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Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2347 Location: West MI

Is anyone around here familiar with a Snowshoe Hare guide in the upper Mid West?

If so, please PM with contact info.

Thanks,

Joined: 24 Jul 2016 Posts: 548 Location: Ohio

Don't know about now but there used to be alot of them in the Manistee Forest around Baldwin.

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1308 Location: Western WA

Know a pretty decent Snowshoe guide but he lives out here today in Western WA. Been a few years though…45 or so. His last, and only successful client was his ten year old little brother. He’s still looking for a paying client.

If you’re interested I’ll check with him to see if he’s available. He spends a lot of time reloading 16ga ammo.

Cheers
B.

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1308 Location: Western WA

Putz,
In all seriousness I encourage you and anyone else to head to Baldwin MI or points north for a Snowshoe hare hunt.

Maybe the most fun winter hunt anywhere. Their population follows a seven year cycle. During the high years, any resident up there with a shotgun and pair of boots could serve as a guide. After an hour in the woods and a OnX map on your mobile phone, you could be a guide yourself.

Snowshoes are a hare, not a rabbit, and are very unlike Cottontails. In the summertime they will run around the campfire and play with you. In the winter, they turn white and sit stock still in the snow and let you walk by them a couple feet away. You see them by noticing their eye which is like a round black marble. The instant you recognize them they dash away and disappear in a flash.

They usually circle like a cottontail but the circle is a half mile wide. You search in the woods and alder swamps for an area matted down with tracks. Then you carefully look around to spot an eye, gun at the ready. A .22 rifle or pistol may bag as many as a shotgun.

During a thaw their white fur stands out like billboard, and it’s almost unsporting to take them, unless with a bow or slingshot.

They make a delicious stew early in the season, but later in winter they eat cedar branches, then carrion, and finally their own droppings, which even the strongest chili powder can’t disguise.

All in all, a wonderful way to enjoy the winter woodlands.

All the Best
B.

Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2347 Location: West MI

Thanks for the responses, a bud recently relocated to the Great North Wet and if I ever visit out there I'll circle back on your offer of a guide out there. I'll try and revisit Baldwin before season closes, I'm very familiar with that area.

Rabbit/Hare is one of my favorite meals and it appears my tastes run parallel with Yotes, Coywolves and Hawks. Been hunting (brushbusting) Manistee & Huron Forests for longer than I can remember and Bunny's used to be common, the same haunts that once supported game now have Yote track everywhere. Read a couple sad reports regarding the Hare's concerning that they could very well become extinct in MI due to seasonal weather changes (mild winters) and over predation. Case-n-point, closed Grouse a few weeks ago 12+hrs in the woods and saw/heard -0- birds and only 1 Bunny track where the bounds were 6-7' apart, embossed in the snow right along with them were round tangerine sized impressions about 2' feet apart for the entire 150y I tracked them, unfortunately not an unusual experience for me stumbling around up there in the last 10 or so years.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/11/22/study-climate-change-michigan-rabbits-snowshoe-hare/19370853/

I'll continue to brushbust them (gluten for punishment) but a Beagle/Hound hunt is a bucket list thing I'd like to experience at least once sooner or later.

Joined: 09 Mar 2016 Posts: 754 Location: Mn.

Brewster11 that is the best description of snowshoes think I have ever read, well done.

First one I seen was in Western Washington. Was in the yards at Bremerton for 2 years starting around 1980 (I think). It was right after the winds sunk the Hood Canal Bridge. Which helped keep the people out of the Olympics. Lived in Belfair and hunting was good out the back door but spent most of my free time in the Olympic National Forest with my FJ55 Landcruiser.

We called them mountain hares for the most part. A bit stringy for me and my taste more a target of opportunity while hunting grouse or big game. I would shoot them with my pistol.

Yes absolutely the eyes have it.

North Shore of Lake Superior but same thing, the eyes give them away.

