Thread: bunny huntin with a hand gun

Excuse my hunting ignorance, but are the dogs herding the rabbits to you, or do they just follow the rabbit's scent once they find it? I would have thought the former, but it looks more like the latter.

I used to go rabbit hunting with my father as a lad. I used an Anschutz .22. My rabbit hunting philosophy back then was admirably summarized by the immortal words of Flanagan and Allen:

On the farm, ev'ry Friday
On the farm, it's rabbit pie day
So ev'ry Friday that ever comes along
I get up early and sing this little song...

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run
Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun
He'll get by without his rabbit pie
So run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run

Funnily, we never came back with too many rabbits!

James.

Oh I used to target shoot with an Anschutz .22. Those were fun little things, but a little light for my liking.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Excuse my hunting ignorance, but are the dogs herding the rabbits to you, or do they just follow the rabbit's scent once they find it? I would have thought the former, but it looks more like the latter.

yes they jump and run the scent of the rabbit. the rabbit circles back and we shoot it. now they don`t always circle but what we call run big and take the hounds for a ride. we are in it more for the music of the hounds, we may shoot one or 2 rabbits a trip but if there running good we just let them run a few hours then bag a few for the pot. we run year round. our dogs are bred a certin way and they run about a 6 speed out of 10 they run a close clean line.
there are a bunch of dsfferant speed dogs and in the beagling world it`s slow, med, med fast and fast. we run a med speed hound that runs a clean line. our hounds are breed out of FC Shorts pro and FC little nip otis. pro has produced over a 100 field champions and otis was one of the finest hounds i ever seen run a rabbit. we love it and our hounds love it more.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Excuse my hunting ignorance, but are the dogs herding the rabbits to you, or do they just follow the rabbit's scent once they find it? I would have thought the former, but it looks more like the latter.

Never used dogs like that myself, but they certainly appear to be acting as 'Beaters', scaring the game towards the hunters. If I tried that I'd be eating puppy pie. Used dogs for pig hunting many years ago, but that's a different kettle of fish. No guns, just dogs to run down and hold the pig until you can stick a knife in it.
Now with all this talk of .22's, I think I might just go down and start sorting out my old (nearly 60 years) Sportco .22. Need a snake gun for on the new property, and it has to make do, 'til the parents sort out a shotgun for the place.


Mick

Originally Posted by welshwizard

In the UK, the weapon of choice for a serious bunny gun has shifted away from .22LR sub-sonic to the high powered air rifle. The only downside is that the air weapons are far more expensive.

Is it really that the weapon of choice has SHIFTED to the air rifle? Or is it that the only weapon left that you are allowed to own is the air rifle?

Actually I think it is the prefered tool for the job over there. Certainly be the safest tool for the job.


Mick

the hounds are about 30 to 40yds in back of the hound running the scent. they are not sight hounds. we mainly use shotguns or 410ga handguns. i do tree rat hunt with a air rifle. but i love shotguns and will always hunt with one. were aloud to own them so thats what i use. i have many guns and shoot a lot. i love 22`s for tree rats and my ar15 for coyotes. slug gun for whitetail deer. also been bowhunting for 30 years.

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Originally Posted by GolfNut

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yes i did some editing on it. i will put it back up,