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crazy2medic Moderator 
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I called the farmer where we prairie dog shoot, he stated prairie dogs still haven't recovered from the plague, asked him how the jackrabbit population was, he stated he had lots of jackrabbits! in fact he was almost excited that we would come out there and wittle down the population, my question is why does the plague impact the prairie dogs but does nothing to the jackrabbits? they live in the same fields, must carry the same fleas, so why ain't the rabbits dying like the PD's did? And I'm telling you guys we are talking hundreds of jackrabbits, looking out over this guys wheat fields, you see more jackrabbits than you'd ever believe, I saw at least 200 jackrabbits in an area the size of football field! .204 ruger for long range, 17hmr's for driving around and shooting them from the truck! |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor 
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PD's live in clsoe contact colonies. Several in each burrow.Some times quite a few.The fleas infest the burrow also. So every PD that goes into the burrow gets the fleas. Plus the PD go into other burrows. Jacks on the other hand , have no common nesting palce. In fact the only time they get in close contact with each other is when they do what rabbits are noted for. |
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fryboy Moderator 
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jacks make the best wabbit eatin IMHO ! the back is way better than chicken ! as to the plague .... think of bird flu ...while humans have been known to get it human to human transmission is rare to non existant they say ( but if it ever mutates to where it does ...i dont want to think about it ) some diseases are bound to certian host others have no such problem ,we've lost whole fields of pd's to the plague but 2 miles over the colony is fine  the same applies to plant diseases |
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3006 user Gold Sponsor 
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Back in the 50s, a group of us would ditch school on the day of the first snow (and many days thereafter). We'd head northeast of Denver toward Wiggins and beyond. I remember filling the trunk of my buddy's '42 Ford with cottontails and jacks. -Yes, there were 1942 model cars.. We would bring the cottontails home and the jacks would go to my Grandmother, who boned them out and ground them up.. Has anyone else ever eaten jackrabbit burger?? Edible, but a little different. It seemed to be a "thing" with us that no rifle was ever used, only shotguns. Twelve guages were the most popular, with the twenty about second. The best shot among us used a 16ga Ithaca double. My shotgun was my other Grandma's Belgian hammer double in twelve ga, using low base shells.. No one seemed to know anything about the plague or rabbit fever, we just learned from the oldtimers to hunt in cold weather. I don't know how many of you ever heard the old saying that said "only shoot rabbits in any month with an R in it". A long time ago, when things were a whole lot simpler....  Last edited on Tue Apr 14th, 2009 02:09 AM by 3006 user |
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Timberghozt Board Founder 
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YUP,my grandpa always told me that,or your liable to find warbles(worms) in em. I had beagles that my family raise when I was a kid.Seldom did I shotgun rabbits,when I did I used an old Stevens .410 .. Most rabbits I shot met their end at the crack of my Marlin model 25 when I didnt run the dogs. Never ate a jackrabbit,always heard they tasted like trying to eat a fried cat turd  but fried cottontail,rolled in flour and fried in butter..I wonder what the poor people ate cause its derned good.. |
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Rockydog Administrator 
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Collect about a half dozen cottontails. Bone out those cottontail hind legs and backs. Pound them flat between two sheets of wax paper. Dip them in egg and roll in crushed saltine crackers. Deep fry in hot fat (lard works best). Place them on a rack in a crock pot. Pour about 10 shots of peach brandy in the crock pot under the rack. Let the crock pot go for about 4 hours. Best part? No dishes! They won't last long enough to get to the plate. RD |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor
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We ate a lot of cotton tails and domestic rabiits growing up. I moved to New Mexico in 64. We were pretty poor. We use to go out east of Albuquerque and buy pinto beans for $12 a hundred and kill a bunch of jacks out near Estancia. We ate alot of beans and jacks I still love a pot of ham and pinto beans in chili, but darned if I can choke down a jack. It's sort of like all these yuppies bragging how good Spam is. Whe growing up in Appalachia and coal mines, you use to get govt.surplus food. One of the items wa scanned meat. It looked like a can of dog food. About the same as Spam.I don't eat it either today. I always have a can of Spam on a hunting trip. When I get down to where I would have to eat it, it is time to go home |
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3006 user Gold Sponsor
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Aww, come on guys.... Turning your nose up at jackrabbit . I forgot to mention that my Italian grandmother also mixed the ground jack with ground pork and made meatballs for the spaghetti.. You haven't lived until you found a #6 shot in your meatball..... Needless to say, my Italian grandparents came from an area in Italy that was so poor the people couldn't even pay attention!!. |
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khtrent Handloading Master 
