 HUNTING
WILD RABBIT FOOD
Enter Cane Thickets and Palmetto Swamps
EDITOR’S NOTE: Large-scale farming has affected
rabbits in the South. Clearing vast tracts of woods
and swamps to plant agricultural crops has meant losing
much of the rabbits’ habitat. Even though the
hedge rows between these large fields have produced
outstanding rabbit hunting that season, in the past
few years, we’ve watched rabbit populations decline.
Rabbits, like all other wild species, must have a combination
of ample food and proper cover to survive. If an area
loses either one, bunnies just can’t flourish.
Throughout much of our region, farming practices have
changed. The small-plot family  farm
either has been abandoned or replaced with big-field
farms, which are not conductive to rabbit hunting. So
where can hunters go to find plenty of bunnies? The
answer’s quite simple – anywhere you find
an abundant food source and cover to protect the rabbits.
Let’s see if we can define some rabbit-food hot
spots and learn how to hunt them.
If you hunt in low-lying areas and swampy terrain,
many times you can find Goliath-sized rabbits in the
canes and the palmettos. This type of habitat homes
big swamp rabbits, not cottontails. The swampers tend
to like the tender shoots of the canes and grass that
grow in wetlands. The thick cover of the palmettos and
the cane provides an ideal home for these very-large
rabbits. But when you hunt swampers, you better pack
your lunch. Swamp  rabbits
run in much wider circles than cottontails. Most of
the swampers I’ve encountered have earned at least
their master’s degrees, and some even have their
PhDs in dog-dodging. The swampers will hit the water
in a heartbeat and swim upstream, downstream or across
a pond quicker than a raccoon will.
“I know most people won’t believe this,
but when a swamp rabbit crosses water, it tends to leave
an oily or a sweaty film on the water that contains
the rabbit’s scent,” Mel Stewart, by rabbit-hunting
buddy explains. “A dog that comes from quality
breeding with a good nose can follow that scent across
water and keep the race going. If you  have
dogs that hunt around water frequently, they’ll
also amass a wealth of rabbit savvy. They’ll know
where to look for a rabbit if it hits water. Even if
the rabbit throws the dogs off the trail for a few minutes,
sooner or later they’ll pick up the trail again
and keep the bunny coming to you.” To take more
rabbits this year than you have in the past, think about
a rabbit’s stomach. If you know what goes in the
rabbit’s stomach and where to find that food,
you’ll locate numbers of bunnies to hunt.
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