MILFORD, Maine — In March, as the air begins to warm and the desire to be outside grows, there are few critters that can be legally hunted. Among them is the snowshoe hare, which runs rampant in the Maine woods. But for dogless hunters, these creatures present a major challenge.
Although they have high predation rates, hares also reproduce, well, like rabbits. A doe hare could have four litters every year, filling the woods with a lot of opportunity for small game hunters.
For some advice, I called up Maine Game Warden Jim Fahey, who’s been using hounds to hunt hares for 30 years.
Fahey told me to look near alders where the hares could be sunning themselves. Also he said to look in dark protected areas where there are dense pines and spruce. These are areas where hares will hide. If there’s an adjacent food source, such as birch, there’s bound to be hares.
“Have you ever heard the term, mad as a March hare?” asked Fahey.
In March, the bucks tend to be a little “crazy” because the females are in estrus, which makes males throw caution to the wind in search of a mate. Fahey said that before he had radio collars for his dogs, he lost one of them for three days and four nights that had chased a “March hare” far into the woods.
“That was a long snowshoe day,” Fahey said of the excursion to find his dog.
Normally, Fahey said, when a hound jumps a hare and begins pursuit, the hare will run in giant figure eights and circles trying to escape the dog. For hares, it’s their instinct to head back to where they were originally jumped and usually where a hunter is waiting with a shotgun.
Unfortunately in my case, I didn’t have a hound. While I do have a blue heeler to keep me company, it is not trained to hunt, so I would be still hunting.
“A still hunter doesn’t have the option of sending a dog through the thicket. They would want to hunt where there is some viewing opportunities, around field edges and alder swamps,” Fahey said.
Unlike a grouse, when you jump a hare out of hiding, you’re not going to hear it, Fahey said. He said that you never know how close you might have been — hare hunting is primarily a visual hunt. Looking for fresh tracks in the winter is key to hunting success. Snowshoe hares bound with their back feet past their front feet. The tracks show this by having two large foot prints in the front and two smaller ones, the front feet, in the back.
The other problem? Snowshoe hares are white this time of year, which makes them nearly invisible in 3 feet of snow.
Nevertheless, my blue heeler, Captain, and I headed out into the woods on a pull off across from Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge on County Road in Milford.
I put on my Mountain Safety Research snowshoes with floaters, loaded my shotgun and hit the trail. Captain bounded behind.
We saw tracks from what I’m sure was a hunter with dogs almost immediately. Snowshoe hare tracks also were scattered back and forth across the trail. I think the hunter probably left with some luck that day — I’ve never seen more hare tracks than I did that day on the trail.
About two miles in, after breaking fresh tracks for a long distance and weaving our way through pine thickets in search of game, I decided to turn back. Captain and I saw neither hide nor hair … of a hare.
“But, you’ve got to look at the big picture. It’s 40 degrees, and at least you can enjoy the sunshine,” Fahey said.
And that we did.