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bunny is good eatin in any form jack cottontail or the ones right out of my pens. got 3 ready to go to the pot or pan or grill and 6 more in 2 weeks. Did sell 5 as easter bunnies so im on a bunny shortage in the freezer but the good thing is it wont last long cuz they do produce   Kev |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor
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My folks, being Italian immigrants, ate alot of wild game. Back then it was subsistance hunting. I guess today they would call it poaching In PA ,you can't hunt on Sundays. So the 1st day of small game seaosn,we left all our kill at the grandparents house and went back there on the next day. Grandma would cook all the pheasants, rabbits and squirrels up in at hick wine laden marinara sauce ,and big kettle of polenta. Big tables would be set up out under the grape arbor and we had a big feast. There were no jacks around there, but I know grandpa would never cotton to ruining his good salami by adding jack rabbits to it. When in Albuquerque, we could buy old ( really old) non producing dairy cows for 3 cents a lb and have them slaughtered for a penny and half per pound. Those old gals were tough,but I guarantee were a darn sight better than jacks. I'd put jacks in the same class as what they put in hot dogs, lips and arse holes Last edited on Tue Apr 14th, 2009 06:32 PM by saddlesore |
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3006 user Gold Sponsor
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saddlesore wrote:
Saddlesore, why don't you tell us how you really feel about jackrabbits?? |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor
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I do like rabbit though. I have been trying to find some farm kid who raises meat rabbits for several years, but no luck. You mention butchering rabbits to anyone around here and they think you are some kind of animal cruelty pervert. I also like fried squirrel ,but my wife calls them tree rats. |
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72coupe HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor 
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I have killed more than 100,000 jack rabbits. From the 50s through the 80s jacks were so numerous that I usually killed 150 to 200 per week. In the 80s I began to find spots on the livers of the rabbits I cleaned. Of course I did not eat these. Shortly after I found spotted livers all the jack rabbits in this area disappeared and are just now beginning to return. |
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Timberghozt Board Founder
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saddlesore wrote: We ate a lot of cotton tails and domestic rabiits growing up. I moved to New Mexico in 64. We were pretty poor. We use to go out east of Albuquerque and buy pinto beans for $12 a hundred and kill a bunch of jacks out near Estancia. We ate alot of beans and jacksI grew up till I was 14 in the mountains of Southwest Virginia,16 miles from the West Virginia line,right in the corner where Tennesse,West Virginia and Virginia meet..Real close to Kentucky and North Carolina too. My family was loggers and Coal Miners.My grandad on dads side died in a mine explosion just across the WVA line December 27,1957. My other grandpa was a miner and ended up as a head sawyer in a mill in Buchannan(sp) county VA, Coal country at its finest. My dad was a miner and a logger afterwards, I am the only generation of my family to never go in a coal mine hole.As a boy I pulled many a feet of winch cable from a dozer winch to grab hardwood logs my father felled.It was a rough damned life and we were far from rich. I remember a few Christmas dinners that were hams off a fresh killed deer.Squirrels were dumpling meat and rabbit was plenty good..A lot cheaper than even hamburger. I`ve eaten groundhog (woodchuck) btw ,it sucks..I`ve eaten black bear my grand dad killed.yup we ate em(they sucked too) wild turkey,( I hate them for table fare too) but rabbits, cottontails...or domestic,damned right I`ll still eat em... and Pinto beans with hamhocks and fried bologna, potato soup and government cheese..I ate enough of it to kill a coronary artery or two..I wouldn`t eat that damned cheese though.Like trying to shit a Louisville slugger withy a bowel full of that stuff., I still get pissed when my kids who are older won`t eat a certain type of pizza or gripe that a tbone isn`t cooked just right, or that the internet is too slow today or their cell phone is getting signal in the country..people don`t have a clue how lucky they are.... I hear ya SaddleSore TG |
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Rockydog Administrator
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Timber, As a boy I used to pull cable too. Homemade Jammer with 300 feet of 5/8 cable on a drum powered by a truck axle and tranny. Threw a set of 20" logging tongs on my shoulder grabbed the cable hook and headed down over the hill to hook up and skid Wisconsin white oak up to a log yard, where we cut them in blocks and split Staves to make Whiskey Barrels for Hiram Walkers. 39" long blocks, split like pie slices, 13" across the face bark to bark. Heavy as hell. $30 for a whole pickup load. Used to keep a .22 rem single shot in the jammer box to shoot squirrels while dad was felling more trees to pull. When supper came we were glad to have them. Never ate a jack but if they are anything like slow cooked antelope you can keep 'em. RD Last edited on Wed Apr 15th, 2009 02:45 AM by Rockydog |
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fryboy Moderator
