Who hunts rabbits without dogs???

I've only hunted with dogs a few times. It was great, but me and my friends and family just walk through the brush/briar piles. Usually do pretty good. My best trip last year, me and two friends limited out at 15 rabbits in a few hours. It was a lot of walking but it sure was a blast.
 
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Like others have said if you can walk up that many rabbits the area must be loaded. If you had dogs it would be awesome. Some areas rabbits also seem to be more bold then in CA. Maybe its because we have so many predators here but you only see 1 rabbit out of maybe 50 sitting in an open area.You could walk for days and never see one. Go to the same spot with a dog and they get lots of rabbits moving. You can drive miles in areas with good rabbit population and not see 1 at night. They are only in the thickest and nastiest briars and they will let the dogs be within a few feet before they will step out into the open for a shot. The shotgun is the best way to go since 9 times out of 10 the rabbit is running and not going to stop.

The rifle gets you less shots but more of a challenge and a fun change. I like to send the dog into a gully and wait ontop ready to snipe them with a .22 and now my new 17hm2.When standing ontop looking to the other side of the gully you want that side to be within the effective range of your gun because most the time the rabbit is going to go that way.

Half the rabbits I get you can't see the rabbit anymore cuz it just ran behind a bush. Or only can see a small part of the rabbit like an ear over the bush. If you are waiting for a rabbit to give you an exposed shot your not going to get much. You have to visualize where that rabbit is and shoot into the brush. Be careful spraying the bushes your not shooting a dog or some other animal in the brush.

Over all hunting without dogs sucks in my area. With a beagle you see alot. Hunting all alone is really hard, a few friends can help get things moving.

Beagling is just as much fun as a full game bag. I love beagles and would never go back to rabbit hunting without them. Not all beagles will retrieve downed game but mine does. I'd probably not find 50%-75% of dead rabbits and birds without the dog.
 
After deer season I move my blind behind the house and head shoot them with my 17hmr when they come out in the evening to feed. Shoot them, clean them, and the wife has them in the skillet before they stop twitching.
 
The reason we have so many rabbits at my grandpas farm is bc we never kill them all. We always leave atleast two or three that we know of for seed and dont hunt it again until the following year or year after. Im sure there are probably more left than what we think but in the picture I posted earlier on in this thread we was one rabbit away from our limit and could of easily got it if we would of stayed another five minutes. 17 of 18 aint bad for 2 1/2 hours of hunting. If we would ever get any snow well be back after them but the way our weather is looking it maybe a ways off. Still fifty degrees towards the end of December. I WANT SNOW!!!!!!!!!!
 
I have done quite a bit without my beagle, he isnt the healthiest hound out there, or the most obedient so at times he has to stay home.

Ill use various guns, my favorite is a contender with a 10" .45/.410 barrel on it.

Alot of times rabbits wont run too far, especially if they havent been shot at, they will try and hide, if you watch them, youll see wehre they go and get a better shot, or at least be ready, so if i jump one I usually will wait to kick him out again, makes it a bit easier when you dont have a dog.

Good luck

Dave
 
Brush busting is the only way to go. Our best day we got 70 just kicking brush. That was a very special place with repeat performances every year. Too bad we lost it to some developers last year. Although i have rabbit hunted with dogs, we just have more fun kicking them out ourselves.
 
we hunt old farms around barns and fence rows o;d crop rows between woods and field and any where there is a brush pile kick it a few times good luck
 
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we went out yesterday to bust some brush. we kicked out 12 jacks in about a hour. it was just me and my younger brother. i hunt with an ar and him with a shotgun.
 
That's the way me and my buddy always do it, and we usually do pretty good. We'll just stay about 20 yards apart and kick briars and brush piles looking for them, we always use shotguns though. There typically isn't enough time to aim with a rifle before they are around a corner or in another brush pile. In one morning we can usually get 2 or 3 a piece just doing it like that, and I think it can be alot more exciting when one comes flyin out of the bush 5 feet from you and you gotta pull up quick and shoot it, although I do love hunting them with dogs whenever I have the opportunity.
 
I never felt handicapped because I didn't use a dog. We don't get as many as some who do, but the only time I went with someone who had a dog, I wished he had left him at home. Im sure it would have been different if the dog had been better trained though.

I like the simplicity of rabbit hunting without dogs, and I need the excersize
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Yesterday I drove over to a p-dog area on a ranch I shoot on that was poisoned by the state for 3 yrs in a row & I have not been to in 1.5 yrs, guess what took over the holes....cottontails....100s of them, nice & fat also.
Im going back out on the 1st to fill my freezer.
This reminds me to ALWAYS take my 22lr with me!
 
For us, dogs are part of the equation! I still remember the first time my young dog opened up on a September bunny and brought it around in a small circle. From there, I've worked them thousands of hours for conditioning and training. Here's one after working some rough terrain, which he kept pounding for another 3-4 hours:

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Here's me and my old boy heading to a field trial at 2 in the morning; male bonding at its best!

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Ultimately, all the training and conditioning leads to memories like this:

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Originally Posted By: zillaWhy would I use my dog? He just chases the rabbits off.. I have never hunted rabbits with a dog..

If you have never hunted rabbits with a good pack of beagles then you are missing out on a great experience. Rabbits can be stomped out of the brush, but it isn't really the same. Sort of like quail hunting without dogs.
 
All I've ever hunted with dogs is coons and birds. All the rabbit hunting I've done has been without dogs. Took a German guy bird hunting with us one time and he shot a rabbit for my E. Pointer! I about had heart failure! It was a completely finished 2X Amer Fld Ch. Ya don't kill rabbits for pointing dogs out here!

I am getting back into small game this year and I won't shoot any rabbits for my Setter's either!
 
Tyler15,
Later this winter I plan to strap on my snowshoes and try stalking hare with my rimfire rifle. I understand that the trick is to kind of "still hunt" them, slowly walking through the thick stuff where you find plenty of tracks. Stopping often to crouch down and look carefully under the low evergreen branches. Sometimes, after some practice, you'll be able to make out their little black eyes before you realize that there's a hare there! Binocs might help with this. Sounds like it takes some practice and a lot of patients but that it's great practice for still hunting whitails. When I was a kid in northern Maine I spent quite alot of time on showshoes with my SS 22 but I didn't have the patients to slow down and really take my time scanning the area before moving on; and there where rabbit tracks all over the place in the cedar swamp that I tromped through! I'll bet I slushed right past dozens of them while they silently froze, waiting for me to pass by!
I'm recovering from an elbow surgery with an ailment that kept me from deer hunting this year, I hope that by mid-February I'll be able to go give this a try; I'm a bit more patient for this style of hunting now that I'm 40 years older than when I last tried this. Snowshoe hare are good eating too!
 
I do but its because my dogs have all died off. It's fun but it's not the same as listening to them hounds sounding off and then seeing that white speck, (snowshoe hares), come blasting through the under brush. I've got a new beagle puppy on the way though.

Not to start anything but in my mind it is too easy without the beagles. My friend and I went out without dogs using ruger 10/22 and got our limit of hares (8), in like maybe 3 hours, it felt like a slaughter more than a hunt. All shots were sitting shots, they wouldn't run they would just sit there and let us walk up on them. It really was not that fun at all, kind of like shooting soda cans. I'd rather be shooting them running in front of a beagle, but that just me, everyone has their own taste.
 
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