WOW where do I start....we had an awesome weekend hunting swamper's in West Tennessee. This has been one of the best weekends of rabbit hunting for me in a long time. Their is nothing like hearing a big pack of beagles running full force screaming at the top of their lungs in hot pursuit of a big ol West Tennessee Swamper. I don't know what it was but the dogs seemed to have been running at full speed ahead after each swamper that was put on the run. The runs were much bigger and definitely much faster. One thing I learned is that you must out smart the swamp rabbit if you don't you'll never see him. Using tree stumps was a big plus helping us see the swamper coming from a distance. The area we were hunting was a very large tract of timber that had alot of growth thru-out. Alot of tree tops laying on the ground. Briars briars and more briars as I was whacked in the face by them...lol I've got a few battle scars on my face and hands to prove it....lol but that wasn't going to stop me one bit, I was determined to get my first ever swamp rabbit.....
I've tried several times to line up a swamp rabbit hunt the past few years with no luck. Randall was kind enough to invite me on a very large tract of land that holds a fair amount of swamp rabbits. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the hospitality Randall and his family provided me and my hunting buddy this past weekend. They treated us like family. Very nice set up for us to spend the weekend in and delicious homemade breakfast in the mornings, you can't beat that. The hounds even got to hang out in a large dog pen over night.
Friday night I was bouncing off the walls to get this hunt underway. I went to bed extra early because I wanted to be on the road no later than 3:30am. After loading hounds very early friday morning, my first stop was at my hunting partner for the weekend's house. He brought along 4 of his pups for this adventure.
The drive to West Tennessee wasn't bad at all. We actually made good time traveling very early in the morning. Hardly little to no traffic at all which was a good thing. After stopping at the local wal-mart for our Non-Resident Small Game tags we met up with Randall for breakfast. After breakfast we headed on over to the hunting grounds and met up with Russel who brought 5 of his beagles who's bloodline went back to Indian hills major. I was happy to see all our dogs (14 total) for the hunt pack up and ran very well together. I can tell you one thing, they sure did light up them woods. Boys.... I'm telling you that was some good beagle music to my ears.
It did not take long to get the first race underway. My dog Leah got the first swamper jump of the morning out of a small patch of logs and little lightning was her back up. Both dogs started to hammer away...soon enough a swarm of beagles ran to them like a cavlery and the race was on. This bunny ran a good ways and eventually eluded the dogs. I'm not sure what dog jumped the second big swamper of the morning but just the same the 14 dog pack put Mr. swamper on the run. I got up high on a tree stump waiting and watching. I could hear the pack headed my way. I'm waiting and waiting.....(just so you guys know i've never had the chance to get a swamp rabbit).....Here he comes and he's running fast BOOM BOOM and clearly a miss both times. He run under some log piles thru a small creek straight for Brad..BOOM...Dead swamper. First swamp rabbit for Brad. I've got all this on film so please watch the video
It took a few more tries for me to get my first swamper. I had a few more fast moving swamp rabbits that I just couldn't hit for one reason or another. My leah dog jumped one out of another pile the race was on back and forth he ran across the road. I'd raise my gun but wasn't able to get a shot off. Finally he darted back across the road with a pack of beagles on his tail. Took me 3 shots and I finally had my swamper. He was a smaller young swamper but a swamper that I worked hard and traveled far to get. I ended the day with 2 swamp rabbits and brad had a limit in his vest that probably weighed 30lbs....lol
I can go on and on about all the different races we had they're all stuck in my mind for now. Hopefully it'll get me thru the off-season. I'm going to let pictures and the video's tell the rest of the story. Hope you guys enjoyed the read and the pics/video that follows.
Video's Part One - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaC49WhNjEU
Video Part Two - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scTPSsymiww
Brad with his first ever swamper
One of the biggest swamper's from Saturday
Brad with another swamper
Here I am standing with my Second Giant Swamper saturday morning
Here we are at the end of the hunt. Ended up with 9 big Swamp Rabbits. I believe 14 were jumped on this hunt.
Bailey, Myself, Brad, Randall
This is how big the heads are on these guys.
Sunday was another great adventure in the swamps of Tennessee. On this day their were 4 hunters. Myself Randall Bailey and Brad. We ran 10 beagles on this hunt. We knew the temps were going to get a bit warm on us so we head out as early as we could. We dropped hounds on the ground around 7:30am. First jump went to my little daisy dog and randall followed up with a kill. I've told you all stories about my little daisy dog. Now I can't explain it and I don't think anyone can but she just knows where the rabbits hide. She is the best little BED jump dog i've ever seen. Most of the rabbits on sunday's hunt were jumped by her.
A couple highlights on this hunt was me finally catching daisy on film bed jumping a big swamper he jump about 3ft straight in the air like a helicopter and I also got Leah on film retrieving a rabbit. The best kill was a big running swamper that took the dogs a good distance then came back as I was standing tall on a tree stump I waited for the perfect time ONE shot and he rolled followed by leah retrieving him for me. That was the best kill.
Sunday Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IYzFN46VcE
Here is bailey with his first ever rabbit and a big swamper at that. He was able to bag two big swampers on this hunt
Alot of this type cover where we were hunting
One thing about swampers is they have fleas. So we hung them on a tree for a few minutes till the fleas jumped off.
This has the be the best picture out of all of them. Its my favorite. I tried to get all 10dogs in the picture but a couple didn't want to hold still. I got most of them in the pic.
