Rabbit in the garden

[Nobade]

So, he's back again this year. The rabbit in my garden. But this time it's different. I loaded up the flintlock pistol I got from philthephlier just to make things interesting. Sure, a 22 would do the trick but this way I give him a better chance. We will see who prevails.

[cwtebay]

Nothing like a little smoke and hasenpfeffer!!

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[Jeff Michel]

DEATHMATCH:shock:

[fastdadio]

Use ACME fff, in that smoke pole. Designed specially for waskilly wabbitz.

[GregLaROCHE]

Are you going for a headshot?

[Nobade]

Are you going for a headshot?

If possible. But a shot anywhere with a 50 caliber ball should be effective. Since I loaded the pistol he has been nowhere to be seen. He is making this more interesting.

[tctender]

Good luck with that. I planted brocolli plants 3 times before i could get them critters stopped.

[pietro]

.

It's a good thing dat wasskally wabbit isn't armed.......... :mrgreen:

[Nobade]

He is waskally though. He was out early this morning when I went out to pee but by the time I got the pistol he was long gone. I'm going to have to up my game.

[HWooldridge]

He is waskally though. He was out early this morning when I went out to pee but by the time I got the pistol he was long gone. I'm going to have to up my game.
Good thing he wasn’t a Comanche wabbit…might have gotten your foreskin and your scalp.

[dverna]

If you don't kill the wabbit you will scare the pellets out of it.

[Good Cheer]

Don't have to worry about them in the garden. They're having too much fun on the porch!
http://i.imgur.com/JWnkRzZ.jpg (https://imgur.com/JWnkRzZ)

[Nobade]

Well, the rabbit lost. But not to the pistol. I came home from playing with my dad's old Winchester '73 and he was out there. I grabbed the pistol, fired, and he didn't notice. Dang! But I had ammo left for the Winchester so a 44-40 to the neck got him sorted and he's in the instant pot now. Tomorrow I'm going to figure out where that pistol is hitting and have it ready for the next one!

[GregLaROCHE]

Enjoy your meal.

[LAGS]

Was that the Easter Bunny ?

[Nobade]

Enjoy your meal.

He was very tasty combined with ramps, purple deadnettle, and sweet potatoes.
Now I see there is another one, so the games can continue.

[sharps4590]

A hot wire 3-4 inches off the ground will cure that, if used with a pet fencer. Livestock fencers are about useless for a garden. Won't me as much fun or as challenging but it'll keep critters out of your garden.

If that doesn't work, smear some peanut butter on the wire or devise a small container to hold it. After one sampling, nothing will be back.

For deer, run another wire about 30 inches off the ground. Wire tuna cans to it, put a tablespoon of peanut butter in them and watch. It's amazing that deer can nearly reach orbital altitude when they take a lick.

[toot]

OH! NO EASTER THIS YEAR! think of all the kids that aren't going to find any eggs? they have to eat also. they don't have a STOP & SHOP to go to for food! I am routing for DUH WABBIT.

[Texas by God]

After an absence of several years, I've been seeing several Cottontails around the house lately. It makes me think of Mom, who always requested a couple of midsized rabbits to fry up and eat with mashed potatoes and Poke salad! I was a proud kid after getting them with my 20gauge Topper for her.

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[HWooldridge]

We used to hunt “swamp rabbits” along the Pedernales river near Fredericksburg. When I was a kid, I thought it was just a term our family used but turns out there really is such a bunny. They are quite a bit larger than cottontails and 2-3 made a real meal for several people.

[barrabruce]

I wonder if flee and tick ridden bandicoots would do as a Substitute?

They sorta look the same in the headlights. Sometimes.













Nahhh probably not.
:coffee:

[dondiego]

We used to hunt “swamp rabbits” along the Pedernales river near Fredericksburg. When I was a kid, I thought it was just a term our family used but turns out there really is such a bunny. They are quite a bit larger than cottontails and 2-3 made a real meal for several people.

I think that one attacked Jimmy Carter once!

[missionary5155]

Congratulations on the "wabbit hunt"! Even if it took the 73 to nail it.

