specialk
Twelve Pointer
had a rabbit go straight run from the jump 440 yds before turning yesterday according to the garmin......if I hadn't seen the rabbit I'd of swore it was some off game.....
specialk, that what you call "hauling !"had a rabbit go straight run from the jump 440 yds before turning yesterday according to the garmin......if I hadn't seen the rabbit I'd of swore it was some off game.....
We may be seeing an evolutionary change in the way rabbits run when jumped. Blame it on feral dogs/cats, coyotes and hawks/owls and timber practices.
Think back to the days when we had plenty of small game [if you are old enough], we also had lots of fox and some hawks/owls but there were very few compared to the numbers we have now due to everyone having a gun in every vehicle used for shooting every "chicken hawk"that was seen while driving. Most folks had chickens and also hunted small game for food and any hawk seen was in danger. Rabbits could run circles and be OK.
Nowadays, birds of prey are off limits and they take huge numbers of small game. And due in part to timber practices, they can watch and fly up and down rows of mature pines easily. Good hunting for them.
Same thing applies to coyotes since they do better in the open when after prey and they run to eat so they do not quit a track often, either in the open or in a cutout. Coyotes also run in packs and will circle and post to cut game off. They take more deer than rabbits but they use the rows to take both. If it gets too thick they will quit but not often IME. In briars, a fox will do much better than a coyote but the coyotes have thinned them considerably too.
Sorry for being long but the take-away is.
The rabbits that run straight instead of circling live longer than the rabbits that circle. And evolution says that the ones that live longer breed longer and pass on the straight running gene to their offspring who pass it on and on. The rabbits that circle get eaten.
Just a theory, what do y'all think.
We may be seeing an evolutionary change in the way rabbits run when jumped. Blame it on feral dogs/cats, coyotes and hawks/owls and timber practices.
Think back to the days when we had plenty of small game [if you are old enough], we also had lots of fox and some hawks/owls but there were very few compared to the numbers we have now due to everyone having a gun in every vehicle used for shooting every "chicken hawk"that was seen while driving. Most folks had chickens and also hunted small game for food and any hawk seen was in danger. Rabbits could run circles and be OK.
Nowadays, birds of prey are off limits and they take huge numbers of small game. And due in part to timber practices, they can watch and fly up and down rows of mature pines easily. Good hunting for them.
Same thing applies to coyotes since they do better in the open when after prey and they run to eat so they do not quit a track often, either in the open or in a cutout. Coyotes also run in packs and will circle and post to cut game off. They take more deer than rabbits but they use the rows to take both. If it gets too thick they will quit but not often IME. In briars, a fox will do much better than a coyote but the coyotes have thinned them considerably too.
Sorry for being long but the take-away is.
The rabbits that run straight instead of circling live longer than the rabbits that circle. And evolution says that the ones that live longer breed longer and pass on the straight running gene to their offspring who pass it on and on. The rabbits that circle get eaten.
Just a theory, what do y'all think.
Was it a swamp rabbit???
If you killed it, did you notice if was a buck or doe?? We used to have some several out of hearing races late in the season and most of the time when we killed’em, they be buck rabbits. We always thought breeding season had something to do with it.
I’ve also noticed that rabbits seem to move quicker than they used to. We very rarely “kick” one up anymore. It’s like they hear you coming and leave the bed way before you or the dogs get there. My theory is coyotes and foxes on this too.
We may be seeing an evolutionary change in the way rabbits run when jumped. Blame it on feral dogs/cats, coyotes and hawks/owls and timber practices.
Think back to the days when we had plenty of small game [if you are old enough], we also had lots of fox and some hawks/owls but there were very few compared to the numbers we have now due to everyone having a gun in every vehicle used for shooting every "chicken hawk"that was seen while driving. Most folks had chickens and also hunted small game for food and any hawk seen was in danger. Rabbits could run circles and be OK.
Nowadays, birds of prey are off limits and they take huge numbers of small game. And due in part to timber practices, they can watch and fly up and down rows of mature pines easily. Good hunting for them.
Same thing applies to coyotes since they do better in the open when after prey and they run to eat so they do not quit a track often, either in the open or in a cutout. Coyotes also run in packs and will circle and post to cut game off. They take more deer than rabbits but they use the rows to take both. If it gets too thick they will quit but not often IME. In briars, a fox will do much better than a coyote but the coyotes have thinned them considerably too.
Sorry for being long but the take-away is.
The rabbits that run straight instead of circling live longer than the rabbits that circle. And evolution says that the ones that live longer breed longer and pass on the straight running gene to their offspring who pass it on and on. The rabbits that circle get eaten.
Just a theory, what do y'all think.
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/cwcs/pdf/swamprabbit.pdf
I don't hunt rabbits but enjoy the conversation as we jump at least one or two rabbits on most woodcock hunts. We shoot at them too.
I predominately hunt woodcock in Oconee, Pickens, and Anderson Counties of South Carolina. This area according to the SCDNR fact sheet on S. aquaticus does hold this species. However, the fact sheet also says they are rare and imperiled. This would not be my observation of the population but I don't know the definition of rare or imperiled. I don't know when the fact sheet was published but I know about 5 or more years ago word got out in the research community me and my buddy were shooting cane cutters. They contacted us and wanted to find out more about where so they could get pictures of them. They could not believe it was indeed aquaticus. They just put a carrot and maybe a little lettuce on the ground and set up a camera. If it wasn't the first night it was the second night they got pictures. They were shocked. I'll see if I can dig up and post them. I never heard anything more about a population or habitat study, but I never looked for one either. They truly are in the three counties I mentioned here in upstate south carolina and they truly are 5 plus lbs, hence my earlier comment about hanging them in a tree and picking them up on the way out of the woods. You just hate to shoot one at the turn around. One rabbit and three woodcock doesn't seem like a lot of weight but wearing hip waders and walking miles of riparian habitat does work on an older back.
I don't know men, we've got plenty of yotes and foxes and the rabbits here run tight
Now I've run some (ft Bragg comes to mind in the old Rockefeller place where I had one run wide like that
But pretty sure your not seeing that rapid of evolution in habits across the species from yotes
I say yotes...
Why would you think that coyotes wouldn't run a rabbit? They're canines, just like beagles, right? Seems to me they'd run them just like beagles, except at 4x the speed since they're about 4X taller.I agree with you. I don’t understand how predators would make a rabbit run further. Coyotes, ......are not gonna “run” a rabbit. ......