I'm curious---and a bit mischievous for raising it here---about shooting rabbits with shotguns. I attended a hunt with beagles and once was enough for me. Do hunters eat what they've shot? Do they clean them in the field? The stench of pierced paunch and bladder is a turn-off for my palate and plate.

Hereabouts we sort of stalk rabbits with .22s and shoot them in the head. A buddy holds their rear legs and it's all skinned, gutted, packed away in plastic bags in a few minutes. My "record" time is two minutes. I can't imagine carrying around rabbits soaked by inner liquids in warmer climes. Ugh.

That's just me, of course. I'd like to hear from other members here.

.22's.....shoot running and moving only.........great practice and fun.....'peel' 'em and gut 'em and remove the heads and feet straight away, eat just the cottontails,.....same since I was eight years old.......hunt jacks, cottontails and snow shoes......

S&W gets the nod here as well.
Cleaning them in the field has always been how we've done it. Heck, in NE you couldn't carry the total otherwise.

Shotgunning them is done as well, but is really frowned on by the local houndsmen.

We took a garage door opener and put on a 200ft cable. Attached a piece of drywall with bent welding rods, and then ran it back and forth for practice.

Last time we were in South Dakota, we shot several nice cottontails during our pheasant hunt. When we cooked up the pheasants we threw in the rabbits. Simple recipe, saute some onion then the meat with a dusting of flour and salt and pepper and make a simple light gravy. Could not tell the difference in the taste of the pheasant or rabbit. Excellent.

You lift my heart! I could hit running squirrels even when they were leaping from branch to branch when I was shooting a .22 every day as a kid. It wasn't even remarked on; all of us could do it. You're keeping the tradition.

Why did I read this post today?

I put a brined bunny in the slow cooker this morning. Red potato, onion, carrot, celery, mushroom soup, bacon fat, beef stock....I put considerable prep work into this potential masterpiece and aticipated a nice stew when I got home from work. Just your reminder of pierced paunch and bladder stench will likely put me off my feed. You may well have unwittingly made my dog's day.

In Michigan we would head shoot them with .22's late in the season when they were the only open game. The few rabbits I now bag are incidental game, unluckly to cross my path when I'm after birds, and therefore killed with shotguns. Occasionally one gets minced, but no more so than birds. I do think cleaning mammals is several degrees nastier than birds, regardless of how they met their end.

To answer your question: It happens. Most are okay. If one stinks of inner liquids like you describe (ugh the thought), I toss it. Are you saying the shotgun minced the rabbits or the beagles had some raw nibbles? Heavy loads?

At least two of my friends are not the least bit agreeable to shooting rabbits and squirrels in the presence of their bird dogs. I guess they don't want their dogs to diverting attention and energy to rabbits or looking up trees?

I can probably handle the busted gut stench, but I can't handle the Warble or Bot Fly or whatever the heck those vile things are.

I guess your Grandma never served up any Hassenpfeffer?

It's the only reason I ever shoot any rabbits anymore.

Nope no Hassenpfeffer.

My Mom would fry em' to perfection though. I think she seasoned the flour with a bit of sage.......good times.

Rabbits are what a .410 was created for. I use 2 1/2" 4s since one 4 anywhere important will kill a cottontail just fine and it leaves a very visible track in the critter so you can find and extract it before cooking. And there are just enough 4s to kill 'em and not pepper 'em. I suspect that most rabbit .410s are full choke and their patterns with 4s are patchy but lethal. You do have to be careful not to shoot the hounds or the houndsmen, but I still think it's safer than quail, who tend to fly between hunters. A little restraint is called for, that's all....

I also like to shoot cottontails on cold mornings with an air rifle or .22 with CB Longs.

No reason to carry them around uncleaned; it takes about 10 seconds to clean one and pop the skint and gutted carcass into a plastic bag. You need to carry a heavy knife or a really sharp hatchet to whop the heads and feet off, tho. Very tasty; the "schmoo" of the uplands.

I was raised on a cattle ranch and spend time in the so-called third world each year. Smellproof. (There are MUCH worse smells in this world than rabbit guts. Think Haiti.).

