Jan 1, 2016

9:00AM-3:30PM Cottontail rabbit hunting with my dogs Roxy and Zeta and Brian Doley
Where: Blair, WI
Weather: cloudy, 28°, windy, 10 inches of snow cover
Bagged: Nothing

Today we started out hunting Brian’s land, which lies, to the East of Blair. The last two years this spot has had a good population of bunnies, but this year we never chased a rabbit. There were a few tracks, but the dogs were unable to rout any out of their lairs.
Our next spot was just to the west of Blair. This area used to be a great spot, but the last two years it has been a bust! We did have one very long and interesting run though.
The girls chased and chased a rabbit. After about an hour it seemed as if the rabbit had ran into a hole. I could hear Zeta franticly barking from the same position for several minutes. I decided I had better go and investigate and to my surprise she had treed it.
The bunny had climbed up a leaning split hollow tree and was up in the tree about eight feet. Zeta was also up in the tree about five feet off the ground. I could see the bunny and actually touch it but I figured after all the trauma it went through it probably deserved to live. But before I could pull Zeta off it got nerved and climbed a little higher and launched itself out of the tree. The chase was back on! We allowed the chase to continue on for another fifteen minutes then we caught the dogs.
That bunny had nine lives. It survived being shot at three different times and it also survived its jump out of the tree!