Rabbit pursuit a return to hunting roots
HAZEL GREEN - In late morning, the sun over Lafayette County was muffled by a thick, milky sky.
We had to strain our eyes to tell where the air ended and the snow-covered hills and fields began.
Other things weren't at all in question.
"Baa, rah, rah!" and "Arr-roo-arr!" The barks from beagles in our group rang loudly and frequently through the woodlots and clearings near Hazel Green.
"Yep, they're coming with one," said Rory Lawrence, 37, of Benton. "Laine you better get ready."
The three of us focused our eyes to the tangle-covered ridge to our south, where we hoped the dogs would be pushing a cottontail rabbit in our direction.
Lawrence, his 13-year-old son Laine and I were among a 10-member hunting group gathered at the invitation of Mark LaBarbera on his property outside of Hazel Green.
The others were Dennis Carpenter, 70, of Cuba City; Brad Lawrence, 35, and his son Blake, 12, both of Benton; Robert Miller, 29 of Benton; Harold Peart, 70, of Shullsburg, and Donnie Shireman, 71, of Cuba City.
The musical track and rabbit rousting was courtesy of Bailey (age 9) and Raven (2), two beagles owned by Miller, and Elmer (1.5) owned by Brad Lawrence.
Our objective was the Eastern cottontail, an abundant native species found in most of Wisconsin, but especially the southern two-thirds.
The animals provide virtually unlimited hunting opportunity as well as excellent table fare.
Many of us grew up hunting rabbits and other small game.
When I was cutting my teeth on hunting 40 years ago in Racine County, for example, rabbits and gray squirrels and ring-necked pheasants were the key species.
White-tailed deer were rare. And wild turkeys were non-existent.
Today, those two big-game species have supplanted small-game.
The changes are evident in Wisconsin hunting license sales. For the 2018-19 hunting season, the Department of Natural Resources issued about 220,000 small-game authorizations, down from about 390,000 in 1984.
Based on a survey, 31,213 hunters pursued rabbits in 2018-19 and harvested 123,363 cottontails.
For comparison, hunters brought home about 1.3 million rabbits in 1984.
The decline isn't due to a change in the cottontail population. In fact, rabbits may be doing better than ever in the state. The species does well in conditions of ample precipitation and strong growth of grasses and other vegetation.
A 2017 DNR survey in southwestern and western Wisconsin concluded that "rabbit abundance (was) higher than it has been in decades."
Despite the abundance of rabbits and other small game, many new hunters in 21st century Wisconsin, either by choice or default, start out by pursuing deer and turkey.
Our morning hunt hosted by LaBarbera was refreshing in at least two respects.
It allowed me and the other adults to return to our hunting roots. And it included two youngsters.
We gathered at 10 a.m. and set off on foot after our keen-nosed leaders.
We each carried a shotgun, ranging from .410 to 12 gauge, and wore blaze orange vests and hats for safety.
Bailey, Raven and Elmer galloped over and through about 10 inches of snow. Their "haw, rahs" rang through the rolling, brushy terrain from the first minutes.
The property, owned by LaBarbera and his wife Coni, is pocked with "sucker holes," vestiges of the region's mining history.
It's also rich with wildlife.
We spread out across the property and staked out likely travel corridors for the rabbits.
Fifteen minutes into the hunt Rory Lawrence's shotgun sounded and we had the first cottontail of the day.
A half-hour later a rabbit got the better of me.
As I focused on a thicket and trail 40 yards to my southeast, a cottontail quietly hopped 10 yards behind and around me to points unknown.
Shireman watched the entire show from a nearby ridge.
"Sometimes they'll run circles around you," Shireman said.
Peart and Shireman have been hunting partners for decades. When they were younger, they would travel to northern Wisconsin to hunt deer for the first few days of the season, then return home for Thanksgiving in LaFayette and Grant counties. Although they could hunt deer at home, too, they preferred to go after rabbits.
"(Rabbit hunting) is as good as it gets, in my opinion," Peart said. "It's social, it involves dogs and it provides great eating."
It's not like shooting ducks in a barrel, either.
In fact, Carpenter, who is president of the Southwestern Wisconsin chapter of the Isaak Walton Conservation League, has come up with a list of reasons for missed opportunities at rabbits.
A few examples: a tree got in the way; the sun was glaring off the snow; I was shooting downhill.
"It's a book that keeps writing itself," Carpenter said. "All you have to do is go hunting and you'll get new material."
We did make good on nine chances over about 3 hours of hunting.
By 1 p.m. we had cleaned the day's harvest and gathered in LaBarbera's home where Peart had a crock-pot of rabbit stew - the yield from a previous hunt - simmering.
We dived in and enjoyed telling stories over the next hour.
Here's hoping Blake and Laine, and others in the next generation of hunters, will be doing the same for many years to come.