The American Beagler Forum

Looking for the BEST State for Public Land Rabbit Hunting---planning on Jan-Feb 2014 couple of week hunt --Prefer Cotton Tails or Swampers. Not crazy about Mich with the late season Snow


Thanx,
Jim

Iowa

Kansas has a no closed season for rabbits and a million-plus acres of public walk-in areas scattered throughout the state. Depends on where you are coming from as far as travel distance/time. Iowa is more centrally located.

Michigan, Chelsea, Waterloo Recreation Area and Jackson area. Guys will tell you there are not any rabbits but I never have a problem finding them.
For Swampers
Come Run

Kansas year around hunting with not many hunters. Oklahoma panhandle is the best numbers I have ever seen and a few jacks

Tsa la gi wrote:Michigan, Chelsea, Waterloo Recreation Area and Jackson area. Guys will tell you there are not any rabbits but I never have a problem finding them.
For Swampers
Come Run

I would say that this area is good to decent running , but not enough to take a hunting trip from out of state for. We don't shoot any out this way because there simply wouldn't be enough to run if we did. I've planted some in areas ( so has others) just to keep spots to run dogs.

I have not found any state land in Michigan that can support much if any gunning pressure.most of the places I found your lucky to find a track come Febuary.lol

if I was to plan a trip I would go to Kansas and Nebraska WOW alot of rabbits, I know the land in Iowa maybe better than some but not near what is was 7 to 10 yrs ago

Five or six years ago four of us with ten beagles spent a week in January in the Mississippi Delta hunting swampers.We found thousands of acres of Ms. State Management land plus thousands more of Federal land open to hunting.We had a ball and shot some huge rabbits off some great runs.I was impressed with the public hunting on the Management areas as they had game and were well"managed".
If you want to try hare then in my opinion it's hard to beat the top half of Maine and the further north you go the better it gets.Most of this country is heavily forested and owned by paper/timber companies with access open to hunting.This is BIG country and the places to turn out are limitless.Some of the cover is so thick it's hard to find a shooting lane.If your dogs go deep let's just say you've got some brush busting ahead of you.I love hunting northern Maine but it's definetly a harder hunt phsically then the places i hunt here in TN.
As far as cottontails go.I got invited a couple of times to hunt up in Kentucky and boy did we get into em! This was on private land and I don't know about public land hunting in Ky.

Best I have ever been to is southern Indiana... (for cotton tails)

Hey,you mentioned you were wanting to hunt in Jan-Feb. As far as northern Maine I wouldn't go up there then if I were you.That can be a rough place to be that time of the year especially if they're having a "BIG" winter.Snowshoes would be a must.