Windy - Cold Rabbit Hunt

The wife and daughter were out shopping (what else is new?) so I decided to do some rabbit hunting. There is a really large tract of state owned land down the road from my home so I grabbed my Black Shadow .22 and figured
I'd give it a shot. It is in the high 20's today and extremely windy, but I figured maybe I'd get lucky.

The first hour I worked my way through thick brushy woods but the only thing I scared up was 2 nice sized deer (does) bedded down in the middle of the thick bushes. I poked around there and found sign of this area being a fairly well used bedding area, something to tuck away in my files for next years bow season.

After working my way through the woods I came out on the edge of a large overgrown brushy field, probably about 200 acres in size. I know there are rabbits here, I've hunted them before, but without dogs it's tough. Anyway, I worked that field nice and slow for 2 hours, kicking and stomping on every pile of stumps and tangled bushes, slowly stalking through the tangles of overgrown small saplings, but never did see any rabbits. I did manage to step on two coveys of quail that scared me to death, but no rabbits.

The game pouch was empty when I returned to the truck, but I had a great time. Found a promising bedding area to deer hunt next year, got some much needed excercise, and most of all had 3 hours of total solitude in a beautiful setting. A very good day :)

Jeff