Chris Kinslow and I got the green light form our event coordinators (wives) to take a trip to the bunny ranch with the strict instructions “if you loose my camera don’t bother coming back home.” Oh yeah baby they’re even going to let us take pictures! We both married great women. So on Sunday morning at 05:30 we were northbound and headed to the ranch. While in the truck we both looked at each other and laughed while saying “we’re nuts!” We had all the essential gear. The back end of a truck cab was full of clothing, two bows, beef jerky, breakfast bars, a large thermos of hot chocolate and hand warmers. The only thing I forgot, and didn’t realize it until an hour on the road, were my Flu Flus and shooting glove… Too much excitement brings out the idiot in me.
After an 1.5 hour drive we arrive at the parking lot on the south end of the bunny ranch and we’re a little gitty with anticipation. As we’re peering out the windshield I hear “well what do you think?” “Lets go for it!” I say. Instantly Chris starts laughing and he says “ the wind is blowing so hard I can’t open my door!” Ha Ha Ha! We get out and start to gear-up for the hunt. I put Heat packs in my boots, slide into my wool bibs, put on my vest, fleece coat, neck gaiter, stocking hat, hand muff and gloves. “How the hell are we going to shoot dressed like the Michelin Man?” I asked. Ten or fifteen minutes later we’re dressed “lets get back in the truck and warm up” one of us says. Great idea!
Five minutes later out we go to pose for our first picture and then into the snow covered plains we head.
The ground is covered with a beautiful layer of snow and the snow and everything else is cover with a 1/4” layer of sparkling ICE. We begin to hunt the first draw and as we position ourselves for the hunt, I’m up high and Chris is down low, Chris says, “Lets try and sneak up on them.” Okay… CRACK, POP, BANG, BOOM are the noises we are making with every step as the ice breaks under our feet. We laugh at our stealthy approach through the draw but what’s a guy to do? This is the hunt we we’re delt and we planned to make the best of it. The knee and waist high grass breaks like glass as we pass through it and the north wind is relentlessly blowing at 25+ MPH. I’m not sure of the wind chill for the area we were in but there was very little exposed skin on either of us.
This is very open territory. Row crop fields and warm season grass land stretch for miles in all directions and within this vast openness are pockets of scrub brush draws and islands of thickets that are sure to hold rabbits!
Signs, signs everywhere signs! This place is a rabbit paradise! We push on for about a 1/4 of a mile without seeing a rabbit but the place is littered with tracks. We made our way north to a plum thicket. Wow look at this I think “The bunny Hilton!”
By now the sun is up and we welcome the warmth. We spread out and start pushing, ducking and crawling our way through ice covered trees that make up the thicket. Thick, thick, thick cover! Rabbit prints, pellets, and urine are everywhere. Neither Chris nor I have ever seen this much evidence of rabbits in one area here in the Missouri. We wonder how do we hunt this type of habitat? We both agree to push our way through and hope that we scare a rabbit towards the other person. I quickly learn that I can’t get through this brush and have an arrow nocked at the same time.
The arrow is pointing to Chris in the Bunny Hilton 
Not long after entering I came to a fairly open area. I stand and watch for movement. Alright I see one! But there was too much debris to take a shot. I stay put hoping that a rabbit will circle back around Chris and into the open area where I can ambush him. I hear Chris off to my right crunching through the crusty snow and I hear up in front of me MANY little feet scurrying over the top of the same crust that breaks under my weight. I holler over to Chris “I can hear them ahead of me but I can’t see them.” “Yeah I know!” he replies. I drop down to my knees and watch for movement under the bushes canopy. Again I see one but I still don’t have a shot. Dang it this stuff is thick!
We continued pressing our way though the thicket and we hear the rabbits ahead of us and occasionally getting a glimpse of one darting by. When we popped out on the far end of the thicket I look over at my hunting partner to see his facemask has instantly turned to ice and his once sweat covered brow has now turned to instant ice crystals from the battering freezing wind. We both look at each other and agree, “That was cool! But how do you hunt and area like that?” We both came to the conclusion that we need more guys to do a push like the one we just did and position shooters ahead or we need to hunt behind beagles.
The rest of our day continued much the same as what was described above. Every time we found a draw we would split up and try to scare a rabbit over to the other person. Opportunities were close but we just couldn’t close the deal. These little buggards are quick and pushing through thick brush and trying to be the shooter as well didn’t seem to work no matter how hard we tried. We even tried to do a one person drive while the other person watched over a rabbit run. But with only one driving it was difficult to steer the rabbits to the shooter. At one point we ran into a couple other hunters on this 5000 acre bunny ranch. They weren’t willing to help us with our drive but they were more then willing to try to take advantage of all our hard work. These other hunters were owls. One was a Barred Owl and the other was a Great Horned Owl. The pair would stay about 15 to 30 yards ahead of us as we hunted through the thicket. When we got close to them they would fly a little farther ahead of us and wait. We didn’t see them fly away with dinner but it sure appeared that they had used this method of hunting style before.
After about seven hours of hunting we called it a day but we promised ourselves that before the hunting season ends we are going to return to the bunny ranch and hopefully bring a few more guys with us.
Topic: Sunday’s adventures at the bunny ranch! (Read 1393 times)