Rabbits and Squirrels, the other half of 'Upland Gunning' have been a part of my hunting experience since the beginning. My Grandfather gave me two trained rabbit beagles and a .410 Marlin lever action when I was 12. I still hunt with that 2.5" .410 today. My neighborhood gang had already accounted for hundreds of squirrel with BB guns and .22 rifles by that age.

I've always cleaned the game immediately 'as shot', but I don't skin'em till I get home. I do try to wash out the insides as soon as fresh clean water is available. I never seem to notice the smell. Down here, we have to be careful not to let the dogs eat the innards due to tapeworm infestations. So, if you follow me in the woods, you might find some pretty gruesome stuff hanging in the trees just above 'dog level'.

We have both cotton-tails and swamp rabbits (canecutters) in the South and both are delicious eating. We've always just cut'em up and fried'em, but one of these days I'll talk Emily into making some of that Pennsylvania Dutch 'hassenpheffer'...Geo

I have never used anything bigger than a 20 gauge and no load larger than 7.5's. I have hurredly shot a few too close and made dog food of them, but that was not usually the case. As to shooting one while bird hunting, I will not do it if I have my dog in the field with me. I will not let them chase them. My lab is not bad for chasing a rabbit scent, but he was when he was a pup. As to cooking, I normally just salt and pepper with a pinch of garlic powder and an equal pinch of onion powder if the real things are not available, flour bread it and fry it in good hot canola oil.

Over the years I have done most of my squirell hunting with a .22 LR & most rabbit hunting using beagles & a shotgun. Much of the territory in which I rabbit hunted swinging a .22 around after a darting rabbit at ground level would have been a most unsafe practise. I have sucessfully used ga's 28, 20, 16 & 12. I never owned a .410 & never felt the desire or great need for one. A light load of 4-6 shot through an open choke will not unduly mangle a rabbit unless shot "Underfoot". Most any game I killed I generally allowed to soak overnight in a brine solution which does much to remove blood & gut odors & tastes.
Rabbit hunting with hounds was the only hunting my dad ever really cared for. I enjoyed so many hunts with him. I would love nothing more right now than to go on another rabbit hunt with him. We never really tried to decimate the population, just got out, worked the dogs & picked up a few for the pot.

All this talk about rabbits made me think of my old GSP Amy.
Try as I might I could not keep her from pointing rabbits.
She would not chase, just point. I always knew she was pointing a rabbit 'cause she would roll her eyes up and look at me when I approached her knowing full well she was going to get a scolding.
One crisp morning I was hunting an area with a lot of snow cover on the ground. Amy was quartering back and forth and for some reason ran out in the middle of a snow covered wheat field and went on point. It was as bare as a pool table where she was pointing, nothing but frozen over snow. I trudged out to where she was, tried to find something that would indicate scent...nothing. About the time I started to lose my patience a rabbit exploded out of the snow like it was shot out of cannon and ran across the field. Amy jumped straight in the air but didn't give chase. I just tried to keep the tears that were running down my cheeks from freezing!!! She didn't point any more rabbits that day, but thirty minutes later we had a limit of Bobwhites taken from one of the largest coveys I have ever seen.

Sorry to ramble, but that was a great day!

You're not rambling Ken...that was a super story and that's what it is all about.....thanks for sharing some great memories....

On a cold day with snow on the ground and bright sun, I never noticed a nauseating stench. But a shotup rabbit is a shotup rabbit. If you get the hams and part of the back and a front leg of two, what do you want--head cheese? We always soaked a couple of times in cold saltwater to draw the blood. I shot a sitting cottontail with a scoped .22 and watched him do a high back sommersault in reaction but can't imagine swinging a rifle on a target as fast and small as a rabbit. As for small-bore pistol and rifle marksmen in squirrel woods, I don't think my dad would have had much use for them. Possibilities for unintended consequences there. Squirrel laying on branch, you hit it in the head with a bullet, you're a marksman. Hit it in the head (and the branch) with 20 gauge, you need three more of the same for a meal and none of them shot up too bad.