[Wilderness]

Nobade: Be thankful your rabbits are not as prolific as the European rabbit. Before biological intervention - myxomatosis and calicivirus - introduced rabbits had taken over many parts of Australia, turning the landscape into bare eroded near deserts, and contributing to the extinction of marsupials and birds dependent on those landscapes. Control efforts included poisoning, shooting, dogging, ripping up burrows, but mostly fencing. In some of the country, landholders were required to have rabbit proof boundary fences. In other places, control was paddock by paddock - fence in an area and then clean out the rabbits inside the fence.

My father was involved in one such "cleaning out". A friend had fenced in an area of good country. It was heavy soil, so the rabbits chose to live in hollow logs and under dense brush rather than burrow as they would in the sand country. The cover was all burned off to expose the rabbits, and a group of shooters assembled, with shotguns of course. A long line of men (and women - including my Aunt) started at one end of the paddock, across the narrower dimension, and walked the rabbits up, shooting as they went. A cart came behind them with spare ammunition, and to pick up the rabbits. Of course the shooters had to be careful about rabbits coming back through the line, though in the excitement there were some indiscretions. These, fortunately, were of limited consequence due to the distance between shooters. My father said the guns got so hot that the shooters were hanging on to their guns with their felt hats. He was OK, since he had a M12 Winchester pump action.

In the event they shot 1200 rabbits and three men. Two of them shot each other. One, who was known to be a prickly character, copped some shot as a rabbit ran through the line. Awaiting the first reasonable excuse, he returned the compliment shortly thereafter.

[Nobade]

Wow, that must have been something to see. Yes, I am glad the ones here don't behave that way. And we have enough coyotes around that they're not likely to get too far out of control.

I have met people who went there on rabbit shooting vacations. I suppose that's not something that happens any more but the stories of shooting hundreds of rabbits in a day sounded pretty amazing.

[LAGS]

My Grandfather told me about hunting rabbits in central California around the turn of the last century.
He said they were given ammo and were paid by the farmers to get rid of the rabbits both Cottontails and Jack Rabbits.
There is a time every 7 to 11 years when the rabbit population explodes by the thousands.
My brother has a picture somewhere of my grandfather sitting on a flatbed buckboard wagon overflowing with dead rabbits.
He said they then took the dead rabbits into San Francisco and sold them to be made into dog food or Mexican foods.

[HWooldridge]

I killed 17 one night on a rye field and thought I was a hotshot. Can’t imagine shooting 1200…oy ve.

I did clean all of them and our family ate rabbit stew for a couple of months.

[barrabruce]

When they had eaten everything and it was barren and the ground had turned a sort of dead grey dust you could see them 6-8 deep in the shade of a fence post or star picket surrounded by bits of fur and stinking dead carcasses..
Just shoot ‘Em to put them out of their misery.
They will eat gum leaves and smell of sort of between death and eucalyptus.

Used to be a very sad state of affairs sometimes..

Left that country and went Nth 40 years ago seeking fame and fortune.
Found neither.
Started out with bugga all and still have managed somehow to keep most of it.

I don’t even know if you can still eat ‘ em now with the calicivirus.

[Texas by God]

Hunting Cottontails and Jackrabbits on the High Plains at night, we would get so many that one got tired of killing them after awhile. The next day there were only a few carcasses lying around- the cleanup crew was well fed.

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[Rapier]

In the US the dumb butts just release wolves everywhere. Kill everything.

[Good Cheer]

Hunting Cottontails and Jackrabbits on the High Plains at night, we would get so many that one got tired of killing them after awhile. The next day there were only a few carcasses lying around- the cleanup crew was well fed.

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Gosh I miss those days.

[toot]

when a cat's ears are all the way back, WATCH OUT!!!! betta run YOU WASKELLEY WABBIT! as ELMER WOULD SAY!

[toot]

I wonder does any one know- can a SNOW SHOE & A COTTEN TAIL mate? if so what would it be? as they are both rabbits.

[LAGS]

Isn't that Splitting Hares there Toot ?

[Scrounge]

He is waskally though. He was out early this morning when I went out to pee but by the time I got the pistol he was long gone. I'm going to have to up my game.

Wabbit is waskally, not stupid!

Bill

[dondiego]

I wonder does any one know- can a SNOW SHOE & A COTTEN TAIL mate? if so what would it be? as they are both rabbits.

