As the last segment of our area's deer seasons winds down (the special late season for archery and muzzleloading hunters ends Dec. 22) the majority of hunters will clean and store their guns for another year, thereby ceasing their hunting efforts until next May (for some) when the spring turkey season opens. A few may continue to hunt for small game such as rabbit, squirrel and grouse, but with diminishing habitat and acreage to hunt in, coupled with the snow and colder temperatures, even this group is steadily decreasing. It's somewhat the beginning of a hunter hibernation period.

Despite the fact several small game hunting seasons remain open until Feb.28, 2010, only the most optimistic and diehard hunters will take advantage of the opportunity, and for fairly good reasons. Given normal winter weather, and decreasing private land areas to hunt, access to the majority of state forestland public areas will be closed due to the roads being seasonally open to vehicles only until the deer season ends. After that, most will only be open to snowmobilers, cross-country skiers and foot traffic. And many users of these public lands remain skeptical of mixing hunting with the other activities.

I have be honest in that I'm no longer an avid wintertime small game hunting fan. The reasons have more to do with the availability of game than the weather. Grouse are pretty much confined to the denser evergreen sections, cottontail rabbits tend to stay in their burrows or other refuges such as brushpiles, and the area's density of varying hare (snowshoe rabbit) has plummeted in recent decades. But there are two remaining hunting activities that I still do and enjoy. One of them is something I've done for years, but the other is relatively new.

Cottontail rabbits tend to become more nocturnal in winter, as evidenced by the mirage of tracks they leave during their nightly feeding forays. The problem is there's often nary a rabbit to be found during the daylight hours, unless you stomp on brush piles or let a good rabbit hound sniff out and flush them from their hiding places. But come an hour or so before dark, they'll often be seen sitting on the entrance of their burrows, waiting to start their nightly activities, and this can offer some hunting opportunities, if only for a short time. They'll also sometimes do it on a warmer-than-usual sunny day, presumably to soak up the sun's warmth.

I prefer to hunt them then with a rimfire .22 rifle equipped with a scope and zeroed in for 40-50 yards. It's still-hunting much like you'd do for deer, only in areas that have an abundance of burrows being used by the rabbits. It's pretty easy to find these, as there'll be a maize of tracks leading into and out of the burrows. Some of the favored areas are where there's dense brush such as honeysuckle or briars. The challenge is to move slowly and quietly and look for rabbits more than you move. Screw up and the rabbit will quickly retreat into its burrow. It also calls for good marksmanship since the targets are small and the hunter usually has to shoot offhand with no place to rest the rifle for steadiness.

My other wintertime hunting activity has evolved from the previous decades when I did a lot of predator calling, back then for fox. The increase in numbers and range of our area coyote population has been amazing, to such an extent that these large wild canids can be found almost everywhere in our state. Compared to calling for fox, the challenge of trying to lure a coyote into range using a predator call is doubly difficult, but success can be had just often enough to make it an exciting activity.