"The rabbits would often be holed up in thick cover and you couldn't see a complete rabbit. He told me to look for an eye, an ear, or some other part of a rabbit. I tried to hunt the same as him, but I'd always get impatient and want to move. I thought that if I covered more ground, then I'd have more chances at finding rabbits. Of course, at the end of the day, he would always have twice as many rabbits as I did. After a while, I learned to hunt slow and look intently," Capps said.

Charlie Goatee likes to hunt slow and methodical, too. He likes small blocks of really thick cover. "If you move slow enough through these small areas, you can often see rabbits sitting in the thick cover and can get a shot off at a stationary target." He said he will walk, stop, look and then move again, but still very slowly and patiently.

Other places Goatee likes to hunt are fencerows and ditch banks. He especially favors the ditches and will typically get down in the ditch and move slowly along looking for sitting rabbits. "The rabbits will usually be sitting on the undersides of the ditch banks. By getting down in the ditch, I can move along and scan both sides," Goatee said.

Narrow fencerows and other sparse cover, surrounded by open areas, are not preferred by Capps or Goatee. When rabbits are jumped in these areas, they tend to take off into the open and go long distances before stopping. Both hunters like extremely tight, thick cover for stalking.

Still-hunting also lends itself well to multiple hunters. Both Capps and Goatee will still-hunt when hunting with friends, but they vary slightly with the methods they use.

Goatee likes to hunt with only two or three people. He said safety could become an issue with too many hunters close together. Also, too many people will move the rabbits too much.

He likes to position the hunters about 15 to 20 feet apart in a straight line. They will then slowly and deliberately move through the cover using the same methods as one would use while hunting alone. Archers will often get a shot at a sitting rabbit. At other times, one hunter may jump a rabbit, which will run toward another hunter and provide a shot.

Goatee prefers to hunt areas that haven't been hunted hard with dogs or gun hunters. "If you can find an area that hasn't been hunted, the rabbits will usually jump and run only a short distance and stop. Then somebody should have a shot. If the area has been hunted hard, the rabbits may jump and take off for a long distance."

Some areas are not well suited to hunting in a straight line. Mostly, these are smaller areas and do not allow enough space for hunters to spread out and move through. In these areas, Goatee likes to have the hunters encircle the area with only one of them moving through the cover to find or flush rabbits.

Capps uses a line method as well when hunting with other hunters, but prefers to position the hunters a little differently. Instead of the hunters forming a straight line, he prefers a staggered or stair-stepped approach. This varies the amount of penetration by hunters and offers different perceived escape routes for the rabbit.

WHERE TO GO
Rabbits have many predators. Hawks, owls, coyotes, foxes and domestic dogs and cats are only a few of the more common ones. Therefore, rabbits will tend to seek out the thickest areas of cover they can, which gives them the greatest degree of security.