The American Beagler Forum

5 of us made the trip down to Eufaula Al for a 2 day hunt. We had some awesome running on monday. Killed a total of 11 swampers and 2 cottontails. We killed a couple of swampers that weighed right around 6lbs, My back still hurts from toting those jokers around. All of them ran extremely big, had a split where both packs went out of hearing at the same time and brought both rabbits back around, had several races that were around an hour long. I also found out that all of my new dogs can swim as the rabbits continuously hit the water on us.

Is there a difference in the canecutter and the bluetails you see sometimes around here ? We killed a few bluetails down east and the only seemed a little bigger than cottontails.
Anthony

They aren't like bluetails at all. They are much bigger and have a white powder puff just like a cottontail, they normally have a darker back and their skin is much tougher to penetrate with shot. They will run out of hearing at hit the water on you. I watched the same rabbit cross a creek 3 times before I could get a shot to kill him. I killed another that I watched run down the middle of a stream that was about 2 inches deep for over 50 yards, talk about giving the dogs a fit.

oops was supposed to be a PM.

I would love to give Caincutters a try sometime. The thing that is holding me back the most is, where theirs Caincutters, their's also snakes and gators.

think we can get some pictures

what all types of rabbits is there to run dogs on

scott

I have been running canecutters since 1991 in GA and AL and I have never seen a gator. I have seen a snake or too if the weather was warm but never when I was actually hunting canecutters. I have seen more snakes hunting cottontails.

Big Dog

About how far will one of these swampers run? Sounds like you guys had an awesome trip.

They would make a few small circles in a wicked thick marsh area and then cross a canal about 6 foot wide and hit the big woods. They would go completely out of hearing for as long as 10 minutes and then you would hear the dogs coming back. We had several chases that were an hour long and all were at least 25 - 30 minutes long.

Chain rock wrote:About how far will one of these swampers run? Sounds like you guys had an awesome trip.

Swampers normaly cover more ground than a cotton tail I have had runs that might cover 40 to 50 acres and seen them swim 40 to 50 yards to get the dogs off thier trail and squat in water with not much more than their nose out. A good race on a swamper will leave you fealing uneasy if you have dogs that will run a deer

I also have seen cotton tails due some wild stuff like running strait line through a pine plantation for close to half a mile only to come halling A$$ right back or doing the same across a short winter wheat field

it was amazing to watch them ease there body down into the water from a dead run without even making a splash. I saw several swim tht were just out of shooting distance. My buddy alan killed one that was trying to swim down a stream right beside him to avoid the dogs. If you don't trust your dogs you will be in trouble running them because when they come out of the thick stuff they go on a journey. We had a quite a few that would not come back within 400 yards of where they got up.

La. swampers vrs. cottontail...

Good picture Patch, on the 2nd day when I had my camera we didn't kill any cottontails. I wanted to put both of them together and take a picture to show folks the difference in size. There is nothing like running them canecutters.

Big Dog
When one of those wet Canecutters stretches out for a long run, how many checks do you have?
I'm not talking about when he's in the water, but on land.
I don't think folks that never ran one will believe you!

Alabama John wrote:Big Dog
When one of those wet Canecutters stretches out for a long run, how many checks do you have?
I'm not talking about when he's in the water, but on land.
I don't think folks that never ran one will believe you!

Prob. very few if any checks right? I've never hunted swampers or hare, but I hear there aren't many checks on hare and they make your dogs look like pros running them.