Guide to Early Season Snowshoe Hare Hunting
These early season snowshoe hare hunting tips will help you bring home both fur and feather.
Nothing gets my blood flowing more than hunting upland birds in November and accidentally flushing a snowshoe hare. Each fall, early season snowshoe hare hunting catches me off guard. Seldom am I ready for those first wild flushes that mark the beginning of hare season.
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Snowshoes are commonly found in the same places as ruffed grouse and spruce grouse. To top it off, they will test your shooting capabilities to their fullest. You think shooting a ruffed grouse busting through the alders is tough? Try hitting a snowshoe hare that’s just as fast but sprints across the ground.
Increase the odds of adding a hare to your game bag before the snow comes with these tips.
Snowshoe Hare Hunting Strategies
Generally, for snowshoe hares, the early season occurs between the season’s opening day and the first significant snowfall of winter. Over the last half-decade, at least in my neck of the woods, the snow that marks the beginning of winter has occurred around Christmas.
Hunting early season hare takes more dedication and patience than the late season. The trees and undergrowth still have their foliage, which extends the amount of cover available to snowshoes. However, places where you’ll find snowshoes more often than anywhere else include river edges and foliage directly adjacent to dense conifers. Snowshoes concentrate in these areas in the mornings and evenings as they leave their hideouts to feed.
Flushing Snowshoe Hare
Personally, I hunt river edges and marshes during the early season. Prospective hunters can cover ground while keeping the water to one side, which is a barrier to any hares that flush. Blowdowns in these same areas are often magnets for snowshoe hares. Have one hunter beat around a big fallen tree while another covers the opposite side. This strategy usually results in a hare in the back of the game vest.
Read More: How to Hunt Snowshoe Hare with a Pointing Dog
Note that snowshoe hares will not be entirely white during the early season. You’re far more likely to cross paths with a hare resembling an eastern cottontail, except with big, cream-colored feet. You also won’t be able to track them through snow. To capitalize on maximum opportunities, concentrate your hunting efforts on high-probability areas and break those places down into grids, working your way through one, then another, and another.
Stand Hunting Snowshoe Hare
Another great tactic that works in places where you know hare live is stand hunting for them. Think turkey hunting without the camo and sneakiness. Go to an area where you’ve seen hare before and set up against the trunk of a tree. If you can keep still, this tactic places the hunter in the direct path of hares who are leaving their heavy, impenetrable cover to feed. You might not believe it, but seeing multiple snowshoe hares materialize out of nowhere will get your heart beating more than you’d ever expect.
When To Hunt Snowshoe Hare During The Early Season
Early season snowshoe hares are drab-looking. When they are perfectly still, their natural camouflage makes them virtually disappear. However, sometimes, autumn weather gets a little wacky, and we end up with a premature snowfall. When this occurs, I stop everything, cancel my plans, and go snowshoe hare hunting. Why? Because you will be hunting a brown-colored animal in a sea of white snow.
Read More: A Look into Shotguns, Chokes, and Shot Size for Snowshoe Hare Hunting
If the snowfall coincides with a significant temperature drop, so much the better. You’ll likely find half-white, half-brown hares out in the open sunning themselves. This is a good time to walk the edges of dense cover with a 20 gauge shotgun loaded with three-inch number fours or a very accurate .22 LR.
Hunting Snowshoes While Chasing Upland Birds
Early season hare hunting isn’t necessarily a numbers game. Before the leaves are gone and snow has accumulated, snowshoe hares have a lot of cover to work with. Even if you’re not seeing hares, that doesn’t mean they’re not around. Hunting highly camouflaged animals in thick cover is challenging, and when you don’t see much, it can grind a hunter down. To ward off feelings of inadequacy, I often hunt snowshoes, ruffed grouse, and woodcock simultaneously.
When you flush a hare while bird hunting, mark the spot on your GPS. Odds are that the hare ran in a big arc and eventually returned to the place it flushed from. Work that spot again on your way back, but plan out your approach this time. Put the odds of adding a hare to the bag in your favor. If you’ve got a hunting partner or a dog that is hare savvy, all the better.
Early season snowshoes can also be a great opportunity to witness versatility in your hunting dog. Mike Finlay, host of The Urban Outdoorsman Podcast, discovered this during a particularly slow grouse day. Mike and his Irish Water Spaniel, Murdoch, joined me on an upland hunt that didn’t turn up much in the way of birds. However, several snowshoe hares flushed, allowing us to keep our guns running hot. After two or three hares were shot, Murdoch quickly learned that flushing hares and retrieving them would earn him great praise. He was happy to oblige. By the end of the day, Murdoch was pointing birds and snowshoe hares.
When hunting in snowshoe hare habitat this fall, don’t pass on the opportunity to add one to your bag. The early season is arguably the most difficult time of the year to pursue these hinterland lagomorphs. Challenge yourself to a rewarding hunt that will test not only your skills as a shotgunner but also your versatility. It’s a fun and stimulating way to make the absolute most of a day afield.