jack

I shot at least several metric tons of both rabbits and squirrels with a .22 when I was a small fry, but, I haven't done it in so long I might think twice before trying it today. I never shoot either in the presence of my setters, and got my first setter at age 27, so a good 20 years has passed since I victimized a member of either species.
Shot a few with a 20 gauge shotgun when that was all I had, and never noticed anything nasty from the guts getting on the meat. I was working part time, and going to school full time, so, actual hunger may have been a factor. As I got older, we always cooked them as a bonus to the pheasants or grouse we took, they stunk up the pan just as well or better.
I went hunting with a friend who had a well trained Basset hound (???!!!) which was a hilarious experience. A cotton tail somehow is aware he has nothing to fear from a Basset hound that is in full song, (and stepping on his ears and falling down) and just runs in a big circle, at which point, if you can control your laughter, you wait 'till the bunny stops, and plug him with a trusty .22 short.
I've got a lot of great memories of those days, but, they are tempered by the fact that rabbits and tree rats were often all I could find to shoot regularly, on the property I had access to as a kid. I would have rather had birds. I'd rather hunt birds with a dog, and these days, thats what I do.
Best,
Ted

I was quail hunting in se NE, down near Republican. Anyway, the farmer had removed a hedgerow over a mile long. He pushed it into a mile long windrow with a dozer.
You make a mile long brush pile in southern Nebraska, and you'll have cottontails like you've never seen. It reminded me of those rabbit roundups the Aussies are famous for. Probably could have scooped them up with an endloader. You couldn't carry enough shells. We needed a bearer for the carcuses.
Well, my old friend Eddie (long deceased unfortunately) had a beagle that actually handled. He sure loved that dog. He set Annie off into that pile, and I don't know what her bawling was saying to the rabbits, but they boiled out of that pile like maggots. They crawled out the top, the sides, under each other, over each other, literally hundreds, if not thousands. A regular rabbit scrum. She burrowed and climbed around in that brush squawking and squeeling, and it was all we could do to get her back out. I've been hunting rabbits nie on fifty years, and I've never seen as many ever, except on tv.
And I've never seen a happier beagle either.

Coyotes have eaten all the rabbits in SE Wisconsin!
I plan to start coyote hunting.-Dick

I only shoot those springing rabbits at the sporting range.
For real rabbit,I go to the local ethnic grocery where
"farm raised" are pulled out of the crate feet first,and given a swift blow to the back of the coco,then skinned/gutted head left intact,still twitching in the display case.
Cant get any fresher than that!

And do you know why they leave the head on those store bought rabbits ?

King,
I grew up in Nebraska. There wasn't much that my dad did not hunt:
Pheasant, bobwhite, fox squirrel, cottontail and jack rabbits were the most
common game in our household. While I enjoyed eating all of the above,
like you I could just never get over the smell of rabbit innards.
Plus skinning an old bunny or squirrel could be a real chore.
Now when I'm bird hunting I never shoot furry game. My cocker
loves chasing them and I don't want him to get the idea that
they are more important than pheasants or grouse.
I'm sure if my dad were still around he'd think I was nuts.
-jim

What? You guys use a gun to shoot rabbits? It was delicous BBq'd over a Mesquite fire. JW

I often hunted rabbits with a recurve bow when I was a kid. They often wouldn't run far when spooked and it was pretty easy to nail them with an arrow when they stopped.
Later, and even up til now while still-hunting whitetails in Vermont with a few inches of snow I just keep an eye out for that 'black marble' there in the whiteness and put the crosshairs of my .270 on the eye... no muss, no fuss and no mess either.
I don't have a recipe for snowshoes but I cut them into quarters and the back makes the fifth piece. I put the pieces on the grille, flip them once after three or four minutes and leave them for another three or four minutes. No rub, no basting with some sort of masking flavor concoction - just plain rabbit meat. It is very good and is kinda like the dark meat of a turkey.

