Me and my buddy got out for some bunny blasting yesterday. We went to a spot where we had seen a ton of jackrabbits while coyote hunting earlier in the year.
First half of the day, we got into the jacks plenty thick. We were having a ball, walking around in the sage brush with our .22 rimfires. The rabbits were quite plentiful and we were getting all the shooting we wanted.
But after a lunch break, just for grins, we decided to see how far up the road we could get in the Jeep (snow and mud, even with both axles locked, got the Jeep stuck twice in 1 mile, winch to the rescue, too much fun!). A couple miles further up this two track, we were seeing quite a few jacks, so we stopped and went for a walk with the rifles.
Well, shortly after leaving the Jeep, by buddy Tim points to a couple of cottonwood trees about a mile away that we could see five Golden eagles roosted in. There were other similar stands of cottonwood in the valley, but no eagles in the others. Tim commented that there must be a lot of bunnies up by those trees, if that's where the eagles were hanging out. So we hiked up there. Holy CRAP!!!! When we got up to the area right around those cottonwoods, we started seeing jackrabbits in numbers that I have rarely seen in my life. I mean there were so many, it was just unbelievable!! At any given time, we could see dozens of them within less than a hundred yards. There were so many, shooting them seemed too easy, and we started taking only running shots. At one particular point, where we had kind of pushed them out of a finger of sage brush into some open bare snow covered ground around a spring, we could see HUNDREDS of jackrabbits all in one little spot. The ground was just seething with them. There were so many, that both of us didn't even bother to shoot. We just stood there babbling to each other about how unreal it was to see something like that.
Needless to say, we had a really good day of jackrabbit hunting! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Seriously though, I have seen some heavy, heavy concentrations of jackrabbits in my day. Going all the way back to Mud Lake, Idaho back in the late '70s. But this was right up there with the thickest I have ever seen them in my life. Absolutely unreal.
- DAA
First half of the day, we got into the jacks plenty thick. We were having a ball, walking around in the sage brush with our .22 rimfires. The rabbits were quite plentiful and we were getting all the shooting we wanted.
But after a lunch break, just for grins, we decided to see how far up the road we could get in the Jeep (snow and mud, even with both axles locked, got the Jeep stuck twice in 1 mile, winch to the rescue, too much fun!). A couple miles further up this two track, we were seeing quite a few jacks, so we stopped and went for a walk with the rifles.
Well, shortly after leaving the Jeep, by buddy Tim points to a couple of cottonwood trees about a mile away that we could see five Golden eagles roosted in. There were other similar stands of cottonwood in the valley, but no eagles in the others. Tim commented that there must be a lot of bunnies up by those trees, if that's where the eagles were hanging out. So we hiked up there. Holy CRAP!!!! When we got up to the area right around those cottonwoods, we started seeing jackrabbits in numbers that I have rarely seen in my life. I mean there were so many, it was just unbelievable!! At any given time, we could see dozens of them within less than a hundred yards. There were so many, shooting them seemed too easy, and we started taking only running shots. At one particular point, where we had kind of pushed them out of a finger of sage brush into some open bare snow covered ground around a spring, we could see HUNDREDS of jackrabbits all in one little spot. The ground was just seething with them. There were so many, that both of us didn't even bother to shoot. We just stood there babbling to each other about how unreal it was to see something like that.
Needless to say, we had a really good day of jackrabbit hunting! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Seriously though, I have seen some heavy, heavy concentrations of jackrabbits in my day. Going all the way back to Mud Lake, Idaho back in the late '70s. But this was right up there with the thickest I have ever seen them in my life. Absolutely unreal.
- DAA