# Bunny Bash: The Body Count



## johnnycake

Went out with 4 good friends yesterday to an undisclosed area in Utah for a jack/cotton killing spree. 5 guys, 6 hours, and 103 rabbits later...we decided we had a lot of cleaning to do (40 cottontails-the 5th guy really regretted not having a small game license!) I have never had so much fun hunting in Utah, it was just madness! We only pushed three small valleys, and for every rabbit we shot we missed or didn't shoot at 10 others. I cannot wait to get back down there again!


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## LostLouisianian

Question....do the cottontails taste like sage? Used to love eating cottontails down south but they ate mostly grasses which grew in abundance...no sage in Louisiana.


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## Bax*

No way....... 8)


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## 3arabians

Hey ah.... Im sure I could be another good friend if you take me out to your rabbit killing honey hole next time. Just saying.... haha. Thats cool man looks like fun. Most rabbits we've killed in one trip was 42 between 3 guys.


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## kailey29us

That is pretty dang cool, I am taking my 11 y/o girl out this weekend to try to get a couple cottontails for the crock pot. I doubt I'll see that many.


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## johnnycake

These cottontails taste really good still. They get stronger as winter goes on


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## wyogoob

Holy moly, that's the second damnest thing I ever seen.

Hey, I had bunny burgers and bunny Italian sausages for supper tonight.


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## johnnycake

Maybe after my next (and likely last) trip there in a month I'll spill the beans on the location. The area already is showing the strain of too many rabbits.


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## colorcountrygunner

johnnycake said:


> Maybe after my next (and likely last) trip there in a month I'll spill the beans on the location. The area already is showing the strain of too many rabbits.


I'll be waiting with "baited" breath to hear about this location!


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## johnnycake

Best part is it is public land (no bait or irrigation to speak of ;-) )


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## Flyfishn247

How did you get the carcasses all to one location? Were you packing sleds behind you? It's been years since I had a day like that, I will be out hunting dogs tomorrow, and maybe some jacks after. I won't have an all inclusive body count pic though. Looks like a good time.


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## johnnycake

We would carry in our vests all we could, make a pile on the road, lather rinse repeat. We think it was somewhere North of 400lbs of bunnies.


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## hawglips

That's crazy!


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## Dunkem

johnnycake said:


> We would carry in our vests all we could, make a pile on the road, lather rinse repeat. We think it was somewhere North of 400lbs of bunnies.


400 lbs of rabbit? Good Lord!!


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## 3arabians

Do you eat those jacks?


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## johnnycake

These ones we only took the young and easy to clean ones. If you handle jacks right, they are pretty good. Had we not done so well on the cottontails we would have taken more of them. I personally kept 10 cottontails and 20 jacks. Soak the jacks in salted water overnight and then prep like a cottontail.


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## BPturkeys

Try this...works


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## johnnycake

I use that on headshot rabbits, but when body shot the likelihood of the guts exploding inside is pretty high and then the job is miserable. Plus, the skinning and rinsing I do is very thorough. Time consuming, but the end product is worth it. It can mean the difference between a delicious jack or late season cotton and an inedible piece of meat garbage.


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## wyogoob

BPturkeys said:


> Try this...works
> 
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=glIst3sbbKs


Doesn't work for me or commercial rabbit producers.

We raised rabbits growing up. I raised rabbits in the 70s and have hunted rabbits for over 55 years. No way.

.


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## KineKilla

I've been hearing of really high numbers this year, unfortunately our honey hole is no longer a secret so they'll probably all be dead before I get the chance to get out there!

Most we had was in 2009 when we killed 180 between 3 guys...


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## ARCHER11

BPturkeys said:


> Try this...works
> 
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=glIst3sbbKs


I tried this on my last outing and it works great! Like has been mentioned it really only works on the head shot rabbits and you need to do it immediately after the kill. If you wait too long it's very difficult to get them to "pop".

Congrats on what looks to be an awesome trip!


