Outdoor Guide
Doing the bayou
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By John Flores t might as well have been a serrated steak knife dragged across my wrist the way it felt, as my son and I made our way through a thick patch of briers in search of swamp rabbits this past weekend. The canal bank we were on was teeming with the tangled mess causing me to think that clearly the inventor of consertina wire was a bayou state swamp rabbit hunter at some point in his life. Only someone who did a little bayou boogie mashing grass, briers, and mixtures of ferns and bull tongue along canals banks could be so sadistic. But, that boogie is what it takes if you are going to be successful killing rabbits in the marsh without a good pack of beagles. My son and I are not the lucky ones who own a pack 88 of dogs. Instead, we’re the pack. And it’s how he and I pack using our human legs and feet that determines how successful we are. There are a few tricks to everything. Rabbit hunting has a long-standing tradition in Louisiana. And around these parts right after duck season is the time of year it’s done. Take any weekend during the winter months and you’ll see plumes of smoke rising skyward where the marsh is burning somewhere. In the years gone bye the old marsh-men would burn the marsh to trap muskrats. Tall patches of cane roseaus would pop, crackle and sizzle as the flame would lap over acres upon acres of land leaving the terrain sooty black and flat with nothing but the rat hills showing. During cold nights rats would become more active according to lore, and the next morning a frost would greet the trapper running his trap line. Today the rats are gone, but the practice of burning the marsh still exists and is still allowed by some land companies along the coast. But, in these cases it’s more to condition the ground to hunt rabbits, making it easier for both dogs and hunters. Where it’s not allowed, it means fighting the understory. What’s more, the chances of harvesting a limit of rabbits are drastically diminished and now comes down to your ability to jump them out of their protective cover. One of the things that I’ve taught my three sons and numerous friends is to slow down and don’t be in a hurry when coming to a patch of briers that you know holds a rabbit or two. It’s not about covering lots of ground as much as it is covering what you’re hunting Bayou Catholic • Houma, LA • October 2013
JOHN FLORES PHOTO
more thoroughly. The trick is to get that rabbit to move out of the cover and expose itself where a shot can be made. The best method in hunting rabbits if you’re dog-less is to zigzag, stop often, bay like a beagle or talk loud, and start over if nothing comes out of the patch. All of these techniques assume there is rabbit sign present. If not, all bets are off and you’re just wasting time. This technique has never failed me in scoring a swamp rabbit and I’ve proven it time and again. Quite often I’ve approached a patch of briars so thick you can’t see through them and talking out loud said to my sons or friends, “This patch will have a rabbit
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