Season for small game draws near

By Jim Casada - Special to The Herald

For outdoorsmen who belong to my generation or earlier, the face of South Carolina hunting has changed tremendously over the course of their lifetime. In the not too distant past, anyone who said “I'm going hunting” in all likelihood had small game in mind. Those who came of age between the end of World War II and the 1970s focused their primary hunting efforts on rabbits, squirrels, quail and doves.

Even though I was constantly afield through my adolescent years, I had seen exactly 10 whitetails by the time I went off to college, and I had never observed a wild turkey. Today, deer and turkeys are South Carolina's most popular game animals.

Yet, there always is a certain degree of nostalgic joy in calling back yesteryear, and the avid sportsmen should remember that small game offer generally underutilized opportunities for sport. Deer season will come to an end in a month and half and spring turkey season still seems little more than a distant dream, so it is appropriate to turn some attention to game species which once dominated the Palmetto hunting scene. Accordingly, with the squirrel season already open, and with quail and rabbit seasons, along with the later segments of the three-part dove season just down the road, let's turn some attention to these once-coveted quarries in coming weeks.

Since Thanksgiving weekend has been the traditional time for the rabbit season to open, and given the fact that family rabbit hunts were once an integral part of that day of celebration in many sporting families, let's begin with cottontails. Somewhat similar to dove shoots, a good rabbit hunt is in no small measure a social occasion.

It will, if things go well, involve a number of good races featuring the incomparable hallelujah chorus of a bevy of beagles hot on the trail, an enjoyable field lunch where the morning's hunt is relived and that for the afternoon planned, and come day's end welcome fatigue in man and dog alike.

Unfortunately, rabbits are not nearly as plentiful as was once the case. They are the victims of changed agricultural practices, a dramatic upsurge in predator numbers (hawks and coyotes in particular have hurt cottontail numbers), and a transition which sees land which used to be broomsedge and bramble habitat now being planted in pines.

Still, there are some spots where cottontails can be found in goodly numbers. As a rule, such locations include power line rights-of-way, recent clear cuts (especially where scrap timbers was windrowed or piled up), young pine plantations and about anywhere you find plenty of cover in close proximity to the kind of food rabbits prefer.

The good news is that determining whether or not cottontails are plentiful is a simple matter for the practiced eye. “Sign” in the form of well-worn trails, droppings, beds and cuttings (twigs nipped at a 45-degree angle or the bark chewed from the base of plum thickets and other small trees and shrubs) offers tell-tale evidence of a good rabbit population.

Hunting techniques vary somewhat, but it does need to be recognized that beagles, for all their wizardry once they are on a trail, are not the best “jump” dogs. Serious rabbit hunters usually give the dogs some assistance by wading through briar thickets, stomping on brush piles, walking abreast 10 to 15 yards apart in likely cover, and using similar techniques to scare the quarry from its daytime “hide.” Once the rabbit has been moved, your canine companions take over.

A rabbit being trailed by beagles typically makes a circle, usually traveling a quarter mile or less from the spot it was jumped and then turning back toward its original hiding place. The job of those involved in the hunt is to scatter, taking up likely positions for a shot, and wait in hopes the race will come their way.

In my boyhood, when my father always kept a pack of beagles and every Saturday from the one after Thanksgiving until season's end was devoted to rabbits, group bags of 20, 25, or even 30 cottontails were the norm. That is no longer the case, except in isolated pockets where cottontail populations have temporarily exploded, but with a bit of checking and planning it is still possible to enjoy first-rate rabbit hunting.

Along with squirrel hunting, taking a youngster afield after rabbits is an ideal introduction to sport. There is normally plenty of action, and boys, bunnies and beagles are a perfect outdoor trio. Certainly the sport figured prominently in my youth, and my “dog of a lifetime,” the one canine companion every hunter deserves, was a beagle named Chip. Those halcyon days of youth are long gone, but each year I hope to enjoy a rabbit hunt or two and the joys of reliving those days provide an enduring delight.

If you too once knew such joys, soon it will be time to revive them, perhaps in company with family, friends, and especially newcomers to the hunting scene.