Well, lets just say we’ve had better days…a lot better. It started out with a bang and went downhill from there.

We stopped on this foggy morning on the top of a hill just outside of the bird hunters property on a piece of Cuz’s Boy’s lease. The fence that surrounds the bird hunters property looks like hog wire topped with a couple of rows of barbed wire.
The bird hunters property is, of course, managed for birds. Rabbits don’t have a low spot on the priority list. They don’t even rank. The land has been on a downward cycle with each year a little worse than the year before. This year all the “back yard” where we were allowed to rabbit hunt was thinned and prepared for the usual release and shoot that has come to be the standard for Quail. There is no longer any rabbit habitat on the property where they can hide from the coyotes and the hawks. The raptors have made a big come back. Now we use the property as a staging area, to hunt just over the property line

We, as in Rye, Cuz, Plunker and myself, Rimfire, must have parked on top of the first rabbit because the “girls” didn’t even have time to take their customary morning dump before they were off and running.
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Not that djmed missed much. Now back to our hunt.

Rye looked a little determined this morning, moving deliberately through the fog enshrouded planted pines to where he thought he could intercept the rabbit. Rye had been on a mini dry spell. Not shooting, just not seeing which can almost be as depressing, especially if the last time you saw one was a miss.

The rabbit raced into a bottom from where we could hear the steady hum of traffic on the paved road. I get a little nervous since a logging truck, heck, even a car can play havoc with your pack.
I thought I was in a pretty good position, but Rye was in a better one. The Browning Sweet 16 barked once. I wonder how he got the rabbit to stop so he could shoot him?

The combined pack did a lot of cold trailing before Plunker started calling for the dogs. He said that Rye or myself must have kicked the rabbit out of his hidey spot since it ran past him before he could react giving him just a glimpse.

The way that bunny ran had us all betting on a big buck rabbit.
He cut the corner of the bird hunters property, going through the fence. Brag had to help the dogs through. Well, all except tiny Mystery who fit through one of the squares. The rabbit then ran into a bottom and along the length of it while Cuz and I waited for him to turn up the hill. He never did. Instead he turned and ran straight back the way he came and through the fence again. This time most of the dogs found a way through.
Brag and I waited just inside the woodline. The rabbit headed back to the fence, but this time it was a fake. He cut back across the hill in front of Brag, a fatal mistake for the little bitty sage'r

The REST of the day was spent walking four different areas. The dogs quit hunting as the temperatures got into the mid 70’s and even the human hunters couldn’t jump a rabbit for them to run.
We finally gave it up and started making plans for Saturday’s hunt. There’s four more hunts in this season. Saturday, Sunday, rest on Monday, hunt Tuesday and Wednesday, the last day of the season. I won’t be hunting on Sunday, so I have only three hunts left.
The girls had better enjoy themselves because they won’t be out of the pen again for two months since they can’t be ran during turkey season.
That’s ok. It’ll give me time to decompress and get a little fishing in before the preseason exercises start for the Rabbit Journal 07-08

Final score
We got 2
Rye 1
Brag 1