Questions about hunting bunny rabbits.
 

a. Is the cottontail the best-eating species?
(I believe swamp rabbits are also true rabbits while jack rabbits are true hares.)
b. How can you tell if the rabbit is safe for human consumption?
c. Can they be hunted without hounds?
d. What kind of guns or other weapons do you like for bunnies?
(Oklahoma allows shotgun, muzzle-loader, rifle, archery, falconry and air gun during rabbit seasons.)
e. Without beagles, how are bunnies hunted?

If you have railroads, along the rr edges are a lot of bushy areas and bunnies love brushy areas.

Just walk on the rr track and keep looking.

Early in the morning just before daylight is a good time.

If you see one and it runs just whistle about 5 seconds it usably makes them stop.

If not just stay still, in a little bit they will circle back to where they started.

Some of the best rabbit hunting I have ever had is along rr tracks.

And cotton tail rabbits are the best eating rabbits.

Good Luck.

jrbsr

In addition if you are out with the boys having a cold one talking abut hunting, I wouldn't be calling them "bunny rabbits".

Cottontail is my favorite eating small game. Delicious.

I've never had the pleasure of hunting over dogs. Hopefully someday.

Kicking lots of brush. Field edges, old fence rows, etc.
​​​​​​
my grandpa says he used to hunt them with a .22 by walking slowly and watching for them. I've never had any luck doing that. But if you have a high rabbit population maybe that would work.

-Jake

I would not dare say "bunnies" or "bunny rabbits" in the context of "hunting" in the presence of anti-hunters or PETA types. I was saying it here to be facetious. Some hunting videos and hunting writers like to use the cutesy phrase "bunnies over beagles". The only 'cold one' I'd have while hunting or handling guns is a "virgin" beverage of some type like canteen water.

I will have to check out the legality of hunting or shooting near train tracks.

I would be careful hunting on rail road tracks. When I was a kid we hunted groundhogs along tracks. However things have changed and the railroads are enforcing trespass on their right a ways. They even tried to close a public boat ramp on the Susquehanna river several years ago because the tracks had to be crossed to get to the ramp. It got real ugly and the railroad backed down.

Here too. Used to use a pull off by the tracks to park and access a chunk of public land and they started ticketing vehicles that were there.

Oh well. It's their property.

Everything's changing.

-Jake

Cottontails are the best eating. Jackrabbits are the most fun. Snowshoes are the hardest to hunt. At least that is my experience.

When I went to Wyoming for antelope we all packed .22s hoping to get into some jack rabbits.

Unfortunately we never saw a single one. I guess some years they're everywhere and other years are slim pickings.

-Jake

Jackrabbits are cyclic. They increase in numbers and then crash. You probably were there a year after the crash. They rebuild the population quickly. When the population is strong you can kick out over 100 in a day of walking the sagebrush. Lot of fun rolling them with a 22. When I was growing up in CO there was no closed season or bag limit on than and I used to go out and shoot them with my 7mm Mag after letting them get out at least 100 yards. If you can hit jackrabbits on the run with your deer rifle then hitting deer becomes easy. I also used to go up into the high country to shoot marmots with my 7mm. I'd only shoot them at ranges over 300 yards. Made long shots on deer and elk easy.

But that was back in my misbegotten cowboy youth growing up in CO before the state got ruined by liberal transplants from CA. If you tried that stuff now they would probably get their panties in a twist despite it being legal.

I had pan fried cotton tail just a couple days ago, one of my favorite meals! We got some snow this week in Kansas so I went rabbit hunting yesterday. No luck, only seen two but didn't have a shot at either with the .22. Didn't kick up many (cottontail or jacks) this year pheasant hunting, the population doesn't seem very good right now in Kansas. About 15 years ago I ran into a big group of Portuguese guys in Western Kansas hunting Jacks. They were from the East coast and came to Western Kansas every year to shoot Jacks. They had been hunting 3 or 4 days and said they had harvested over 100 jacks during that time. About 5 years ago I took a guy out to Western Kansas to hunt Jacks with his Golden Eagle. The guy drove down from Minnesota and it was one of the coolest things I've witnessed. My 2 hunting buddies and I talk about it all the time.

I've always kicked them out of the brush and weeds and shot them on the run with a shotgun. A lot of stops and starts and kick a log or brushpile as you encounter them. A lot of rabbits spook if you stop and stand still.

Since I was a kid, they always told me never eat one that has white spots on the liver. Rabbit fever. This website appears to agree: on rabbit fever

That said, I later lived with a biology professor in my community who specialized in immunology. He said by the time you examined the liver you were probably already going to get rabbit fever if the animal had it. He said just walking within a few feet of an infected rabbit would likely transmit it. He called it the perfect bioweapon--it would infect about 80% of the people who were exposed and leave them sicker than dogs, but deaths were very rare. It could completely immobilize an army.

He also emphasized it's a rare disease now and never discouraged me from rabbit hunting, especially in winter. CDC says only about 200 cases per year and you can get it from gardening and stuff like that as it exists in the soil. too. Search the websites and you'll see them saying wear gloves when dressing and use tick repellants, as the ticks on the rabbit can transmit it.

Saw something the other day that there are three times the number of coyotes here in Kansas than there were in the eighties. I'd imagine that's part of it.

I have hunted both snowshoe (hares) and cotton tails with beagles. Lots of fun but a lot if work if the snow is deep and you have to use snowshoes. Early season for cotton tails is pretty easy if you don't have a dog. Just go to areas with ground cover like brush piles and cedars.

Ohio too.

And the birds of prey. Don't forget about them. Drive the highways and count the hawks you see.

I'm lucky that I get to watch two eagles near my house somewhat frequently. I've watched them directly across from my driveway in the field on rabbits several times.

They're pretty, and it may be an unpopular opinion ... But they're just flying coyotes.

-Jake