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## colorcountrygunner

Yesterday whilst driving the stretch of highway between Fountain Green and Nephi I saw scads of roadkill bunnies all over the road. Any Utah county guys looking for a place to get into some might consider heading that direction.


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## johnnycake

There are lots of great places around the state for bunnies this winter, and with a more regular snowfall so far, let's help out the big game by shooting some jacks!


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## High Desert Elk

Dang it son!! That's a lot of hoppers. Took my two girls out a few days ago and although we did not bring home 103, we did bring home enough to eat for supper. Threw them into the smoker and tried it that way for the first time. Smoked cottontail ain't too bad...


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## bezog

So, silly question, but how do you hunt the rabbits? do you walk along and look for them or sit and wait? Shotgun or something else? I've been twice this season and I have no problem getting into the rabbits, but I can't get a shot off quick enough!


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## Fowlmouth

Sanpete County huh?:grin: Nice shoot!8)


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## johnnycake

Alright, I might make it out again, but there are so many rabbits there, the snow is already very deep, and access is a pain so I'll spill the beans. If you go out, please let me know how you do! 

This is out in the Parker Mountain Plateau, we take the main road to Parker lake before Loa and drive until we find some good sage/juniper/boulder areas and start killing. 

I like to have at least 4 guys, 6 is better. We spread out on the sage and slowly walk through focusing on the densest patches of brush.(I cannot stress how slowly you should go. My buddy had lunch on a rock for 20 minutes and when he was done I walked over and killed 3 jacks and 2 cottons). We set up shotguns in the center and. 22/ARs on the outsides and it is a very effective setup.

Now go forth and blast some conservation--save some deer/elk/antelope.


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## BugleB

The most rabbits I have killed in one day in Utah was a little over 100 near Kelton in the 1970's. We brought home a heaped up long bed pick-up truck load with over 400 rabbits for a mink breeder in Perry, Utah who had promised to give us 25 cents each. When we got to his place with them, he wouldn't take them because he said they had too many diseases that year.

I got about 350 in two days at Mud Lake, Idaho in the early 1980's on my brother-in-laws farm. He begged me too bring my friends and come up and shoot rabbits because they were devouring his hay stacks faster than he could move them out. They would eat the bottom row of hay bales and then the stacks would collapse. I used my sweet Browning with a 4 power scope. (three of us killed almost 1000 jack rabbits on that trip) We mostly shot them off his hay stacks at night with a spot light. It was 7 below zero, so we got too cold and had to quit about 5:30 in the morning. I burned up over 3000 rounds of .22 shells doing it. Imagine what that would cost today. They had a "rabbit drive" on his farm a few weeks later and killed 20,000 rabbits there.

It was not near a good there the next year, and the year after that the rabbits all died off.


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## LostLouisianian

20,000 rabbits? Sounds like the problems they have in Australia from time to time.


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## Mallardhead12

Hey I recognize that spot!!

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk


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## DallanC

Mud lake, 1981










-DallanC


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## Bax*

Just finishing up a bunny hunt with a friend and we saw a ton of rabbits but they were all so gun shy that most shots were 75-100 yards. 

It's great to see so many though.


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## johnnycake

Well, went out for a few hours again yesterday. The snow is finally gone after nearly 6 weeks of inaccessibility except by snowmobiles. However, it looks like the bust has struck the plateau. We hiked 4 miles through draws that six weeks ago were crawling with jacks, and yesterday we saw a total of 6 jacks, shot the first one and then we held off going to find an area with a real concentration. No such luck. Just about everywhere we went the sage brush bark has been chewed off for the bottom 18" and there is practically no grass anywhere. 6 weeks of 3-4' hard snow decimated the rabbits, as there were mummified jacks everywhere. It was fun while it lasted.

On a positive note, we saw hundreds of deer, with most does still having 1-2 fawns all of which were looking healthy and plump. We also saw about 20 antelope (sad historically but better than many of our trips this year) with one buck that was already about 12" with decent flags. He should grow up very nicely this year.


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