The hares are out there
Small-game enthusiasts might want to take a shot at hunting snoeshoe hare
LAKE SHORE - Deer are the number one pursuit of bowhunters. A few hunt turkeys, which make for good sport because they decoy.
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After that you'll go a long way to find a bowhunter who hunts other game.
Or will you?
On Feb. 10, four small-game hunters went afield with bows and arrows in Cass County. Their pursuit was the snowshoe hare, which along with cottontail rabbits, jackrabbits and squirrels, are all that remain open for small game hunters in Minnesota.
The party included Bill Marchel and Lindy Frasl, both of Fort Ripley, Jim Janco of Baxter, and me. Bill and Lindy are veteran hare hunters, Jim was a first-timer and I was a second-timer.
Lindy Frasl kept an eye out for snowshoe hares as he posted on a drive. He stood on a log to get a better look through the thick brush and also to get a better shot angle should a hare emerge.
WE SPOTTED: » Hunting snoeshoe hare
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Brainerd Dispatch/ Vince Meyer
My setup, common among bowhunters and similar to what my companions use, features a compound bow set at 65 pounds and carbon arrows tipped with 100-grain broadheads. With this I could kill a 1,000-pound bull moose. On this hunt I tried to kill a 2-pound hare.
Many of us have been on a deer drive. But how about a hare drive?
Same thing, basically. Some hunters post while others drive. But rather than seeing a white-tailed deer bounding through the cover, along comes a snowshoe hare. The hare gives up a few watts in brain power to a whitetail, but any animal that spends its life dodging owls, hawks, wolves, coyotes and just about everything else that hunts in the woods has enough smarts to dodge a two-legged predator.
Before heading out to hunt we stopped for Caribou Coffee and then for breakfast at Sportland Corners. If we lingered a bit longer over the eggs and ham than what's customary for a hunting party, it was due to the outdoors temperature, which was still struggling to get above zero at 11 a.m. Finally, after our immediate stash of bad jokes had been told and we were coffeed out, someone had the courage to suggest we actually go hunting.
Signs of hares don't get any better than this. Note how they have chewed bark off the branches and left behind droppings. When a hunter sees this, he knows that hares are somewhere nearby.
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Brainerd Dispatch/ Vince Meyer
Good hare habitat is new-growth aspen, often called "buggy-whip" aspen. Its density prohibits raptors from attacking from above and it gives the nimble hare a decided advantage when dodging a fox. If brush piles are present, all the better.
If you're a driver, don't bother to nock an arrow. It won't stay on the rest and you can't shoot through this stuff anyway. Drivers have just two responsibilities: to make sure that hares don't double back between them and to avoid getting a stick in the eye. Sunglasses are mandatory equipment on a hare drive, and amber-tinted lenses are superior to gray-tinted lenses.
We busted a few bunnies on our first drive, but they eluded us. On the second drive Bill got a point-blank shot and connected. One hare was in the bag.
We reworked the cover where we had started and it was there I got my best chance of the day. A hare slipped from the aspen thicket and into a small stand of alder surrounded by grass. Bill spotted its tracks in the snow and knew where it was holding.
One look at the soft padded foot of a snowshoe hare and it's easy to see how these mammals can stay aloft on the snow.
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Brainerd Dispatch/ Vince Meyer
We surrounded the alders and as we converged the hare bolted from the cover, choosing an escape route between Jim and me. We both shot and missed. The hare was 10 feet away when my arrow sailed over its back and disappeared into the snow, never to be recovered.
Which brings up another point about hare hunting in the snow: don't use expensive arrows if you care about losing them.
Later in the hunt we managed to take one more hare, shot by Lindy with an assist from Jim. Two days later I called Jim and asked him if he enjoyed the hunt.
"Absolutely," he said. "It's a great way to hone your skills and it's nice to get out in the woods in February. And it's extremely challenging. I'm going to have to buy some cheap arrows."
Bill Marchel admired a snowshoe hare he arrowed Feb. 10 west of Lake Shore. To harvest hares on an annual basis makes sense, Marchel said, because, like grouse, their numbers are cyclical and can't be stockpiled.
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Brainerd Dispatch/Vince Meyer
If you're ready for the challenge of hare hunting with bow and arrow, remember that a visible portion of at least one article of clothing above the waist must be blaze orange. The season closes at sunset on Feb. 28.
VINCE MEYER, outdoors editor, can be reached at vince.meyer@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5862.