Before the Shot: Rabbit Hunting Gear, Methods, & Strategies

Not sure what gear you need to hunt rabbits, or if it can even be done successfully without a dog? Or maybe you want to learn how to get started hunting with a rabbit dog? You’ve come to the right place!

Gear Basics

• Good Boots: you will cover a LOT of ground when you’re out rabbit hunting
• Game Vest: to carry your harvested rabbits, and can double as your blaze orange or pink
• Firearm (with appropriate choke) and Ammo or Bow/Arrows
• Heavy-Duty Brush Pants or Chaps: Rabbits like to take shelter in areas with thorns, burrs, and thick underbrush
• Printed/physical copies of your IL Hunting License, Stamps, and Permits as well as your FOID card
• Any other blaze orange or blaze pink you need to meet your legal square inch requirements
  • This varies based on whether you are on public or private land. See the Illinois Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations for details.

Methods: Hunting Without Dogs & Hunting With Dogs

Hunting Without Dogs

The Pros and Cons of Hunting without Dogs

Pros

• You do not need to feed, care for, and train one or more rabbit dogs
• You may have an easier time getting private land permission
• This is much easier to begin with as a new rabbit hunter!

Cons

• You will have a hard time flushing rabbits from brushy cover, especially if you do not have a larger group of people to hunt with
• It can be much more difficult to effectively hunt rabbits alone
• It requires a lot more scouting

Tactics: Walk, Flush, Shoot

The most effective way to hunt rabbits without dogs is to walk through brush, flush the rabbits out cover yourself, and the shoot them. It’s a simple and also as potentially frustrating as that!

Start By Scouting

The key is to begin with scouting the area in advance by looking for different types of rabbit tracks, scat, and other sign. This is much easier when there is snow on the ground, but understanding rabbit behavior and habitat preferences can help you narrow down where to look and make your search much easier. For example, if the area you are thinking about hunting doesn’t have any brushy cover along a field or meadow edge, you can conclude it is likely not a good spot to spend your time scouting there because rabbits prefer to browse in open areas, but need to have thick cover close by in order to escape from predators.

Humans as Flushers

After you have confirmed you are in in area with rabbits, you can narrow your focus to begin hunting the areas at your location where you’ve seen different types of tracks, scat, other sign, and promising habitat features.

Whether you are alone or in a group, you will approach the area slowly and stop every so often. The goal of this is to trick the rabbits in the brush into thinking they have been spotted and encourage them to flush, or take off from their hiding spots. You will need to pay attention because in thick cover, it can be difficult to see rabbits moving, especially if there is not snow on the ground. Rabbits also tend to run, stop and listen, and then run, and so on, so if you lose sight of them in the brush, don’t feel like you’ve lost your only opportunity.

If you are doing this push in a group, walking ten to twenty yards apart from one another will give you a better chance of flushing more rabbits, of making sure that the rabbits you do flush don’t slip past you, and give you space to be safe. Just make sure you and your group are aware of where one another are, and do not let anyone get too far ahead or behind the others so you can maintain your safe zones of fire.

Hunting With Dogs

In the U.S., scenthounds are traditionally used to hunt rabbits, which is done by using the dog to find the scent of the rabbit and chase (or flush) it out of thick cover and keep it moving for the hunter to then dispatch it. In other parts of the world, sighthounds are actually used to run rabbits and hares down to dispatch them, but that is not the goal of hound hunters in the U.S.! It is rare for rabbits to be caught by scenthounds.

The main breed used to hunt rabbits in the United States is the beagle. Basset hounds were also traditionally used, although they are much less common today, and the harrier is another scent hound that was used in the U.S., although was much more common in England. Many people also successfully hunt with their regular (non-basset or beagle) hunting dog, although in this scenario, you need to consider whether or not your dog will actually run rabbits or if you will have to jumpshoot (essentially, shooting rabbits as they run away, rather than waiting for them to stop or circle back) in order to harvest rabbits, and if that is something you are comfortable with, given how close your dog may be.

The Pros and Cons of Hunting with Dogs

Pros

• You are able to hunt much more thoroughly — the dogs will flush rabbits from spots you will mostly likely never be able to kick up yourself and keep them moving!
• The dogs sound great and are a lot of fun to watch and work with
• It requires less scouting: as long as there is habitat for rabbits, the dogs will generally figure out where they are

Cons

• It takes a lot of time, energy, space, and often money year-round to get a good rabbit dog trained up and keep them in shape, especially if you have more than one
• Hunting accidents can happen
• It can be difficult to get started

How to Do It

An Overview of How It Works

As mentioned above, when hunting rabbits with dogs, the dogs are released and scent the ground until they pick up the trail of a rabbit. They follow the trail, baying as they go so the hunter knows where they are, and flush the rabbit out of brush and keep it moving, either until the rabbit finds a spot to hide or the hunter is able to take a shot and harvest the animal. The hunter then retrieves the rabbit (quickly, or the dogs will chew it up), and then the dogs begin their search again. Sometimes the scent trail will split as the dogs run or they will jump another rabbit and they will give chase, either based on scent or sometimes by sight.

While the dogs are chasing the rabbit, the hunter generally either stands still, waiting for the rabbit (and dogs) to circle back, or they follow at a distance if they hear (or see, if they’re using tracking collars) the dogs getting too far away (or near roads, public or private land boundaries, or other potential features of concern). When the dogs are looking for a trail but are not actively pursuing a rabbit, the hunter generally trails behind the pack and can point out rabbit they spot to the dogs, usually by saying “Tally” or “Tally-Ho,” much like fox hunters do, to direct the dogs’ attention.

Getting Started

Getting started can be tricky, especially depending on where you live. The best way is to find a mentor or club to help teach you in-person. You can find local hunt test events near you by visiting the American Kennel Club’s website, selecting “Beagles” and “Basset Hounds” under “Field Trials” beneath the “Performance Events” dropdown on the left, and searching by the state and dates of your choice. These will give you a chance to meet people and get to see what running the dogs look like.

Many of the different beagle and basset hound clubs host these field trials, and many of the people who run their dogs in these events also hunt their dogs the rest of the year. You can search the different AKC Illinois Field Trial clubs, but will need to review them to look for beagles and bassets, as other breeds also have field trial options (not for rabbits). These are good lists to identify which clubs are closest to you, and to reach out to the secretaries to learn more about the clubs and local rabbit hunters.