Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Shooting and Hunting => Topic started by: Dakotian on December 16, 2006, 12:40:02 am
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Of all the species of animals that I have hunted rabbits are most certainly my favorite, however I always just wing it when it comes to just about everything involved. So since my luck on thinning the herd of such a great number of rabbits in my woods has been less than somewhat not successful, I find myself wondering what techniques should I be using when it comes to rabbit hunting, stalking, searching, tracking and shooting. What do you all find works best?
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D- shoot close-no more than 10 yds or so-herr' rabbit is a small target-searching i dont know since i dont know the country. look close up to you forget 30 yds away-rabbits hide in what you and i would consider ridiclulously small cover. I use blunts myself-if you see rabbit go into cover shoot just inside cover. Stalk very slow-and dont make direct eye contact- thats about all i can tell you-wish we still had plenty of cottontails down south here but fire ants have taken care of that-but we still have marsh rabbits a bit different- still fun-dont taste as good as hossenpfeffer though-good luck-bob
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I don't have any special techniques, I just get out and hunt. Sometimes I will get a shot and sometimes I even conect. Use an arrow that will kill. I use broadheads. good luck and have fun. kenneth
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I like to track them down when it snows. I don't threaten the population too much with a bow, either, but it's fun.
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when you take the shot look at its head . the best placement for a shot is the head and shoulder area. hit the head and its done. hit the shoulders and it wont be able to go anywhere. i prefer blunts especially judos for rabbits. ive just about cut small game in half with broadheads and the animals still have enough in em to run for a hole or up a tree. thats why i like the head and shoulders and blunt trauma on small critters.
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Jamie, I found out the same as you that broad heads arn't good for rabbits. I remember shooting one rabbit with a broadhead that ran 20 yards and the arrow entered just behind the rear leg and exited in front of the opposite front leg.I can't for the life of me see how that rabbit could even move, much less run 20 yards.
I have shot many a rabbit with a shotgun and they seem to fall at the sound of the gun. Some of them look like they wern't even hit but cutting them up with a broadhead seems to energize them for a few minutes. :)
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I've found judos work really well for rabbits but I have trouble getting them through the surroundings to the rabbit. Seems one prong always catches on something in between. I make my rabbit arrows from .38 cases with a finish nail bent back to make a barb. I de-cap the cases and then drill a hole through the case for the nail. I grind a notch on the nail near the center, then insert it into the hole, put the case and nail on my powder scale and add lead shot until it all weighs 125 grains. When I stand the case on a metal surface and hit it with a propane torch, the lead melts, flowing into the primer pocket and solidifying around the notch in the nail shank, keeping it from pulling out. I just center punch them at three or so places to hold them onto the shaft. After it's cool I bend the nail back for barbs.
They hit a little harder than straight blunts and will usually stay in a rabbit, hanging up on everything he's trying to run through, slowing him down until he cashes in. Of course, as already said, a hit in the head or shoulders kills hit right there.They usually will bend and/or come off with a hard surface hit without breaking the shaft. A new one just slips on and you're good to go.
I get most of my rabbits along the tracks, shooting downward. If I can get another hunter to go along, we can leapfrog along, one going quietly down the center of the rails a hundred yards or so and taking up a stand, then the second one busting through the brush along the right of way pushing rabbits to the first guy. I have had quite a bit of success like that, usually getting lots of shots. If I had some beagles, I think they would be perfect for bowhunting rabbits in thick stuff where the rabbit moves ahead of the dogs at a pace slower than over open ground.
Steve.
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oooooooooh i like
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My rabbit technique is to go out the back door before daylight, sneak along the block wall out into the street without the neighbors seeing me. Sneak the 50 yards to the dumpster at the park. Now the hard part is over. Now I just need to lean around the dumpster and make the 10 yard shot and kill the bunnies that have come out of the river bottom to eat the grass. Oh and then sneak back to the house with my prize before the neighbors see me. ;D Justin
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Surburan huntin'-huh?
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I've only killed 2 rabbits (one cottontail, and one jackrabbit). But both were taken with stone points. The first was the jackrabbit, and I shot it at about 12 feet with a small, mini-clovis shaped arrowhead. It went through the chest, sliced the side of its heart, and knocked it over. The rabbit squealed, kicked, then righted itself and ran in a large half circle. I waited about a minute, then followed the blood trail (yeah, that's right..the blood trail!). As soon as the blood trail started to dwindle, I looked up and there was my jackrabbit, laying dead behind a sage bush.
The second rabbit was taken at about 12 yards with a point made from the bottom of a beer bottle. I missed the first shot and the rabbit ran under a juniper tree. I threaded the second arrow right through all the branches, hitting the rabbit in the lower back on the right side. The point came out right behind its left shoulder. I ran up to the tree and that rabbit wasn't going anywhere...he just kicked a few times, then quickly died.
I did shoot a cottontail with a blunt, but hit it in the guts....it ran with the arrow hanging out of it and disappeared into some rocks. I never found that rabbit. I also shot a small cottontail with a stone-tipped rivercane arrow this summer, but I also hit that rabbit in the guts. That arrow zipped right through the rabbit, and he ran off into the brush and I never found him either.
