Paul(BadgerArrow) and I did some rabbit recon today with better than expected results. The principle feature of the public lands around Waterloo is intersecting shallow rivers, the Maunesha and Crawfish, with several thousand acres of public hunting grounds. The previous two years we've hunted private but the public looks encouraging. The rivers have a good ice cover providing access to either side unless a major thaw occurs in the next couple weeks. After finding an initial location near the Waterloo Sportsmans Club we checked an access point a mile down river and met up with a deer hunter walking the ice back to his vehicle,(this was the last weekend of gun season in the CWD zone). After introducing ourselves we asked if he had encountered rabbit
sign he responded, "lots of it," directing us to a wooded island just up river. He said this was a spot not many people knew about and I suspect it's where he shot his 178 whitetail on opening weekend that he spoke about. His candor was surprising but he seemed to instantly connect with our upcoming traditional rabbit hunt. With this info we decided not to take the walk and headed back to the club that Paul's a member of to see how the shotgunners rabbit hunt event had gone that morning. There was a good 40 hunters at the clubhouse and 52 rabbits were taken. Sounds real good to me. Join us, a great clubhouse, food and friends and maybe a few "bits".