One exception to the early-and-late rule will reveal itself on days with heavy cloud cover or even a light drizzle. Rabbits move more all day then because of the low light intensity. Another exception is seen on a warm, sunny day following a period of very cold or inclement weather. Rabbits often hole up during rough conditions, making up for lost feeding time by feeding longer into the day when the weather breaks. At such times, they'll often sun themselves during midday hours on sunny southern exposures.

Weather can also influence rabbits' whereabouts. On warm days early in the season, creek bottoms can be places to probe for quarry, since the bottoms stay cooler, and the rabbits can find water, shade and tender grasses to nibble on there.

Windy, bitter-cold days tend to drive the rabbits to protected gullies and hollows; there, they're shielded from the fiercest breezes. If the air is frigid, but winds are light, the rabbits head for sun-drenched hillsides to fluff up their fur as they soak up the warmth.

When the weather's in a more normal pattern, types of cover to search out include patches of raspberry, blackberry, greenbrier and multiflora rose. Thickets of honeysuckle mixed with sumac, and goldenrod, overgrown hedgerows, uncultivated fields and brushpiles are also likely spots in which to find rabbits. If there's enough cover nearby, rabbits sometimes feed in fields of rye, wheat, clover, corn and soybeans. Clearcuts are potential hotspots after a year or two of regrowth, with lots of tender young plants sprouting up from the cropped landscape.

Weedy hillsides along railroad tracks sometimes hold lots of rabbits. Just stay off the tracks! In almost every case you'll be trespassing, as railbeds -- even abandoned ones -- are private property owned by the railroads.

Abandoned human works of other kinds also are hotspots. Ramshackle homesteads, stacks of old lumber, junkpiles, rusty farm machinery overgrown with weeds, collapsed sheds: All speak of home, sweet home to the cottontail.

Many public lands offer worthwhile rabbit hunting. Private land too is an option to consider seriously, since many property owners who might not permit deer or turkey hunting will allow a courteous shotgunner a crack at their rabbits. When searching for areas to hunt, avoid large, clean farms with few brushy corners or overgrown fields; turn instead to smaller, neglected ones with dilapidated tractors lying around amid weed-choked hedgerows, unkempt corners and fallow fields. It's in areas such as these that you'll find cottontails hunkered down in a briar patch or brushpile.

After you've identified some possible sites to hunt, begin searching for game -- preferably early or late in the day. If you're hunting the location for the first time, you should look not just for the rabbits themselves but for their sign as well.

Keep an eye peeled for rabbit droppings -- round, dark nuggets left in piles of a dozen or more. The presence of "cottontail runways" -- trails that rabbits clear in their home turf for purposes of a quick escape into a brushpile or an escape hole -- is also a pretty reliable tipoff that you're in a prime area; think of a miniature deer trail and you'll know what to search for. Rabbit beds, in which the animals rest in a patch of weeds against a log or under a bush, are another type of sign to be on the lookout for.

Now that you know a bit about when rabbits like to feed, how they move and what sorts of habitat they prefer, you face the challenge of flushing them to get off a clean shot. To achieve this, you'll be taking on the task normally left to the dogs: plunging into the thickets, briars and weed patches to flush the game out.