I grew up on a farm in the Panhandle in the sixties. We used to load up in a pickup or old jeep and drive the county roads and neighbor's fields shooting jackrabbits from the moving vehicle. We didn't ask permission. Mostly we shot repeaters - shotguns and 22s. The neighbors did it too. Back then there was a farm house every mile or two. Nobody every said anything. We never hunted in a pasture with livestock or shot toward a house. We would take the rabbits over to an old pig farmer and get a dime per each. Some nights we got over fifty of them.
They were thick in those days. Literally couldn't take fifty steps in a field without flushing a jackrabbit. It was nine miles to town. On average we ran over three an a roundtrip.
Probably about 5% or 10% of those numbers now. My shooting student Joe Wood told me a disease had really knocked down their numbers.
Edit: This was in the flattest most treeless part of Texas. Could literally see for several miles when standing up in the back of a pickup.
Last edited by AmarilloMike; 02/20/14 07:35 PM.
