Questions about hunting bunny rabbits.

[TomTeriffic]

a. Is the cottontail the best-eating species?
(I believe swamp rabbits are also true rabbits while jack rabbits are true hares.)
b. How can you tell if the rabbit is safe for human consumption?
c. Can they be hunted without hounds?
d. What kind of guns or other weapons do you like for bunnies?
(Oklahoma allows shotgun, muzzle-loader, rifle, archery, falconry and air gun during rabbit seasons.)
e. Without beagles, how are bunnies hunted?

 

[rustednuts]

A. Any bunny in a pot
B. Just like any other game, but watch for fleas
C. Yes
D. Shotgun, 22, archery. I shoot them with whatever I’m already carrying
E. Spot and stalk/ still hunting

 

[seeth07]

a) Yes. For "white meat". The only wild game that I think even comes close might be grouse. Nothing wrong with a corn fed whitetail but that is a totally different style of meat and its unfair to compare the two.
b) I only will harvest a cottontail after the first hard freezer just out of precaution to ensure I don't have to deal with anything in the hides. I can't think of anything making the meat unsafe.
c) Yup.
d) I love using my thermal on a .22.
e) See d for my preferred method.

 

[Dave N]

He's BAAAAAAAAAACK!

 

[pabearhunter]

He's BAAAAAAAAAACK!

OHHhhhh BOY.

 

[LuketheDog]

d) I love using my thermal on a .22.

THAT sounds fun!

 

[Gellar]

A 1990s vintage moss berg 500 is as fine a wabbit gun as you’ll find.

Walk up to a brush pile, kick it a few times. If no rabbits jump out move to the next. Old cars, abandoned buildings are old good too. Look for tracks and poo.

 

[jvanhoy]

And always remember to be vewy vewy quiet!

 

[Gerald Martin]

The biggest conundrum is what to hunt when?

 

[mtmuley]

A 1990s vintage moss berg 500 is as fine a wabbit gun as you’ll find.

Walk up to a brush pile, kick it a few times. If no rabbits jump out move to the next. Old cars, abandoned buildings are old good too. Look for tracks and poo.

I have one. Awesome shotgun. mtmuley

 

[duckhunt]

Always loved using my mom's 410 bolt action.

 

[Wallydeuce]

When did they let you out?

 

[seeth07]

The biggest conundrum is what to hunt when?

What a great cartoon! Funny and educational too (teaches about pronouns!)

Its a shame that there is no way this cartoon is aired on TV anymore.

 

[MarvB]

Pellet gun….

When partnered with collared dove makes excellent meal, not quite surf-n-turf, more like air-n-hare

 

[Redman]

Tommy...thougt you were dead or on another site...welcome back.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I prefer my rabeet cooked in ze French style.

 

[noharleyyet]

After this winter event would be a good time to shotgun some cottontail...a SW OK should know this.

 

[Redman]

.308 win is the best round for all North American game...

 

[Islander]

10/22,, but I'm not depending on Bugs for supper. I just walk quietly at sunset and spot bunnies.

 

[44hunter45]

(I've been working on a memoir manuscript for a couple of years. This is an except of a chapter called, "Rabbits for the Pot." These still need a lot of editing. They are barely above the "stream of consciousness" stage. While it may never be published, it has tickled my narcissist bone to write it.)

Ok - So I'm not Hank Shaw or a Cuniculturist. ( I know what you think I wrote, but we're not talking about that. Google "Cuniculture" )

These are my observations from uncounted cottontails I shot as kid.

This was not "running rabbits" as an Easterner or Southerner would know it. It was merciless meat hunting. My brother, cousins, and I were stone killers. The season ran from July 1st into January. The bag limit on cottontails was 5 a day. Jackrabbits open season all year and no limit. We would never think of ground sluicing a quail, but a standing rabbit was already dead. It just didn't know it yet.

As a free-range kid of 8 or 9 years old on the ranch, I started killing them for the cook pot. It made me feel proud to put extra meat on the table. We weren't poor, per se, but "frugal". Mom and Pop had leveraged most everything to get the ranch when Granddad's business failed. They both "worked out" to pay the loan payments. In ranch-speak, this means the ranch did not pay for itself and they needed outside jobs. Sometimes two.

The cottontail supply seemed limitless. They do, after all, breed like rabbits. I used a wrist rocket, a 5mm Sheridan pump pellet rifle, a .22LR, a stick bow, and a borrowed Winchester Model 41 .410 bore. (Not all at the same time. ) We never had rabbit dogs and our cow dogs would just run them down a hole and start digging. We played with box traps and caught some. But what the heck to you do with a cottontail under a box?

The Winchester Model 41 (not to be confused with the Remington Model 41 in .22LR) may be the best cottontail gun ever made for a kid. A bolt action single shot with a 24" Full Choke barrel and ""express" style rifle sights. Just don't try to shoot doves with it. I never could hit running rabbits with it. I'm a terrible wing shot to this day.
Ours was on loan to us from an old guy in town. When he died, his adult children wanted it and a 12 gauge hammer gun back from us. It was hard to let them go. I learned from that hammer gun that you should only ever have ONE finger inside the trigger guard and ONE hammer cocked.

Later on after I married, my FIL said when he was a GI in WWII they thought the .30 Carbine was only good for supplementing your rations with rabbits and grouse. I'll have to try it one day.

My folks were strict about, "You kill it, you clean it." Pop taught me to "pants & shirt" a cottontail and I did my own after that. You can skin them and gut them without a knife.
We never knew anything about possible parasites, but I was never allowed to keep the skins.

At one point my mother made me stop killing them. She didn't see killing more when we had them in the freezer and they were easy pickings. I was then allowed to shoot only so many, depending on what was in the freezer. She always "fricasseed" them. In Central California in the 1960's that meant smothered in mushroom soup. My dad joked that the best way to cook a cottontail was bake it on a board, then eat the board and throw the rabbit away. I still think that spit roasted or flame broiled cottontail is pure comfort food. It's lean, so there is a thin line between cooked safe and overdone. Like grouse, when the juice runs clear, its good to go.

Like other game animals, rabbits taste like what they eat. The closer to the grain room or the vegetable garden they harvested, the better they taste. They can dump stress hormones, too. That means a bad shot can mean a gamey rabbit. I learned to wait for my shot. I DO NOT like the squeal of a wounded rabbit.