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Hey i'm new to the board, from SE MN and run beagles on rabbits mainly but chase coon with some buddies of mine. I love every aspect of hunting with hounds, hearing the chase gets me every time no matter what those dogs are runnin (unless its trash ) Any way, as a beagle guy i wanted to thank you coyote guys for gettin rid of some of those rabbit killers, and on the flip side let you know that the yotes combined with a nasty winter are doin a number on the rabbit pop in my area, just an FYI

As a SE MN yote hunter, you're welcome. Out by me (dodge country) the fox numbers are getting higher than yotes. I wonder if all the fox are taking it's toll on the rabbits too.

I'm sure that the fox are. I've been noticing an increase in birds of prey in a lot of our areas, owls really take their toll. I've been thinkin about trainin our younger dog on fox since i know of a few beagle guys that run fox with em. Dodge co eh? hunt around the Naylor WMA? best place to run rabbits in my opinion. We drive from Faribault every weekend just because there are SO many rabbits down there.

fgavin wrote:I'm sure that the fox are. I've been noticing an increase in birds of prey in a lot of our areas, owls really take their toll. I've been thinkin about trainin our younger dog on fox since i know of a few beagle guys that run fox with em. Dodge co eh? hunt around the Naylor WMA? best place to run rabbits in my opinion. We drive from Faribault every weekend just because there are SO many rabbits down there.

Which one is the Naylor WMA? There are a bunch around here and I don't know their real names.

Right off of CoRd 5 just west of Clairmont. Pretty big. I've seen guys with dog boxes and what not drivin around and figured that they were runnin yotes, couple of the guys that i've hunted coon with said that there was a couple guys outta that area that do so i kinda just put 2 and 2 together i guess. Havent seen anyone out there this year tho

fgavin wrote:Right off of CoRd 5 just west of Clairmont. Pretty big. I've seen guys with dog boxes and what not drivin around and figured that they were runnin yotes, couple of the guys that i've hunted coon with said that there was a couple guys outta that area that do so i kinda just put 2 and 2 together i guess. Havent seen anyone out there this year tho

Hmm I'll have to look that one up. Is it South or North of Claremont?

There is one east of Claremont on the north side of HWY 14. I remember seeing rabbit and Beagle tracks in there one day when we were hunting it. Some of the other guys said they see Beaglers in there quite a bit. I’d love to watch Beagles work and always hoped I’d see some Beaglers in there when I drove by but haven’t. I’d love to run one of my terriers with Beagles. He’s a tracker and a runner and loves rabbits.

You’ll have to let me know when you’re coming over. Not only would I love to watch the Beagles work, you guys may kick a yote out too. I live just south of Dodge Center so that's my stomping grounds.

We must be talking about the same one because cty 5 is east of Claremont, west of Dodge Center.


Yes that one gets hunted hard. I haven’t personally ran it in a couple years. Last time I was in there we only had a couple dogs in there and the yote just kept circling and we spend all day there. I literally spent the better part of the day trying to either catch the dogs or shoot the yotes. It was getting late in the day and the two dogs (one good and one not so good) where just not going to get it caught and we were desperate to get them out before dark. Finally another guys dumped a couple more dogs and a couple more guys walked it and finally got the yote shot just at last light. Here’s the kicker, it was Christmas Eve and we were only planning on hunting till noon because we all had to be to places by 2 ish. Needless to say a few of us were quite late for Christmas.

Yeah your right it is east lol dont know what i was thinking. I will let you know for sure sometime we're going out. My dad and i have been into terriers for a long time but have never done anything but to read about them or watch youtube videos. Do you breed them? What all do you hunt them on? What kind do you have? In general my dad and i are just into everything hound/terrier/birddog/working dog related. Using dogs for what they were supposed to do is what amazes us.

We currently only have two beagles, one pup and one old dog. The old dog is amazing at hunting an the pup is comin a long (he's still a pup as my dad has to tell me almost every time we hunt). This means that the hunts arent too long. But a few years back when we had our two old dogs plus the old one we have now there were more than a few things that i was late for or missed! I think my family kind of just learned to live with it.

What kind of dogs do you use on the yotes? From what little i know i've been hearing alot about running walkers? Do you think you could use coon hounds? The only thing that seems to kind of bother me is that, and i could be totally wrong about this so pleas dont be offended, it seems like theres a lot of driving around. What i like about rabbit and coon hunting is the closeness to the dogs you can be. I tend to try to stick with the dogs close enough to generally know whats going on. Is it possible to do the same with yote hunting?

I'm not exactly sure when we'll be down by Clairmont again but if you ever seen the gray ford focuse thats us. feel free to stop out, we hardly ever shoot the rabbits so no need to worry about getting shot or anything.

We’ve got three running walker that we run yotes with. There are a lot of guys with yote hounds around here and they generally have a lot more dogs than we do. Coyotes are runners and cover a lot of ground so it takes a running dog to keep up with them. I’m not too familiar with coon hounds but I’m not sure if they have the stamina and speed for yotes. They can cover a lot of ground fast. That’s also why there’s a lot of driving. It’s the only way to keep up with the race. A coyote and dog can cover a section in few minutes and get way from you in a hurry. I also have a greyhound mix lurcher that we use to help catch yotes.

I’m new to terrier work. I’ve got an older one and a Patterdale pup. There’s another guy that I hunt with and we barn hunt coon mostly. We’re going to try our hand at fox with the terriers later this month.

Do your dogs catch the rabbit? I’d like to let my lurcher try and catch some rabbits too.

In general its pretty unusual for our dogs to catch rabbits and the ones they do catch are frequently sick. Normally since they are hunting almost entirely by scent they are so far behind the rabbit that they dont see it. This isnt always the case but i would say the norm. The lurcher would be a blast! I didnt know any one had sight hounds around here. Another thing my dad is super into. He has a friend in New Mexico who hunts jack rabbits with sight hounds and also does falconry (another interest of ours). Lets for sure try to get together sometime. Rabbit season is coming to a close so i'll talk to my old man and figure something out and let you know about our next hunt.

When does Rabbit season end?

Some pictures of our dogs.

viewtopic.php?f=78&t=12375

I've got some catch pictures that aren't appropriate for an open forum too.

PM me your email and phone number.

Hey PM'd you just making sure you got it. It explains the reason i didnt reply quickly. Rabbit season ends the 28th.

Hey fgavin i am a coyote hunter in se mn and i use bluticks. I also am going to be breeding bluetick (colored) beagle with jack russells if your interested in some color for your pack. If you ever want to try coyote hunting let me know we always like to bring in new blood whenever we can.