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on the bright side ....if i ever get to go rabbit hunting with any of u guys i know i'll get the most of the jacks ! havent had too many lately where i'm at we have alot of hawks( eagles from time to time )as well as bobcats,'yotes,, n foxes ,started seein a few more of them year before last but not enough to want to thin them out but bunnies galore ! last year it didnt look as good again ,i recall growing up we always had hutches,chicken and hogs cows n stock ( couldnt stand the duck but we had them time to time ) i actually liked the goat but if u just let the outside of a sheepskin touch the meat i couldn't stand mutton but i ate it ,ate alot of pressure cooked carp patties too those i can definately do with out ! but a whole mess of blue gill or crappie mmmm catfish wasnt bad if ya didnt get'em when the water was muddy or let them clean out, the bull heads always struck me as being a "oily-er"? fish ,some years we have more rattlesnakes than others,maw used to say "what ever it is -if u kill it and clean it i'll cook it " ya gotta love a mom like that ! |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor
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Timber.Yea,all my family were in the mines too. My father started at 9 yrs old at 3 cents per day, picking coal up that fell off the coal cart. My Gandfather got 9 cents per day,and that is what they lived on in the 1918 time or so. My father worked his way up to a teamster driving ponies in the mines and then as a dynamite shooter. After three cave ins, he got dig out and refused to go back in the mines. I was about 3 at the time. Then he started as an apprentice machinist and worked his way up to journeyman. All that with a 5th grade education. He told me he would break both my legs if I considered going into the mines. So I left home with that in the back of my head, but ended up working 30 years underground at the Nevada Test site doing underground nuclear testing. When my father got laid off at the mines or steel mills ,we got that surplus food. Oat meal, flour, corn meal, dried eggs, canned meat,chocolate, potaotes, butter, lard, sugar, powdered milk, those 5lb blocks of cheese, and a few other things. We had a big garden that everything got canned for vegetables for the year. Some years we had a milk cow. We poached deer or what ever else we found to eat meat, the canned meat and eggs went to the dogs who paid for themselves hunting rabbits. We ate groundhog, coon, and muskrats ( swamp rabbits we called them) too. Never did try possum. The sugar, we traded to moonshiners for other things we needed. All this occured in SW PA, near the WVA, MD and PA border. |
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khtrent Handloading Master
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im sure there was never a bottle swapped for that suger either not even for medicinal purpose |
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saddlesore HB certified Master Handloading and Ballistics advisor
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Shine, honey and onions was good cough syrup, doncha know. |
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sako06 Moderator
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Bot fly larvae are common in rabbits but it doesn't effect the flesh,jacks make good chili,burrito meat & taco meat ! |
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crazy2medic Moderator
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leaving to trim the rabbits in dumas down in 12days! I cannot wait, to me this is a real vacation! stress relief at it's best! |
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sako06 Moderator
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"Spots" on the livers were probably hydatid cysts which doesn't effect the flesh.I watched some az hunters skin and gut jacks then throw the entrails to their dogs, there were hydatid cysts on the livers that would infect the dogs eventually killing them . I explained the problem they were creating but I doubt they paid any attention to me . |
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crazy2medic Moderator
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OH I have no intention on eating them! this will be a wholesale killing until we run out of ammo! cause I know we won't run out of jacks! the farmer has thousands of acres of wheat and he is more than happy to let us kill all the jacks we can! taking about 1200rds of .204 and 1000rds of 17hmr! if I suddenly am overcome by the need to eat rabbit, I'll get me a cottontail! I think the jacks will keep us pretty busy! if you have ever seen the pics of the rabbits running amok in australia, you have a pretty good idea what we are going to in the panhandle! |
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sako06 Moderator
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In the early 1960's AZ wasn't that populated Lepus alleni (antelope jr) & Lepus californica(blacktailed jr) were everywhere. |
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khtrent Handloading Master
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kill em while ya can. years ago Idaho was so full of them they didnt shoot them ... they got a bunch of people to walk the fields with golf clubs and bats and bop them. well that made national news and the peta freaks got envolved. so the fish and game itroduced an STD that made them sterile if they caught it. results? no more bunny bopping and now just isolated jack populations to go have fun shooting. I am almost jealous of you to have 1000s of shots in a day. Kev |
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swampshooter Moderator
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Well, I'm leaving in one week on my annual prairie dog shoot. Just got my prairie dog rifle back from our local rifle smith. So far it's the best shooting varmint rifle i've ever had. Four 5-shot groups with hornady bullets averaged just under .300 and three 5-shot groups with noslers averaged .442. One 5-shot group at 200 yds. was .300. Needless to say I'm very pleased so far. P.S. .204 Ruger, Rem. 700 with 6 1/2 x 20 leupold. |
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sako06 Moderator
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Beware of tularemia at certain times of the year in lagomorphs(rabbits).It can kill a human very effectively. Last edited on Sat Jun 27th, 2009 10:19 PM by sako06 |
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