Rabbit Hunting for Beginners

Rabbit season is the reason the hunting year does not end in December. In most states it runs well into winter, often past the close of deer season, and it is a completely different kind of day — social, active, and short on sitting. If you tried a deer stand and found the stillness hard, this is the hunt to try next.

Why rabbit is a great beginner hunt

Three reasons. It is a walking hunt, so you are not learning to sit still for four hours before you have learned anything else. It is social — rabbit hunting works better with two or three people than alone, which makes it the easiest hunt to bring a friend into. And it happens after deer season, when the woods are empty, the licenses are cheap, and nobody is competing with you for ground.

It also teaches things a stand hunter never learns: reading cover, working ground systematically, safe muzzle discipline while moving with other people, and shooting at something that is going somewhere. If squirrel hunting teaches you patience — see squirrel hunting for beginners — rabbit teaches you movement.

Where rabbits actually are

Rabbits live where they can hide from a hawk in under two seconds. That is the whole principle, and it means the ground you want is the ground that looks least appealing to walk into.

Notice how much of that is unpleasant to walk through. That is not incidental — it is why brush pants are the first purchase rather than an accessory. A hunter who is getting scratched stops pushing cover within an hour, and the rabbits are exclusively in the cover.

How to hunt them, with or without a dog

With a beagle, the hunt is straightforward and it is why beagles exist. The dog finds a rabbit and pushes it, the rabbit runs a wide circle rather than leaving its home range, and the hunters stand still and wait for it to come back around. You do not chase; you position yourself on the likely return route and let the dog do the work. If you know someone with beagles, ask to go — it is the classic version of this hunt and one of the most enjoyable days in hunting.

Without a dog, you become the dog, and the method is deliberate rather than fast. Walk into thick cover in a line with your partners, then stop for ten to fifteen seconds every few steps. That pause is the entire technique. A rabbit that has frozen as you approach loses its nerve when you stop moving, because it assumes it has been seen — and it flushes. Steady walking pushes rabbits ahead of you unseen; stop-start walking makes them break.

Gun, choke and load

Shots are close, fast and often partly obscured, so this is an open-choke hunt. Improved cylinder or skeet, and nothing tighter — a full choke on a rabbit at fifteen yards throws a pattern the size of a fist. See the choke guide for what each constriction actually does.

A 20 gauge is arguably the ideal rabbit gun — light to carry all day, quick to swing, and entirely sufficient at these ranges. A 12 gauge works perfectly well with light field loads; the comparison is in 12 gauge vs 20 gauge. Number 6 shot is the common choice, with 7 1/2 fine in very close cover.

A .22 rifle is legal in many places for sitting rabbits and is a poor tool for running ones. If you are hunting with a rifle, wait for the animal to stop — and be far more careful about your backstop than you would be shooting up into a tree at a squirrel, because a rifle shot at a ground-level target travels a long way at chest height.

The one health precaution that matters

Rabbits can carry tularemia, a bacterial infection transmissible to humans, most often through handling an infected animal with bare hands or through eating undercooked meat. It is uncommon, it is treatable with antibiotics, and it is worth taking seriously rather than worrying about.

Three straightforward precautions cover it. Wear disposable gloves when cleaning rabbits — the same practice as field dressing anything else. Cook the meat thoroughly, which is what you want anyway because rabbit is lean and suits a slow braise. And do not take an animal that behaved abnormally — a rabbit that was sluggish, unusually easy to approach, or that has visibly spotted internal organs when you open it should be left alone. The traditional advice to hunt rabbits only after a hard frost comes from the same concern, and while the frost itself does nothing to the bacteria, the winter season does coincide with lower risk.

Handle the meat as you would any wild game: cool it promptly, keep it clean, and get it in a cooler if the walk out is long. The licensing and season rules for small game differ from big game and are usually more generous — check yours in hunting license basics before the first trip.