Public land rabbit hunting

I haven't found a good place; but, I have tried Wilbur Wright FWA. No rabbits. Several other hunters, with dogs, had the same results.

Many areas around Patoka Lake can be good for rabbit hunting also.

I have never found any good Rabbit Hunting on public land. I think it might be due to two factors: the early October Season, and simply over hunting.

I've always seen more Rabbits in warm temps. back when there was more. (Late '60's early '70's) Too many preditors like stray Cats, Dogs, and Coyotes along with changes in agriculture, and Urban Spraw all have taken a toll on Rabbits & Quail. Also I think the increase of the Deer Population played some role in this also, as I've noticed as the Deer population increases the Rabbit population decreased, as their ecolgical "nitch" is very similar.

I'm sorry if this seems argumentative, but I have to question the rabbit/deer relationship cited above. I can see a little competition for some food sources, but not very much. Deer need acorns and browse, primarily, and graze to a much lesser extent. Both will eat grenbriars in the winter, but there seem to be plenty of those to go around. Both like clover if they can get it, but I should think that would be a luxury for either species and not a necessity. I just don't see the kind of relationship that says "as deer populations rise. rabbits decrease".

Now, I'm not arguing that it didn't happen just that way, but I see the cause as being something other than competition between deer and rabbits. There should be far more competition between deer and turkey, but both seem to be thriving in the same areas.

I remember going to public land in the strip pit areas and jumping rabbits frequently enough to make the hunting worthwhile even without dogs, from the time I started hunting them back in the early sixties, up until several years after I saw my first Indiana coyote, in Greene Sullivan State Forest, sometime around '72 or '73. Have seen many fewer rabbits down there since until I quit bothering to go there several years ago. The quail situation was very much parallel to the rabbit situation. Deer and turkey seem to still be doing fairly well there, as of just a few years ago when I hunted there last. The correlation with another species appears to me to be much stronger with the coyote than with the deer.

The coyote has decimated the groundhog populations in areas away from human intervention. They double up on groundhogs and while one keeps the groundhog's attention by parading back and forth upwind of the burrow, the teammate creeps in from behind and nials the curious groundhog. The lack of groundhogs after a time affects the rabbit populations because groundhog holes are a source of much-needed protective cover form coyotes and other scavengers, and probably some relief from extreme weather as well.

back in the pre-coyote days, I recall jumping coveys of quail, and having grouse scare the daylights out of me fairly often even up in Monroe and Morgan counties. Haven't seen any of those species in a while, either. Used to be a great variety of tracks in the snow when I'd take hikes in the winter. Now there are deer, turkey, squirrel and coyote.

Come on Woody, do you really think that the deer leave the county just because you walked in the field?? I know of at least a dozen times in different places that I have stood in one spot and watched 2-10 deer watch us hunt rabbits with beagles and the deer never left a 50-100 acre patch while we were there. I run my dogs 12 months a year. I have not seen it all, but I have seen most of it.

The issue of rabbits decline as deer increase, this goes mostly for public land. It has everything to do with the change in edge cover. In an oak patch, the deer will browse that area until there is little if any ground cover. That makes looking for acorns that much easier. But it is what drives the rabbits to new areas. It is that sort of thing in the change of cover that decreases the population of one animal in favor of another.

Having too many feral cats is the number one reason for the lack of rabbits in many areas. Lack of suitable habitat is the number two reason.

While the number of feral cats does impact the Rabbit population, there has always been Cats & Dogs runing about. We can't forget about Fox & Coyotes too, as they take their share. I am currious about the replationship between the number of Deer vs the number of Rabbits, in a given area. It does seem that as the population of Deer increase the population of Rabbits drops.

Well the season has ended. I went through the log book and see that my partner and I took 87 rabbits off of Indiana public land this season. Took another 36 in Wisconsin, but their public land situation is much better than ours. I owe all the fun times to 3 real good beagles.