Bad Hare Day – Night Time Hare Hunting
As I went down to my usual hunting properties, the farmer asked me to keep a keen lookout for hares. He has spent a fortune fencing tree runs and now hares and rabbits are the only pests that can get in and eat his native trees he has planted as apart of his wind break and native regeneration efforts.
Of course I was up to the task and on the first night myself, my father and Pete the cocky went out for a spotlight in search of any ferals that came our way.
The first couple of paddocks yielded nothing and it was looking to be a quiet night, it was cold and windy and if I were a critter I’d be looking to stay out of the wind and keep warm.
As we got to the end of the third paddock we spotted a pair of hares. The Tikka T3 Varmint Stainless in .223 muzzle pointed out of the passengers side window and barked twice in quick succession, that resulted in two split hares.
Pete was stoked:
“That made my night shooting those two mongrels” he quipped, “I don’t care if we shoot another thing all night”.
Well I wanted to shoot more so we agreed to stop on the way back for photo’s and went for a drive around the third paddock on that side of the property, nothing much was about but it has been incredibly wet out there of late and we weren’t really game to go off the tracks with my Forrester so maybe we missed a fair bit.
On the way back up to the gate we spotted a hare run across the track and another in the opposite direction, this led my dad to put pedal to the metal and give chase. The hare stopped for a second and he copped a 40 grain V-Max to the chest, Number three for the night. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the third and by that time I think a night cap was calling my dad and Pete so we just spotlighted where we had been and called it a night, I wasn’t too upset though it was bloody cold and not much about. That said we forgot to get photos of the ones we had already shot. So a quiet night was had but as I said before, you’d have to be nuts to be out in that miserable weather.
Pig rooting in one of the farmers best paddocks. I hope to catch up with them soon.
Earlier on that day whilst going for a walk with the shotgun (which didn’t yield any results) I came across some pig rooting in a couple of the paddocks, so on the second night after discussing tactics with a mate on the phone, I was ready to go on foot with my trusty 22-250, Wolf Eyes Sea-lion and go in search of these pigs. Dad and Pete didn’t want to have a bar of braving the cold and windy night so I left them at home.
I hit a problem however, I had never mounted the Sea-Lion on my Winchester Model 70 before, it has a one piece base and still has its front sight. I get out to where I was about to set off on foot not having thought too much about these factors. I get out of the car, and go to mount the light, ahh damn I can’t mount it to the side so I’ll just mount it over the top of the scope I thought. Well that was fine until I looked through the scope. The light hit the front sight and reflected it straight back down the objective of the scope making the setup useless.
“That was the end of that, I’ll just go for a quick drive around and hope I come across them” I thought to myself.
No such luck, I go over to where I suspected they would be, they weren’t there or at least the pigs heard me coming and buggered off. All I saw was a fox dart off into the next door neighbours place.
I tried calling it in but to no avail it would just sit there amongst some trees and look every now and then, unfortunately I did not have permission to shoot on that place so there was no chance for a shot.
So keeping in mind the conversation I had with Pete the farmer about the hares I set off to look for them.
On the way back through I see one. It won’t pull up under the light and things were difficult as I was driving, spotlighting and shooting all by myself. I followed it with the light until I lost it, I then drove around to where I thought it was. Surely enough, it was about 100m past where I saw him drive. I pointed the light at him, then the gun outside of the drivers side window and let a 55gn Nosler SHOT go in his direction. When I heard that unmistakable THWOPP. I knew the shot had found its mark.
I saw another hare on the way out of that particular paddock but it was a distance away and I missed the shot and it was not stopping for nobody.
On my way back to the house I pursued another fox, this time it came to the call but unfortunately I was in the car and was upwind of basil, he caught my scent and buggered off. I caught up with him again but he didn’t want to stop.
Driving back now, in the house paddock there was a small pasture off to the right where I saw a hare run across the track and into. I fired, I missed, he stopped just on the other side of the fence and I fired once more. Unsure of if I hit him the second time I scanned the paddock and saw a hare ( I thought I missed the first and it was him again). I fired again, now getting concerned of waking the neighbours once again the shot rang true and I heard that TWHOPP and could see the hare lie motionless.
I hop out of the car and walk over to the hare I had just shot for a photo, once I collected him I decided to go for a walk and see if I did hit the other hare. Sure enough there he was on the other side of an electric fence so no photo opportunity for him. There my night ended, I was happy that I had shot my 6th hare in two nights and managed to be so successful spotlighting from a vehicle by myself.
Pete was happy that I got another 3 hares and hopefully that will have thinned them out so his trees don’t cop a flogging.
All in all a fairly productive two nights spotlighting considering there wasn’t all that much around.
Equipment used:
Tikka T3 Varmint Stainless .223 (6-24×50 Burris signature scope) – Firing handloaded 40 Grain Hornady V-Max
Winchester Model 70 XTR 22-250 (4-12 Leupold Vari-X II scope) – Firing handloaded 55 Grain Nosler SHOTs
Lightforce 240 Blitz Spotlight (suction cup mounted to the car)
Cass Creek AmpliFire Game Call.
You can post this "Bad Hare Day – Night Time Hare Hunting" image that's above on your blog/forum using following codes:
Website Code
Forum Code
Related posts:
- Lonerider’s Hare Recipe
- Almost But Not Quite – Night Time Fox Calling
- New Night Vision Technology May Bring Night Vision To The Masses
Category: featured, Hunting Stories
You need 10 hands Keith, driving, spotting & shooting alone.
There is something to be said for solo hunting though, I love going out by myself early morning, sometimes I really crave the solitude & I reckon there is nothing more relaxing than being out alone, especially when its cold & frosty….magic…..walking only though mate, no driving !
Yeah it is a bit of a pain in the butt spotlighting from a vehicle alone, I went for a walk the day before with just me and my shotgun, didn’t see a single critter but was still a great time, especially since it is so green where I was hunting that day!