Nothing Beats Hearing Beagles Run on a Cold Maine Morning

There's a reason hound hunters are some of the most dedicated people in the outdoors. Once you've stood in the snowy Maine woods and heard a pack of beagles open up on a hot track, tonguing their way through the spruce thickets, you'll understand. Snowshoe hare hunting with beagles is one of the oldest traditions in New England, and up here in northern Maine, it's as good as it gets.

Bob has been training beagles and running rabbits for over 40 years. He raises his own dogs, starts them on rabbits as pups, and brings them along until they're steady, reliable hounds that know how to work thick cover and keep a hare moving. A good pack of beagles is a thing of beauty — each dog has its own voice, and when they're all on the same track, driving that hare back around toward you, there's nothing else like it in hunting.

Maine's snowshoe hare population is strong, especially in the dense spruce and fir thickets of the north woods. These hares are the most abundant small game animal in the state, and a good day of hunting can mean fast, steady action from sunup to sundown.

The Snowshoe Hare

Snowshoe hares are built for the Maine woods. Their oversized hind feet act like snowshoes, letting them fly across deep powder that would bog down just about anything else. They change color with the seasons — brown in summer to blend with the forest floor, turning pure white by late fall to match the snow.

Hares live in the thickest cover they can find — dense stands of young spruce and fir, blowdowns, swamps, and the tangles along old logging roads. They run in roughly circular patterns when pushed by hounds, which is what makes beagle hunting so effective. The dogs jump the hare and push it through the cover, and the hare circles back toward where it was first flushed. Your job is to find a good opening along that circle and be ready.

Best Time to Hunt

The snowshoe hare season is one of the longest small game seasons in New England, running from late September all the way through March. The best hunting is usually from November through February, when there's snow on the ground to track and the hares are in their white coats. But even in the early season before the snow flies, the dogs do good work and the hunting can be fast. This is the perfect winter hunt when deer season is done and you need something to get you back in the woods.