3-30-13 Sat

3-30-2013 Sat 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Weather:
(1155) Nasty, rain, 35 ˚, S14, 29.88 falling, 20” snow cover
Location:
Gilman, WI
Bagged:
nothing
Partners:
Tom, Vern and friend, Dan Frei and sons Andrew and Ethan

Comments:

I had organized a late season snow shoe hare hunting trip up to the Gilman area last week when I was at the Ragged Rock Beagle Club trial. We had plenty of dogs and people, but the main ingredient we were lacking was good weather. In fact, the weather was horrible.
We had rain, hard at times and plenty of wind, and to make it even more miserable we had way too much snow. Unfortunately it was the type of snow that was not hard or dense enough to support the weight of a beagle.
We found some hares, but the little hounds were unable to continuously trail the light footed white bunnies. Unfortunately for the dogs they were literarily swimming in the white stuff. Tracking was really an unreasonable feat to expect from the dogs. They would get on a track, but while trying to trail they were literally pushing the snow ahead of themselves with their noses and chests. And of course they hunted single file on account of the deep snow which pretty much wiped out the advantage of having a pack of dogs.

Observations:

All the conditions were terrible today: It was rainy and windy, and the snow was too deep and would not support the dogs. We attempted to hunt just a couple of hours, but that was quite enough for all of us. Both masters and dogs were soaked and cold and were not very excited to be in the woods.