New to Bend OR, Seeking land to hunt on....

[RVTECH]

Yeah I have a few resident cottontails in my neighborhood/yard

Same here - and my cat gets more than I probably ever would!

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Chukar = rimrock.

Like this?

 

[pharmseller]

Steeeeeeep

Any cheatgrass?

 

[bionic knees]

Another question....are there any places to hunt feral pigs in Central Oregon?

yup, you can hunt all of central Oregon but you aren't going to find many if any pigs to shoot. word id odfw paid to have them eliminated. there may still be a few on private ground down around ashwood.

 

[RVTECH]

Another question....are there any places to hunt feral pigs in Central Oregon?

Essentially zero.

Oregon ODFW got really proactive on eliminating what few feral pigs we did have and by about the mid to late 2000s very few remained and were scattered into Southern Oregon and toward the west coastal areas.

In over 45 years of hunting, hiking, fishing, etc. in Central Oregon I have only see ONE feral pig killed, and this was near Round Butte by a deer hunter who happened to see it.

 

[Koda]

Ive actually tried to hunt them twice... long drive for nothing. Turns out fish and game aireal gunned them down, if any, -if- any are left they are landlocked on private land and learned not to cross. Ive heard of one pig that did and got nailed by a hunter but that was years ago.

 

[BobSc]

No judgement, just a sincere question.....I just am curious what you did with them if you weren't eating them? I do understand population control is an aspect/application of hunting, but I always thought that was mostly when the large population of a species presented a problem in one way or another? Are jack rabbits a problem in their environment for another species or human activity? Or does population control hunting just help mitigate a population crash?

Well, I guess we usually hunt jackrabbits for sport. Since they are usually so skinny and tough as dried out leather I wouldn't even try to cook/eat one, but the fact remains since they tend to carry disease vectors from all I've heard about them, keeping their numbers in control is a good plan IMO... these diseases transfer easily to other critters like coyotes, domestic dogs and cats, etc... and can end up in humans...
Kind of like sage rats, numbers need to be brought down if possible to keep damage to farmers' fields down bit and to modify their behavior to avoid human areas if possible. It is also great practice for big game hunting and shooting ...

Another factor is that when the population grows, predator numbers also grow. Coyotes especially can have as many as 2-3 litters a year when food supplies are plentiful and jackrabbits are a favorite food for song dogs. Once the rabbits experience a crash at their peak, all those coyotes need to find other food sources or they die. So, most die, especially during tough winters, but a lot find other food sources like domestic dogs and cats, calves, deer and elk fawns, birds, etc.... it's a vicious cycle and we really in reality only have a very marginal impact on what happens in nature with these types of numbers.

 

[BobSc]

Yeah I have a few resident cottontails in my neighborhood/yard here in Tumalo. But I don't really see them anywhere when I am out hiking/scouting. They seem to be on the smaller side here too. I have seen bigger squirrels than these cottontails in my area....maybe I should be looking at squirrel hunting more than rabbits.

Cottontails are a rather elusive species to hunt. I've spent a lot of time in Central Oregon and had a piece of property in the Sisters area until recently and rabbit numbers in that area are much higher than one would think. They are pretty elusive and hide well in the sagebrush, brush piles, and other areas where there is food and water available.
I seldom hunt them as a primary species since they are so elusive, but occasionally we will come up on a pocket or a drainage where the numbers are almost astonishing and you can collect a pretty good bag of them in a short hunt. The last time this happened to me and my son was quite some time ago in an area down by Thompson Reservoir... However, we usually take them as targets of opportunity when we can. Best bet to find them is to get away from where people frequent as much as possible. One area to check out if you have a day to kill is down around Friend. There is a dirt road that goes from there across the plains and sagebrush there and ends up somewhere a bit north of Christmas valley if I remember correctly. Some neat history along the way if you pay attention there are wagon trail ruts going across the desert there from the original Oregon Trail travelers and other historical happenings.