One is a rabbit (cottontail) and one is a hare (snowshoe hare)..........they are both Lagomorph's however and not rodents.

[Wilderness]

I wonder does any one know- can a SNOW SHOE & A COTTEN TAIL mate? if so what would it be? as they are both rabbits.

Sounds like the story of the rabbit who washed his thing and couldn't do a hare with it.

[Texas by God]

Sounds like the story of the rabbit who washed his thing and couldn't do a hare with it.Delayed chuckle! Good one


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[toot]

Lags, touche, point taken!

[georgerkahn]

The sadness of living in a village: One day summer last I was on my John Deere mowing, to see a rabbit run out of (fenced) garden front. As I drove closer, a 2nd ran out of right side, with a 3rd running out of back! I had two bean towers of pole beans -- nine plants on each -- and, when the rabbits were through we ended up with a total of ONE plant. Is it worth it for me to spend $70.00 to buy rabbit fence -- to harvest maybe $25.00 worth of pole beans? Instead, I'm thinking of using poultry netting (aka chicken wire) in a circle around each pole tower. Does anyone know if rabbit can/do chew through poultry netting?
MOST sadly, any projectile discharge -- from sling shots up -- is most illegal in my municipality...
geo

[barrabruce]

No they can’t.
But you will have to bury it a foot deep.

I would recommend a lanes ace trap.

Remember you can always strangle,mangle,or entangle.

Strangle as in snare or mangle as in dead drop are pretty quiet[smilie=1:

[dondiego]

If you can find a trail that they are regularly using, I found that placing a live trap with both doors open on that trail works well. I caught 5 woodchucks in one trail last year. I used no bait.

[Bmi48219]

Nothing beats hunting rabbits with a ferret. Sort of like furry Sporting Clays.

[dondiego]

Nothing beats hunting rabbits with a ferret. Sort of like furry Sporting Clays.

I don't know? One of my best days was hunting with my brother and his Red Tailed Hawk. He sent me out into the brush with a 9 iron to beat the brush. He let his hungry RT hawk out and it landed in a nearby tree. He and I started beating the brush and all of a sudden the hawk took off and landed on the ground in front of me. I heard an earsplitting scream of a rabbit's last days and we ran up there and his hawk had a cottontail in it's talons! He took it from the hawk. He didn't want it to eat and get full or it wouldn't hunt. He sent it up to another tree and we started beating the brush again. Alas, a murder of crows saw the hawk and it was on! We ended the hunt for that day and he let his bird eat the rabbit. They leave the stomach and not much more! He had a mentor and had gone through all of the classes and inspections and was fully legal in Florida. I was impressed. He is a Wildlife Biologist and has managed many Federal lands out west. Recently retired to Homossassa, Fl.

[Bmi48219]

I don't know? One of my best days was hunting with my brother and his Red Tailed Hawk…..

That beats my best rabbit hunt.

[dondiego]

That beats my best rabbit hunt.

Yes, unfortunately he moved from Florida and had to give up his raptor permit and said he wasn't going to try to renew it.

[cwtebay]

The raptor hunting is amazing to see!!
A very good friend of mine has several, he will take a falcon out to barns for the pigeons. Watching that performance is definitely popcorn worthy!!
Trained mink for muskrats and rabbits definitely ranks right up there though!!

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[Bmi48219]

The raptor hunting is amazing to see!……Watching that performance is definitely popcorn worthy!!….Trained mink for muskrats and rabbits definitely ranks right up there though.

Bird of prey hunting is a ballet choreographed by Nature. We see osprey and hawks and the occasional eagle working overhead most days. I don’t know much about training raptors but I would think the training part focuses on the relationship between the handler and the raptor, since the hunting is a natural instinct. The satisfaction of knowing you’ve trained a wild creature to include you in their most basic endeavor must be gratifying. I’ve also heard (but not sure) the bird must be returned to the wild after a season. That would be tough.
Likewise any ferret will hunt rabbits and all rabbits are terrified by the scent of a ferret. As with dog hunting the human participation is in harvesting the rabbit (and recovering the ferret). To see a rabbit shoot a few feet in the air exiting a snow covered hole and then catch or shoot it like a bouncing ground ball is the excitement.