Bunny busting

[Roadkill]

Cold at 19 degrees this morn.  Went to my nearest ranch to await the sun. The Truckee River was lazily rolling past, the Angus were stirring and I was there with a man from Pakistan.  He asked me if he could go hunt rabbits one day, so he was bundled up against the cold, but willing to stalk the wild rose thickets.  We found a willing target and I misssed.  This occurred about 20 times.  All from 10 to 40 yds were missed!  Then it dawned on me, I was drawing, anchoring and just before letting it slip, I looked at the point, not the bunny.  I corrected and took two of the next three. I have a self-imposed limit of 2 per day, so we hiked back.  This man got to see ducks, rabbits, quail, coyotes, wild mustangs and bunnies.  He was amazed at how they skinned like pulling off socks.  He took them home to cook with a recipe used for other meat in his tradition  He got to see America and experience a hunt.  He wants to buy a bow and will go to the next hunter safety course.  I can not wait to hear him talk on Monday to owr coworkers

[Rustic]

Originally posted by Roadkill:
Cold at 19 degrees this morn.  Went to my nearest ranch to await the sun. The Truckee River was lazily rolling past, the Angus were stirring and I was there with a man from Pakistan.  He asked me if he could go hunt rabbits one day, so he was bundled up against the cold, but willing to stalk the wild rose thickets.  We found a willing target and I misssed.  This occurred about 20 times.  All from 10 to 40 yds were missed!  Then it dawned on me, I was drawing, anchoring and just before letting it slip, I looked at the point, not the bunny.  I corrected and took two of the next three. I have a self-imposed limit of 2 per day, so we hiked back.  This man got to see ducks, rabbits, quail, coyotes, wild mustangs and bunnies.  He was amazed at how they skinned like pulling off socks.  He took them home to cook with a recipe used for other meat in his tradition  He got to see America and experience a hunt.  He wants to buy a bow and will go to the next hunter safety course.  I can not wait to hear him talk on Monday to owr coworkers

Nice story. I'm planning to hunt bunnies this winter, too. Can you point me to a book, website that explains how to skin and field dress bunnies?

[Roadkill]

I have a pair of game shears in my truck to cut off the head and front feet.  Use rubber gloves.  Have someone hold the back legs.  Just tug on the fur next to the rear foot-it will peel easily.  Peel carefully around the tail and anus.  Then just pull gently.  It peels like a sock.
Carefully slice thru pelvic bone to get the anus, run your knife carefully full length from that point to the neck and shake out the guts.  Carefully remove diaphragm heart and Lungs
Snipe off rear feet and you are done. Takes longer to write than to do it
Inspect liver and wear those gloves.  Warm up your Dutch oven
Gs.

[Lucas K]

Sounds like you made a great introduction to hunting and bowhunting for this man, nice work.

[sheephunter]

Grab them by the rear feet.reach down and break front legs above feet. Starting just above the rear foot, start pulling the skin off towards the head. If the rabbit is warm it should come off real easy.when you get down to the front feet and head, remove from body with knife. Grab rabbit by body and break rear legs just above foot and cut them off. Then hold the rabbit with belly facing you. Cut open from pelvis to throat and remove inners. Then rinse of remaining hair and inners and your done. Simple as that!

[sheephunter]

And great job roadkill on introducing someone new to the sport!

[Furseeker]

I also went looking for a few bunnies for the oven yesterday. My son told me he had seen a few while he and his dog were jump shooting ducks of the river. So yesterday afternoon I had an hour or two to myself so I grabbed my gear and hit the river banks. With just a thin skiff of snow and that much was just in a few places it made finding tracks difficult. The hunting was slow as I didn't see any bunnies but it was a nice walk along the river. I did come across pile of large rocks and asphalt chunks that had what could have been some rabbit tracks around them, while looking the area over I caught some movement about 20 yards ahead in the thick brush, I slowly moved that way with fingers tight on the string ready for a shot at any moment.  Just as I was zeroing in on the spot a large red fox jumped up and moved forward. He was unaware of what he saw so he kept leaping high in the air to get a better view over the tall weeds. He did this 4 or 5 times before slowly moving off. I love being in the woods and seeing stuff like that.

[trad_bowhunter1965]

Keep the good work up Skip.