Bear, rifle deer and the fall turkey seasons are over, and many hunters will now oil their guns and put them on the rack until next fall. However, there are many more hunting opportunities available for both big and small game.

If you are a primitive-style hunter, deer can again be hunted during the late season that runs from the day after Christmas until Jan. 16. Only flintlock rifles, bows and crossbows can be used during this winter season.

Rabbits, grouse and squirrels can be hunted statewide beginning Monday. Even pheasants can be hunted in some wildlife management units, including Centre County’s 2G and 4D. A six-day season for snowshoe hares begins Dec. 26.

For a variety of reasons, big-game hunting is king and small game hunting is fading from the spotlight that it once had. Very few hunters take advantage of the late seasons for rabbit, grouse or squirrel. In fact, compared to several decades ago, only a very small percentage of hunters even target small game during the October-November season.

When I began hunting in the early 1960s, the opening of small game season was a big event hunters looked forward to. An army of brown and red-clad hunters (fluorescent orange was not yet mandatory) took to the brushy fencerows, fields and woodlots. The baying of rabbit dogs and the boom of shotguns echoed up and down the valleys all day long.

Hunting near my Bedford County home, my dad and I would begin hunting a field and then have to change directions because we would encounter another group of small game hunters. Maybe we would hunt another half-hour before running into yet a different hunting party. Today, something like this only happens in areas with freshly-stocked pheasants.

My dad always kept a pair of beagles. It was expected that we would hunt rabbits and grouse every Saturday of small game season, plus a few holidays. My brothers joined us when they became old enough to hunt. During high school, I would even hunt for an hour or so after school several days a week — always rabbits, grouse and sometimes squirrels.

In those days, no one knew exactly how many license holders hunted small game, but I am certain that it was a high percentage. The Pennsylvania Game Commission did not begin to survey hunters until the mid- 1980s. The Game Take and Furbearer Survey is now an annual procedure. The surveys show not just a decline, but the numbers seemingly drop off a cliff.

The first Pennsylvania hunter survey determined that there were approximately 600,000 squirrel hunters in the mid-1980s. That number plummeted to 174,000 by 2006 and declined further to only 157,900 in 2009.

In 1983, approximately 738,000 hunters identified themselves as rabbit hunters. By 2009, that number had dropped to 139,772 — an 82 percent decline. Grouse hunting has suffered a similar fate— the survey estimated that only 91,000 hunters reported hunting grouse, as compared to 400,000 in 1983.

This trend is occurring in other states besides Pennsylvania. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources polled nearly 10,000 hunters and found that their number of small game hunters declined 9 percent between 2006 and 2007. Over the past 50 years, small game hunting declined 70 percent in that state.

On the national scene, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2006 compilation of hunting and fishing participation found that nationwide small game hunting declined 31 percent between 1996 and 2006. The number of big game hunters dropped just 10 percent during that same period.

Small game hunting was exciting — we could usually find plentiful game and lots of shooting. At the time, it was actually more engaging for me than deer hunting. It was my many days afield chasing rabbits, grouse and squirrels that hooked me on hunting — not standing out in the cold hoping for a buck to trot by. In my opinion, the loss of small game hunting is one of the main contributing factors in the hunting community’s inability to attract and retain youth hunters.

It is hard to identify what has caused the mass exodus from small game hunting. Maybe it is a combination of many things. Loss of game and game habitat are certainly contributing factors. A diminishing amount of personal recreation time also comes into play.

Some attribute the participation drop to the decline of naturally-reproducing pheasants in the southeastern counties, but that should not have been a big factor here in Centre County. In the case of the cottontail rabbit population, the decline has been statewide, with the exception of suburban areas.

Urban sprawl, posting, modern farming methods and a general loss of habitat due to the lack of early-successional forests have changed the small game hunting landscape.

A home now sits on many sites where I shot rabbits when I was a teenager. Other former hunting grounds are plastered with no trespassing signs and fallow-land rabbit fields have grown into forests or have been returned to agricultural productivity. Harvested corn fields used to be acres of weeds and knocked-over corn stalks. Today, those same acres are barren earth, patterned with neat rows of six-inch-high corn stubble — no habitat there.

Hunting itself and wildlife management success stories are also to blame. What are probably the best two weeks of archery deer season now coincide with the first two weeks of rabbit, pheasant and squirrel season. Today, wild turkeys and bears are found in most counties throughout the state, when they were only plentiful in a few counties 50 years ago. The seasons for those two species also overlap the November small game season, and hunters cannot be in two places at the same time.

According to the USFWS 2006 report, the biggest reason listed by former hunters who no longer hunt is simply a lack of time. Over 45 percent of the survey respondents listed not enough time and/or conflicts with work or family as the biggest reasons that they had given up hunting.

All of this takes us back to the small game season that begins tomorrow. If you already have a hunting license and a shotgun or .22 rifle, you are ready to try your luck at squirrels. A shotgun loaded with number 6, 7 or 8 shot would be a good choice for rabbits or ruffed grouse. The season runs through Dec. 23 and begins again the day after Christmas.

This type of hunting provides healthy exercise and good food for the table. Head afield with a hunting partner or two, and I am sure that you will find it enjoyable. Consider taking your son or daughter along — rabbit or squirrel hunting can be a great way to interest young hunters. Who knows, our participation could help to reverse the downward spiral of small game hunting.

Mark Nale, who lives in the Bald Eagle Valley, is a member of the PA Outdoor Writers Association. He can be reached at MarkAngler@aol.com.