Putz463 not a shortage of them here. Wolves run the yotes off and we have an abundance of wolves. Which creates other problems especially for the moose, and not many deer because of them. Birds of prey most definitely an issue. No mild winters and is still the coldest spot in CONUS. Main training ground for sled dogs South of Canada and the vet for the Iditarod lives in Ely. Fourtrax on here uses her for his dogs.

Run into them all the time grouse hunting. First thing have to trash break the dogs on. Never targeted them would rather hunt birds. By mid Oct. the snow comes and builds from there. By mid Nov. the snow is too deep for beagles to run so not sure how you would do it. Even with a long legged beagle. Great for sled dogs.

22 below zero when I took that picture from the sled. Center of the Lake North is Canada.

Not aware of any guides with dogs for snowshoes in the area but will ask around. Let you know if find any but not sure they exist anymore.

Even here in western NY , one might occasionally have an encounter with one ... Fun as it is to have a Grouse come out from under you in the snow , a Hare doing the same thing is exciting to say the least . Back in my 20's , we lived on snowshoes and Fox hunting . Doing such one day , the hounds got on a dog and I hopped up on a brush pile , snow covered of course . Fox went by , the next guy in line got it . I started to get off the pile and I crashed down thru . yup , a hare was in there and came out nose to nose . He looked like a white Volkswagen heading off thru the woods . took me a while to calm down and get undone from the brush ! EXCITNG !! have only seen a couple since .

Joined: 03 Sep 2014 Posts: 398 Location: Rochester, MN

About 5 or 6 years ago, when I was still living in Michigan, I booked a guided hunt with a couple of guys out of Houghton Lake/St. Helen area.

They had a pack of several smaller beagles and we hunted public land. The dogs ran several hares and we bagged 3. The cost then was $75/gun.

We stayed in a friend's cabin near Grayling. We cleaned the three hares and that night, I made a stir fry with the meat.

It may seem strange but, Frank's Hot Sauce and peanut butter in a stir fry with snowshoe hare and veggies over rice is outstanding.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the contact info. I found them on a Craigslist ad.

Joined: 03 Sep 2014 Posts: 398 Location: Rochester, MN

This may be the guide that I hunted with:

https://www.facebook.com/huntershut18

Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2347 Location: West MI

Thank you John, I found that FB listing as well a couple few weeks ago, left email then and hadn't heard from them yet. I'll give a call when I get the time.

BTW; enjoyed a dinner of roast Redhead earlier this week, birds taken out of your old layout boat. Thanks again.

16davis, Shhh, be vehrwey vehrwey quiet.....agreed, they are a hoot when they squirt out of their hiding spot, the joke with my crew is that I'm actually hunting Wha-a-a-abit and those thundering brown blurs are a by-catch.

Cold Iron, You have some beautiful scenery at your finger tips, stunning! Our small game opens mid Sept, plenty of time before the snow is too deep for Beagles short little legs. Might have to visit your neck of the woods someday to harvest some of those Hares.

Brewster, I agree with Cold Iron, great write up on those Bunnys, remembering from my youth when we had Rabbits for pets, pretty sure Rabbit eat their Cocoa puffs having something to do with their digestive track adding a much needed nutrient to their diet, might be in the vitamin B family but can't remember, albeit, made great fertilizer for Dad's garden.

Joined: 09 Mar 2016 Posts: 754 Location: Mn.

putz463 well you know 2 guys out here now. Didn't take me long to run into John once he moved here. You all lost a good one when he left. More like a great one! I think he now knows more places than I do to hunt and fish LOL.

Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 444 Location: WI

Snowshoe bunnies are delicious, especially when roasted over an open fire after dark when it's -5°F and snowing...

Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 367

that what snowshoe hare's are.

best to find a snowed-over marsh areaa and then use your eyes to spot them.

Best firearms is a .22 [scoped or peep sighted] rifle, followed by a 16 or 20 GA ., shotgun imp CYL., or more open choke].

re-lube firearms with lite weigh oil or graphite powder.

HAVE FUN!!