Four Feet of Snow to chase Snowshoe Hare’s?

I headed up to my family camp just north of Milan, NH day before yesterday March 12, 2019 to hunt the bunnies north of the Pontook dam. I have a case of Cabin Fever and I knew of a spruce thicket that would be great to see the snowshoes. I could only get a couple hundred yards in without snowshoes. What a slog!

In the thicket I was up to my thigh in snow but out in the open I was up to my hips and could barely move.  On entry I saw many tracks of every species of game, predator and prey alike including deer and moose. In fact, I was snorted at by an unseen deer. I think they have wintered-up nearby as there were few thickets to be found these days. Years back there were plenty of heavy timber thickets for deer to winter and yard up.

Later I found a snowmobile trail behind camp that I could use and walked a half mile to a thicket of silver birch and spruce where there were some fresh snowshoe hare tracks. It was a beautiful day full of sunshine and blue sky. In fact, the silence was deafening as it usually is in the north-woods.  My minor tinnitus dominated the silence but I didn’t mind as the splendor of the day was evident. The snowmobile trail was used by a coyote recently as he peed in the snow every couple hundred yards to mark his territory.

I will mark this visit Month and Day as a no hunt for my future calendar unless I had a snowmobile and snowshoes. However, it was a great release of my cabin fever!!

If you have a snowmobile, get going up there! Still lots of snow!

Good Hunting!

 

 

 

 

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About Ed Hale

I am an avid hunter with rifle and Bow and have been hunting for more than 50 years. I have taken big game such as whitetail deer, red deer, elk, Moose and African Plains game such as Kudu, Gemsbok, Springbok, Blesbok, and Impala and wrote an ebook entitled African Safari -Rifle and Bow and Arrow on how to prepare for a first safari. Ed is a serious cartridge reloader and ballistics student. He has earned two degrees in science and has written hundreds of outdoor article on hunting with both bow and rifle.