So I think its about shot placement...the ones I've shot with stone points, as long as they have been in the vitals, are very quickly fatal.
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It depends on your local terrain I guess, but heres what works for us out on the eastern plains of Colorado. We will slowly stalk through the yukka and sage, and you will usually jump them up. I look for draws, depressions, any slight terrain feature that might afford some protection from the elements. Out here in the open terrain, once you jump a cottontail, he'll usually run, but usually not more than a 100 yards or so. Then you can pinpoint exactly where they stopped, and make your stalk from there. This usually works well, and I've noticed that the closer to dark (either early morning or late evening), the less distance the rabbits tend to run once you jump 'em up.
On points, I have found that the regular steel blunts tend to work best on cottontails, and broadheads on jackrabbits. I would not recommend using judos unless you are sure you are going to make head shots. If you hit them anywhere in the body, I find that the judo spring arms drag fur and dirt into the would channel, making it almost impossible to completely clean, and I usually have to just cut around the judo wound, wasting meat. The regular steel blunt does not drag fur and dirt into the wound, and if you happen to hit one in the hind quarter, you dont waste meat, because you can clean the wound channel out without wasting the whole hind quarter.
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/Titan_Bow/Archery/11-25-06_1358.jpg)
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Wow_nice bunch of Hossenpfeiffer !-bob
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bob, please don't take this wrong, but you gave me a good chuckle this morning. the dish you're referring to is "Hasenpfeffer", consisting of the words Hase = rabbit or hare and Pfeffer = pepper. However, Hose = pants and Pfeiffer = whistler, so you may have called them pants-whistlers, which reminded me of a body function, the bunnies may perform when they see a primitive archer approaching ;D
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Ha-ha-ha- i was wondering if you would pick up on it ?hhh-bob
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I meant if anyone would pick up on it-bob
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I have shot quite a few rabbits with a blunts, and even more squerrils, i have always been dissapointed. i once shot a squerril in the chest with a judo as it was standing facing me. it took the arrow up the tree. 20 min and a lot of arows later i knocked him down, with my judo still stuck in the white of his chest. no way i was getting him. broadheads do let them run sometimes, but they always die, and if i can make out the trail they are mine. i lost faith in blunts on squerrils. i always shoot for the chest, and have hit it enough with a 60 lb recurve to say i am dissapointed with the results. i agree that blunts so a great job on head shots, but i am not good enough to always hit the head. i prefer a large cutting surface that allows me to make some midtakes. most rabbits i have hit with broadheads have died on the spot --just my opinion.
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If you are hunting for meat,the swamp rabbit in Fl is the one to hunt.You usually get 3 yd shots.They are bigger than the cottontail and not as tough.Plus it seems like they don't have as many fleas.I like using blunts out of hickory or osage I turn on my lathe and stick in cane arrows.I think judos are about as useless as field points as they tend to go clean through if you make a body shot.Bob that ranch I hunted in So. Fl had the most cottontails I've seen here in years.We were shooting them in the headlites as we went back to camp.
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A good eye is sometimes the best tecnique. I have found that instead of kicking a brush pile to scare out a rabbit. If I get lower to the ground and look very closely into the brush often there is a rabbit looking back that is sure it is hidden. Then its a nice easy kill
Jesse
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The Government was doing a study of the effects a new virus down here called Calisie [ dont know spelling but thats how it sounds ] on an off shore island and some clown nabbed a few infected rabbits [ our bunny's are introduced european ] and introduced it to the mainland . The farmers liked it , Aussie ikon Akubra hat company had to source its felt offshore it virtually wiped out the rabbits country wide so my rabbit huntin went by the wayside for about 15 years . Now thank goodness the bunny's have began to come back far more resistant to any disease and showing up in a lot of places the didn't exist . In the 1930's they introduced mixamotosis as the rabbits were denuding the country side , twice we have tried to eliminate bunny's from this country they came back and nature struck a balance .
Now to the original topic . I used to hunt rabbits in country with lots of gully's , I simply used to sneak along half way up the gully banks so not to sillouitte come over the top near a log or bush were the warren was at , take a seat in cover and shoot away until the rabbits wouldn't play anymore . I used sharpened field points with either a washer screwed in behind the head or sharpened field points with those slip on judo's thingo's . I found the bunny's could not get down there burrows with an arrow half through them and they usually died very quickly with a chest shot . Out west it is lots of low dense cover and a spot and stalk method only produces long shots so it boiled down to scouting out the warrens , taking cover and waiting again . regards Perry
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I've never hunted the little fellas with a Bow but used to hunt them daily with a dog,he was much better at hunting rabbits than me ;D.
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A buddy of mine has a rabbit hunting trick he uses when we hunt them with bows. After flushing a rabbit and it's on the run he nocks a arrow ,and whistles really load and sharp. By the time he has his bow up and drawn ,the rabbit is standing on his hind legs and searching the sky for a hawk. ::)
He gets a lot more rabbits than me.
Ralph