Rabbits are small mammals that many people love to hunt around the world. Even though they are a bunch of different species across the world, they are all similar in many aspects. In addition, both of them look alike.
Despite continuous hunting, the rabbit population is still rising. This is because rabbits breed for upto 4 times in a single year. In every pregnancy, they produce upto 8 young ones.
Rabbits feed on grasses and on some other occasions they do broccoli, brussels and clovers. Besides, they do not mind if they get some fruits, roots, seeds and buds in their diet.
Rabbits are social animals. Quite often you will find the living as a group. It is during early morning or late evening that you will find them roaming around. To them owls, wild dogs and squirrels are their worst nightmare.
Hunting rabbits is a nice activity that everyone would love to do. Unlike hunting of other animals, this is pretty easy. With some knowledge in hunting skills especially how to locate and shoot rabbits, you can go ahead and begin your hunting endeavor.
There are several ways to hunt jackrabbits. This article therefore committed to teach you some ways you can hunt jack rabbits.
Let’s dive right into it.
How to Locate Jack Rabbits
It is no secret that rabbits are hard to find. As much as you can easily find them in some places, it is quite hard to locate their hotspots.
Rabbits mostly dwell in areas where they can access their food. Since they often love soybeans, wheat, buds, garden crops, grasses and bushes, you can easi;y find them in areas with plenty of such things.
Another common place to find them is a yard which is bordered by woods and briars. If you do not find them there, you can check on drainages where they like to hide most of the time. Apart from taking cover in bushy areas, they also hide in thick grass, abandoned farms, blackberry patches, and honeysuckle.
Hunting Jackrabbits
1. Obtain the required licenses.
Hunting was allowed in the past without any restrictions. It is until the recent past that the government came to realise that hunting is very rapidly contributing to drastic decrease in the population of animals. It is for this reason that they decided to enact laws to govern the hunting of any type of animal.
Different local authorities have different hunting laws. For this reason, you need to familiarize yourself with them. However almost all of them require that you obtain a licence before you can go ahead and begin your hunting. This necessitates therefore that you obtain the required permit before hunting.
2. Know the hunting Seasons
Rabbits love cold weather especially the winter seasons. That explains why you only see them roam around early in the morning and late in the evenings. During hot seasons, they spend most of their times in their hideouts and therefore hard to find them
If you therefore want to hunt them easily, you ought to always begin your hand in winter seasons. Alternatively, you can decide to hunt in the evenings or early in the morning because those are the times that you will see them out of their cover.
3. Gather the necessary resources
There are few things you must have if you are going to hunt rabbits. A pistol, rifle or bow and arrow are a good starting point. When it comes to the gun, a 20-gauge shotgun works really pretty well.
Given that you will be hunting in thorny places, wearing thick protective clothing is not an option. This includes canvas field pans and strong boots. Both will go a long way in protecting your skin from harmful stuff in the bush.
4. Go hunting
Locating the habitat of jack rabbits could be a difficult thing.But, if you have some knowledge on reading rabbit tracks, then you have an upperhand in locating them. By looking at the tracks they leave as they roam around, you can easily figure out the direction they are coming from as well as where they are going.
While some jackrabbits love to live in bushy areas, others can still be found in hills. If you check on these places you will definitely not miss to find one or two.
Once you have identified the rabbits and singled out your target, you need to first take position in a strategic place. Given that rabbits are very tricky animals to hunt, shooting them directly is difficult. You have got to really be good at shooting to accurately catch them. If at all you want to instantly kill in one shot, you should aim and fire right at the head.
6. Dressing Jackrabbit
1. The first step to dressing a rabbit is to remove the skin. With a sharp knife. Gently hold the skin and cut it though until you can easily pull out from the rest of the body.
2. Now pull the skin slowly from the body ensuring that it peels off without damaging the meat.
3. Once then skin is off the body, you can now go ahead and cut off the tail as well.
4. Next is to cut through the body and remove the internal organs.
5. Once you are done removing the internal organs, you can check the liver for any ign of “rabbit fever”.
6. Now remove feet and the head from the body.
7. With all that said and done, you can now take the meat and put it in a fridge to preserve for as long as you want.
Conclusion
There are various reasons one could decide to hunt for rabbits. The primary reason is obviously to make a delicious dinner out of its meat. Others though would prefer doing it for fun. Jack rabbits like their look-alike hares, love to live in bushy places. It is only during cold seasons tha you can easily find them running up and down easily.
Many people who are just getting started with hunting jack rabbits, find it difficult to get even one on their first hunt. This article gives you the roadmap of how you can get started with your hunting of jackrabbits. Besides obtaining the necessary equipment, you ought to have the skills to trace and scout their tracks in order to quickly locate them. Aside from that, many countries have regulations and you most certainly are required to be licenced before you start your hunting. We hope this article will be helpful in adding you some knowledge on hunting jack rabbits.