision to stop at the SWA was a bad one. It was clear that these rabbits knew to avoid humans. We are at the end of the season and they have been hunted hard all year long. These rabbits are survivors. We need to find a new spot to hunt.
So I got to spend time with my oldest (rare these days) and I walked a lot on rough and uneven ground. Those are positives. I also over exposed all the videos and photos I took yesterday’s except for the photos I used in this post. Even the rabbit one is severely overexposed but computer processing made it usable. I am taking the day as a positive because I learned something about my camera. Oh - we also saw two different pairs of Great Horned Owls. It was a good day.
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