This Week's Column

An Outdoorsman's Journal

    Red the Rabbit Dog

Hello friends,

   This week's column is like my mind, all over the map. The main theme is chasing rabbits and existing in Richland and Crawford County out of my truck, The GMC Hotel!

   Thursday, February 26th
   High 54, low 33

   With a dog named Red in the back seat and a shotgun and rifle in the front seat and ice fishing gear and a sleeping bag in the bed I headed south from Necedah, down highway 80 in search of cottontail rabbit, and maybe some ice fishing and checking out new country. In this case meant Richland Center to Ferryville "Richland and Crawford Counties.” With zero plan of where I would hunt, melting snow and the tail end of the rabbit season as well as a dog that hunts rabbits every day on my property but not at all in reality, I had an excellent plan.
   When I made it to Richland Center I headed northwest on highway 14 and then started looking for smaller roads, rabbit country and hopefully someone that was home that would give me permission to hunt.
   Knocking on doors yielded either no answer, I read your column every week in either the Richland Observer or Courier Press but I cannot give you permission and finally, yes you can hunt on my 160 acres.
  After a positive conversation with a long time reader Red and I hit the ravines and bluffs of a piece of property that looked the same as it probably did during the Civil War, in other words unchanged.
   I have a buddy down here that goes by the name of Gary Howe and he has killed some big bucks in his day and always talks about how challenging it is to pull a buck up a bluff if you drop one on the wrong side of a bluff. The next 2 days I would think of Mr. Howe's challenges, and he has many, as I attempted to walk, negotiate very greasy ridge lines with mostly melted snow, mud and most importantly briars that would and did destroy a pair of pants, the back of my hands and my neck.
   Red on the other hand had zero cares and what she did was look for rabbit as she does 24/7 when she is home and generally loose. For the most part what I observed, and it was interesting was very few rabbit tracks, and a variety of rabbit eating critter tracks, number one over two days of hunting was feral cat tracks.
   Hi my name is Tom the cat! I love eating rabbit, grouse, songbirds, squirrels etc. and just as importantly looking for Mrs. Tom to make more Feral cats with.
   Folks this may seem harsh but if you hunted rabbit and there is snow, you would realize that unless there is very fresh snow, Mr. Tom or Mrs. Tom beat you to your quarry.
   I did notice an absolute ton of deer sign and to me it was like how many whitetail deer can an area handle, especially with a new fawn crop just 60 days away?
   Before I forget, that darn Red flushed a rabbit and believe it or not I got it with one shot. If you could ever see a genuine smile on a dogs face it was when she was carrying it around.
   After dark I headed to Ferryville hoping for some good chow and a beer with a plan of sleeping in The GMC Hotel at the boat landing, both goals were met when I went into The Wooden Nickel and filled a very empty belly.
   The next morning I had a good chat with a couple of fellas putting in their air boat for a day of fishing and also witnessed a guide launching his rig and loading up a crew of eager fishermen.
   The landing "ice" was toast and not safe for foot or atv and as I have been told many times. the big rigs "large air boats" take out the ice when it is either not thick enough or weak. Friends, I am not getting on the owners of the big rigs but everyone knows the weight and power take out thin/weak ice.
   Last winter I was camping on the ice near Trempealeau, it was warm and a big rig went by my camp, I noticed a literal wave under the ice that made the ice roll. Later in the day the same air boat came by and this time the wave was very powerful. Not one minute later I fell through, I headed back to camp as I was messing with a tip up and fell through the ice again. Though I wrote about falling through the ice I never mentioned what I just wrote.
   The folks that run the big air boats are for the most part very good people but in reality, their rigs can and sometimes cause ice to become less safe than it was at launches and on the lakes and rivers. Not trying to cause a problem but what I just wrote has no simple fix.
   Back to the rabbit hunt, I found a piece of public land today that was south of Ferryville loaded with deer and some rabbit. Zero rabbit whacking today but I think I have to make an adventure down to Crawford County, hopefully not sleep in The GMC Hotel and put an arrow in a deer next fall.

   Take the back roads, go slow, enjoy the ride!

   Sunset