I realize I maybe a novice, by comparison to some here in my hunting experience, so please enlighten me to the distinction between shot through rabbit and shot through bird? I have detected an odor among dead goose, wet pheasant and shotgun shot rabbit. I fortunately or otherwise am unable to select the better smell from the group, but then I may not be holding my nose at the proper angle?

To prove it isn't cat...Geo

Pete

Kurt, there's a difference between size, contents of the plumbing and skin of rabbit and bird . Liquids from pierced bladder and paunch of rabbit often soak through the diaphanous skin to the fur. A bird's plumbing is significantly smaller, skin tougher and any leakage from inside is usually blood. You're right on the nose angle. My wife often points to the shower when I can't smell a thing.

I use to hunt contontails with my Win. 63, actually was my Dad's then when I was young. Now that age has crept on me I use a neat little Belgian 24 ga. with no. 5 shot. Have always cleaned rabbits and squirrels as soon as I killed them.

My Dad's friend said he ate so much jackrabbit during the depression that couldn't hockey out in the pasture. When he would squat down to go he would just hop off.

My Dad's hunting buddy Mr. Page had a unique method of field dressing. If he encontered a cottontail while out bird hunting he would shoot it in the head. They he would massage the abdomen. Then, holding the front feet, would snap it like a bullwhip and send all the innards out through the anus.

I grew up on a farm and Mom would fry them up like fried chicken with cream gravy. My gun of choice was a single shot bolt action 22.

Best,

Mike

Edit - I changed it from "Then, holding the back feet" to "Then holding the front feet"

I grew up in SE Wisconsin and I, too, very much enjoyed hunting cottontails with a shotgun. (.22's tended to be used less because, even then, my chosen hunting grounds were pretty thickly settled and were beginning to be "built up".) I also understand that coyotes have pretty much destroyed rabbit hunting, there. The same has happened here in Western New York.

This is really too bad because "bunny busting" has been an excellent introduction to hunting for many young people. Even now, if I had a choice, and I could only hunt one "critter", it would be "Molly Cottontail". (In fact,if, after I die, I find myself kicking brushpiles and I have an old single-shot 12 gauge loaded with #6s in my hands, I may not have to ask where I ended up!)

Mike,

I've seen a similar method used. Only a 1" slit was made at the rear of the abdomen, the rabbit was grasped around the rib cage and squeezed while swinging like a baseball bat. The innards would fly out the slit.....caution should be used.

You guys know that with all this talk of rabbits, the next LOGICAL topic for discussion is recipes for their preparation!!!

On a cottontail, you just squeeze the innards down toward the tail, like a tube of toothpaste. Then, swing it like a whip toward the ground, and everything inside blows out. Step on the remaining point of attachment, and pull. A 2lb rabbit becomes less than 1lb.
They sure are nice against the kidneys when it's 0 degrees out. You can feel them radiate through your gamebag.

A rabbit should be skinned, washed, de-shotted, and then cut into 6 pieces. 2 rear legs, the back can be cut in half, then the front shoulders/legs. Some soak them in salt water overnight.
Pat dry w/ a papper towel.
Now, set up a pot with a couple onions, and a carrot or two. Add 2 qts salted water, and bring to a simmer. Par boil the rabbits for half an hour or so. Soft, not rolling boil. Till when poked with a fork the fork goes in. Longer won't hurt them.
Dry, and pan fry with seasoned flour or your favorite chicken recipe.

Hassenpfeffer takes about a week to make. But it is sooo good.

First time I saw he "toothpaste" trick was this year during pheasant season. My brittney disapeared into a brush pile and came out the other side with a rabbit in his mouth. First time that's ever happened (and the thought crossed my mind to give him a swift kick in the rear) but he brought it over, dropped it at my feet and went back to looking for birds. My hunting buddies were hootin and hollerin about how "cool" that was so I just went with it. Rabbit had one tooth mark in it and a broken neck. Hunting partner grabbed the rabbit, shook it towards the ground (to break loose the diaphram) and then squeezed it like a tube of toothpaste. Inards came out, rabbit in the pouch. Whole thing took about 20 seconds. Slickest method I ever saw!