Rabbit Fever

    Here in the last week of the season, I have decided to hunt rabbits. I had never really tried it being old enough to appreciate the hunt and after Monday, I decided I would give it another shot. Especially because the table fare matches up with the enjoyment of the hunt, unlike squirrels, which I have stopped hunting for the most part since it is so much work to make them taste halfway decent. Rabbit is great simply pan-fried!
     My little brother Ewing and I headed out to our neighbor's property after school to stomp around in some brush. Since I was the "designated brush stomper" last time, Ewing assumed that role and I got to be the shooter. We checked 3 or 4 piles before jumping the first rabbit, that passed by me going at light speed around 20 yards away, I raised the gun, got on target, and sent a nice pattern its way. The rabbit stopped in its tracks and expired before I got to it. We continued walking around but didn't get any more shots, I saw one at about 45 yards but with low brass #7.5s out of an improved cylinder choke, I decided to pass on the shot. Well I have to get around to cooking some rabbit, thanks for reading!

Virginia Rabbit Hunting

        My little brother Ewing and I decided we were going to kick brush piles at a couple properties we hunt on, since it had been nearly 3 years since we had hunted rabbits last. My weapon of choice was a Mossberg Super Bantam 500 youth 20 gauge with a stock extension and a rubber recoil pad for extra length, the gun is incredibly quick to shoulder, so for rabbits, it is perfect. Ewing brought a Browning Citori Lightning O/U in 12 gauge, another quick shouldering gun. I used 2-3/4" 7/8 oz low brass #7.5s with an extra full choke, for taking out the head and shoulder area without ruining the other meat. Ewing used 3" 1-1/4oz high brass #7.5s with a modified choke for the first shot and an improved modified choke for the second.
        At the first property, I kicked a rabbit out of a brush pile and it ran straight away from Ewing in a wide open field at 25 yards, but he missed, and my shot pattern was caught in a sapling tree that found its way into my swing following the rabbit. Stressful for the first one to get away like that...We continued hunting for an hour or so with no luck but decided to head back to that same area to finish up. I kicked the same spot on a pile for at least 2-3 minutes and all of a sudden, a rabbit decided it was time to leave and Ewing anchored it at 20 yards. We hunted around for another half an hour with no luck, and headed to the next spot.
      Within 5 minutes of arriving, I spotted movement 2 yards away in a brush pile and realized it was a rabbit, I put the bead on its head, and fired. The head split wide open but that was the only impact point of pellets, so reality is, it was a better shot than a full pattern hit at 20-30 yards. 45 minutes later, I was belly crawling through a brier patch trying to spook something up, when a rabbit darted out going at a blistering rate of speed, but Ewing quickly raised the gun and smoked it at around 20 yards. We hunted for another hour, not seeing any, and took a lunch break, we were TIRED!
       In the last hour of the afternoon, we tried a small brushy fence row where we spooked 2 but didn't get any shots. We also tried a 1 acre patch of young pines, cedars and miscellaneous hardwoods with sparse briers mixed in. I got to crouch/crawl/bushwhack through the whole mess, and Ewing walked around the field edge to intercept any that ran out. I spooked up one but never got a shot due to heavy brush blocking my line of sight. Ewing spotted one on the edge of the woods and shot it, and then we walked around until we lost good light and called it a day. We also jumped 3 woodcock while bushwhacking around but they aren't in season, although we probably couldn't anyways, they are 30 yards away by the time you realize you spooked one! Thanks for reading!

Feral Pigeon Hunting

     Today I headed out to a dairy farm near Ruckersville, to try for some pigeons while they weren't milking the cows. This is a mid-day hunt, 11:30 to 1:30, so the birds are all roosting in the barn or on the silos, but the bright side is that we can sit 40 yards away from the silos and barns and pass shoot while they fly around. We put out decoys, but only had one bird commit in our 2 hour hunt, it died very quickly with two shots of 2-3/4" #8s. My dad would jump the birds out of the barns and sheds, and we would try to take down a couple while they circled around. We had 3 groups of around 100 flying when we began and killed 5 in around 2 minutes, but then the action slacked off and the birds "wised up" and stayed close to the silos when flying, presenting us with few shots. I was amazed at how well these birds can take a hit and not go down, even at a moderate range, a cloud of feathers would appear but the birds would keep on going! Part of this is obviously from not leading the birds enough and hitting tail feathers, but we will probably have to step it up to #6 shot next time. The total ended up at 18 recovered pigeons, with 5 in the slurry store (manure pit) that weren't retrievable, one that ran into a groundhog hole before I got to it, and a few that coasted away into far away fields and were picked up by very happy hawks before we could retrieve them. I was very pleased with our success, and we now have a good idea on how to hunt it when we go next time, which probably won't be for another month. Thanks for reading!

 

Our 18 birds of the day, we cleaned every one and even got the legs as well! No wasted meat as apposed to what usually happens to feral pigeons. They taste great!

Goose Hunting with Hevi Metal

       I picked up a box of Hevi Metal 3.5" 1.5oz 1500fps #2s to try out for the last couple of weeks of goose season since the birds are not committing to decoys as well as usual. Although I have killed nearly every duck and goose in my life with cheap $15 per box Xpert 1500fps steel, I decided to pay $30 after I had a bad experience with pulling the trigger on birds that were at the "borderline range" and not having the birds fall, even though they were hit. The Hevi Metal shells are basically a half and half mix of #2 steel shot and #2 Hevi Shot which is actually about the size of a #4 since Hevi Shot loads smaller pellets in order to have a denser pattern with the same energy, since the pellets are much heavier.
       My brother and I set up in a small field (30-50 yards across and 300 yards long) that the geese never land in, but will sometimes land in with the help of decoys or check out the decoys long enough for us to decide if they are in range or not. We heard birds coming from a long ways off and I started calling to let them know where we were, and as soon as we could see them, the pair was "locked up". As the birds neared the 60 yard mark, they began to veer off towards a field across the river from us (the North Fork of the Rivanna) so when they came inside 40 yards, I gave Wyatt the o.k. to shoot. I could not get on the birds in time (they were behind us) and Wyatt shot once and only got one or two pellets in a non vital area, because the goose reared its neck back following the shot, a sign that it was been hit. I called more and the birds decided to give us another pass at 40 yards again, we unloaded our guns and both birds fell (Wyatt used a Browning Citori O/U, I used a Benelli Nova) I knew I missed my first shot, but the geese fell when I pulled the trigger on my second two shots. Wyatt was convinced he killed the first bird that went down, but said that I killed the second bird since he had fired his two shots by the time it went down.
      We saw 3 ducks and 5 more geese, but it was after shooting hours when we saw the geese (and ducks are out of season) so we had to pass on those, but it is always fun to see waterfowl. We packed up our 10 decoys, and headed home. When we were cleaning the geese, we decided that since Wyatt was using Xpert BBs, we could look for pellets in the bird to decide who got it. I dissected the bird Wyatt said he killed because I was sure that I had brought it down, and guess what, I found a #2 Hevi Shot pellet (#4) just below the skin on the exiting side, the other 7 pellet holes had been clean pass-thrus. So it was obvious to us that the Hevi Metal worked wonders, OR Wyatt is just a bad shot, only time will tell. I should be headed out to goose hunt in the morning on Saturday and then heading out to a dairy farm to see if the pigeons will cooperate this time, so there should be more to come. Thanks for reading!

 

The geese weighed 9 and 11 pounds, and in reference to a Nova with a 28" barrel, you can see that these are very large birds!