A search procedure is developed to find good short binary

convolutional codes. It uses simple rules to discard from the complete ensemble of codes a large fraction whose free distance

either cannot achieve the maximum value or is equal to

of some code in the remaining set. Farther, the search among the remaining codes is started in a subset in which we expect the possibility of finding codes with large values of

to be good. A number of short, optimum (in the sense of maximizing

), rate-2/3 and 3/4 codes found by the search procedure are listed.