doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rabbits

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!