There’s nothing harder to see in the winter woods than fluffy-white snowshoe hares hunkered motionless in softly falling snow. While snowy scenes provide the best conditions for Christmas cards, snow can make walking to hunt snowshoe hares frustrating. Hard, crunchy snow is especially difficult. Hares detect hunters from a long way off, and the fleeting, distant glimpse of a white ghost offers little shooting opportunity.
Hunting perfectly camouflaged snowshoe hares, or varying hare, in its winter wonderland is the domain of the rabbit hound. But many serious snowshoe hunters don’t own a pack of beagles. They have to adapt to winter conditions that put the odds in favour of their big-footed prey.
Driving snowshoe hares predictably
Driving snowshoe hares can be as productive as any other method in deep winter snow. Although driving usually is reserved for moose and deer, it actually works better on hares. They’re never as wary as big game and, when driven a short distance, they follow predictable lines of escape. A sitting snowshoe can be difficult to see, but the motion of a running animal can be detected easily.
Choosing a location to drive hares is fundamental to success. It also pays to understand snowshoe behaviour and how they react when chased. The snowshoe hares might not occupy the same type of habitat from fall to mid-winter. Deep snow can eliminate certain types of forage and protective grass cover. Before snow falls, hares often use old fields of secondary scrub. By mid-winter, the heavy cover of evergreens and cedar swamps holds hares. The best locations occur where a variety of low brush and willows is mixed with cedar clumps. Hares begin to forage on cedar in winter. A diversity of growth, which provides many food and cover options, is utilized much more than uniform stands of forest. Areas of broken cover create more edges between different vegetation zones. In addition to providing more food and shelter, small patches of different vegetation create ideal situations for driving.
Reading tracks
A quick examination of hare activity in the snow will determine if they’re abundant and how they might be driven. Lots of tracks heading in no particular direction, accompanied by browse clippings and droppings, means hares are using an area for foraging. Well-used trails interconnect foraging habitat with thick cover. Hares spend little time lingering in sparsely wooded areas between thicker stands of cover. Out in the open, they’re extremely vulnerable to predators, especially Great Horned Owls. The well-established trails crossing sparse brush ensure a quick escape from pursuing predators.
Hares have a small home range. When chased, they soon circle to remain in familiar territory. They can be chased from one clump to another several times, and they won’t leave the vicinity. Sometimes it takes a few pursuits to discover their favourite links between cover.
Knowing the terrain
Knowledge of the terrain is as essential to successful hare drives as it is to pushing big game. Focus on small clumps of habitat within the mosaic of vegetation that makes up the forest. Recognizing productive types and links between them is important. Concentrate on 1- to 5-acre clumps that can be walked easily by two to four chasers. Posted hunters should have a good view of trails leading from the cover.
If chasers walk slowly, hares will not panic away in high gear but will cross at a moderate pace. As chasers approach, hares that have not fled earlier often will hop out of the brush, then turn back into it. They’re reluctant to cross the open in daylight. Sometimes they bolt across in front of drivers at the last moment. Often escaping hares move along at a leisurely pace, far ahead of their pursuers. Posted hunters should be vigilant of well-packed trails, but keep an eye on the rim of cover around open areas.
Slower moving hares might not use a trail, but can be detected as they pick their way through a cover fringe around an opening.
Larger areas of similar vegetation should be divided into smaller chunks and pushed accordingly. Hares cannot be pushed effectively much beyond 300 yards, or even less, depending on the number of chasers. Driving them from a half-mile or more is wasted effort.
Snowfall hares
Driving works best in new snow and when snow is actually falling. Under these conditions, a record of the chase can be ascertained immediately and the next move planned. Posted hunters should walk to their stands across the anticipated escape routes and note where animals have crossed recently. Following the drive, these hunters should walk to a common point with their chasers and establish where undetected hares have crossed their path. Often a drive from the opposite direction a short while later will catch these animals re-tracing their routes.
Driving snowshoes requires a co-ordinated approach for success, just as it does on a deer hunt. Hare drives are shorter than for big game, but provide more shooting opportunities. Chasers and shooters rotate duties among drives, and lots of shots occur just before the chasers reach posted hunters. For this reason, all participating hunters must treat safety as a top priority and share confidence in the shooting practices of each other. Chasers should make enough noise so they are detected easily as they approach posted hunters. I carry a shotgun and take the occasional shot at a hare while chasing, but the objective is to move game to the hunters on stands. Avoid long shots, and never use a .22 rifle in this type of hunting.
Successful hunts
Successful hunts don’t depend on the number of people participating, or their individual skills as hunters. The ability of the group to function together as a team is what counts. Good hunts result from each person following a game plan. Chasers who race ahead or lag behind undermine the hunt and waste everyone’s time.
Shooters must remain in position until all chasers are through and they are relieved by chasers according to the plan. It helps to have one person who knows the terrain organize the hunt.
Bush paths are good locations for placing shooters, but are unnecessary for a successful hunt. Posted hunters must be far enough apart to permit safe shooting when a hare crosses between them. I like to stand beside a tree or something chat breaks my outline. In southern parts of the province, where snowshoes are hunted often, they’re wary of humans. Movement will spook them, causing them to double back into cover. Search for them with your eyes, turning your head slowing from side to side.
The best drives
Under the mid-winter weather conditions that work best on a drive, still-hunting snowshoe hares nearly impossible. Fluffy falling snow creates an atmosphere for the hunt that adds to the experience. Drives can produce exciting action when hares are abundant and the team of hunters is organized. Hounds are a good way to hunt in mid-winter, but driving snowshoes can be equally successful and save you a lot of money on dog food in the long run.
Snowshoe hares can be driven easily from conifer stands. Locate good areas for a drive by abundant signs of hare activity (footprints, droppings, trails, browsed vegetation). Hunters posted at sites 1, 2, and 3 watch constricted areas between conifer stands A, B, and C. Hares like to use the shortest route across open areas. Posted hunters should remain motionless, or at least break up their outlines by standing close to cover.
Hares driven to site 1 often will show up well head of the drive, carefully picking their way through cover. Drivers at 4, 5, and 6 should zigzag through the cover and make enough noise to get the hares moving. They should not be hunting primarily on their own. All parties should take care when drivers approach the posted hunters, especially at sites 2 and 3. Because of the long distance across open terrain, hares here might break across ahead of the driver at the last minute.
Originally published in the February 1992 issue of Ontario OUT of DOORS
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