Rabbits were not good participants today.

[yoteslayer]

Jumped 7 rabbits today my male ran pretty well on all of them, except he runs silent. The total length of runs of all 7 jumps was about 300 yards. Every where we went they ran straight to rock piles, brush piles, or holes. Gets very discouraging let me tell you!!! Jumped 7 rabbits in about 45 minutes. one of them was 20 yards from the truck on the way in and two of them were on the other side of the truck within 30 yards on the way out!! My male ran them all straight to the holes and would dig I would have to drag him away from the holes, I think he was getting pissed too!!!

[Ohiohntr]

I hear ya....finally got to hunt today and the first 4 jumps went straight, I mean straight, to the hole. Three of them went in the same hole!!! I thought at some point I would just get them stacked deep enough in that hole they wouldn't be able to get in...I teased my dad that when I went past the hole before we left that there was a "no vaccancy" sign out.

We moved spots and the first rabbit wouldn't run at all and finally holed up, I thought for sure the dogs were going to catch it. The second rabbit ran about 300 yards straight under an abandon barn. We finally did get one to run well but then the dogs could pound it sometimes and other times we had to put them back on it. It got past us 4 times in all and I got one shot off at it but all in all we went home hungry.

Not the day I expected to have....I was really looking forward to killing one in front of the young dogs. I really can't blame the dogs, they jumped most of the rabbits and compared to hearing about others day out I was just glad they were able to keep a track going.

[yoteslayer]

My dogs tracked well today great conditions, about 35 degrees and raining a bit. Even my little female jumped 2 today. Its kind of a double edge sword but do you burn the brush piles? The brush piles are probably the reason there are so many rabbits, but if they wont run what good are the rabbits? The holes I can deal with from now on im gonna drop the dogs off and sit on the "problem areas". This isnt the first time ive hunted this spot and they did the same thing last time.

[Househounds]

If you can get someone to go with you have them head to the holes before you release the hounds and "guard" them to keep the rabbit from getting there. I will also change my routine of how I hunt a spot to keep the rabbits from knowing whre I am going to enter and where I am headed. I will also start in the area they seem to want to end up and push them out so they have to circle back. Just some food for thought. Most of the time though the chase is up to the rabbit.

Good Luck

[Bunnyblaster]

We actually had just the opposite yesterday. Dropped 5 dogs down at 10:00 and had non-stop running for almost 2 hours!! It was a nice change of pace let me tell you because most of the time it seems they don't wanna stay up and play anymore.

[KYRABBITHUNTER]

I also had the opposite. I was running solo and had one race for close to three hours with very few checks. I hadn't seen the rabbit and was beginning to wonder what the old man was doing, so I took a young pup out and walked him ahead of the race to see if we could get a sight of the rabbit. When the dog got to us the rabbit jumped from a clump of grass not 15 ft from me and the pup. The pup gave chase for about 15 yards then lost interest (3 1/2 month old), but the race continued for a while longer.

I agree with the earlier post, if you know where a popular hole is, have someone guard it before the race starts.

[yoteslayer]

Yeah I hunt by myself almost always so its hard to block the holes. We used to do that all the time though and it works well. This spot has 2 big brush piles, one storage unit, and a concrete pile that really put the damper on my hunting!!!