Shonuff Snowshoe Shooting

[BrownBear]

A quick snowshoe hunt this evening with my hunting pard was sho'nuff fun! I'm definitely hooked on this GM 62 cal smootbore barrel, rear sight removed and mounted on a Renegade. Load was 80 grains of 2f Goex, same measure of #6 lead, a .125" card lubed with 75/25 olive oil/beeswax for a base wad and knicked overshot card. Range for both was 25-30 yards, and it flat rolled em.

Shot was required, because there's no snow and they're nervous. You'd think white rabbits would show up in brush like seagulls on a golf course, but they are masters at hiding till the last moment.

Snowshoe #1. They're roughly the same size as jackrabbits or between 2 and 3 pounds live weight, yielding roughly a pound of boneless meat per critter.

I picked up a second one later, just as I was getting back to the truck.

I can't say if I was optimistic or piggy, but I just finished a new rabbit packer with loops for 5 to replace my old one with 3 loops. Two rabbits were still a fair break-in. Consider that you can hang 2 rabbits from each, five loops adds up to 10 rabbits- about as much weight as I'd ever want hanging from a shoulder strap!

 

[rabjr]

Nice, I ain't seen a snowshoe since the 70's here.

 

[wattlebuster]

Congrats to you. thats the first ones ive ever seen. An I like that horn an bag :thumbsup:

 

[henbrook]

One of my favorite post-deer season things to do is go plinking white bunnies off of brown ground with the .22lr.Mother nature plays cruel tricks on them here most years,and they are snow white before we get any snow.They glows like javex jugs,lol.you're right though,they are masters at hiding in the fir thickets,that is until the last hour before dark when they move really well out into the alders and clearcut regen hardwood saplings.I've seen me hunt ALL afternoon for 1 or 2 bunnies,then limt out with 10 in the last 45 minutes of hunting time in the exact same area I just tramped for hours.The saplings come alive with them in the last 1/2 hour of dusk,and I've shot up to 2 and 3 without taking a step on more than one occassion.Great fun!

 

[BrownBear]

Congrats to you. thats the first ones ive ever seen. An I like that horn an bag :thumbsup:

Thanks! It's a pretty functional rig. And snowshoes are a wonder. In down years of their cycle they're as precious as gold, but in peak years as common as dirt. We're in between now, headed up, and I'm sure looking forward to rolling around in the dirt! :grin:

Best day during a previous cycle was when we still raised beagles. A hunting pard and I got 37 in a little over three hours. The dogs were busy and we were sure flapping our elbows to get reloaded in time for the next one to come by. Lugging all those rabbits was a chore, but nothing compared to dressing them. And meanwhile the dogs were "busy" sleeping under the truck. They earned it!

Swampy- I didn't realize you ever had them that far south. Were you seeing them on some of your northern hunts?

 

[rabjr]

Fish & Wildlife actually stocked them here for a few years, late 60's early 70's if I remember right. They had to stop when the Friends of animals got a hold of it and started screaming. No idea where they got the stock from but I guess the idea was for them to take hold and populate here but they never did. I remember for a few years afterward some people would see or shoot one then the sightings stopped all together.

And yep, used to see em in Vermont when we hunted there too. :thumbsup:

 

[BrownBear]

I'm amazed they'd think of stocking them, but now that I think about it, I like the idea. I can't imagine anyone would object unless they were raiding gardens or displacing some other rabbit. Around here EVERYTHING eats snowshoe hare, and they're an important food source for all the other wildlife.

Speaking of eating, the last batch of snowshoes went into a big ole pot pie. The latest are headed for tamales or enchiladas. I'm here to tell you, rabbit is about the best thing that ever hit a chili pot. I have it on good authority that Texas style chili was invented for tough jackrabbits rather than beef. From growing up with a horse between my knees and cow pies on my boots, I know for a fact that ranchers don't eat anything they can sell! :rotf:

 

[rabjr]

Yeah, thats back when our Biologists and those who ran Fish & Wildlife had balls. All it took was one who liked runnin Beagels and rabbit hunting to say, hey I want some Snowshoes to hunt... :haha:

Love rabbit, used to raise New Zealands for the freezer, wish I could still do it but those days are long gone *sigh*.

 

[agill]

Cool! Sounds like fun. :thumbsup:

 

[BillinOregon]

Brownbear: Do you have a particular way you like to prepare and cook snowshoes? I've heard they aren't as good on the table as a cottontail, but cannot say from first-hand experience.
Good shooting by the way!

 

[chance]

Nice!!!!

 

[Skychief]

:thumbsup: :hatsoff: :applause:

 

[shootemup]

:thumbsup:

 

[hawk]

nice hunt thanks for posting i like your bag and game carrier too :hatsoff:

 

[henbrook]

RE:stocking rabbits,Up until recently(10 years or less?) a good buddy of mine live-trapped snowshoe hares for a hunt club south of the border...somehwere in VT I beleive?Anyhow,those days are done,for whatever reason our DNR or US/Canada Customs declared it illegal to export rabbits from here to the USA? :idunno: I know that up until then he shipped a few hundred down there every season for many years,which no doubt many of those escaped the beagles and naturally reproduced.

 

[BrownBear]

Brownbear: Do you have a particular way you like to prepare and cook snowshoes? I've heard they aren't as good on the table as a cottontail, but cannot say from first-hand experience.
Good shooting by the way!

I've eaten a lot of both in the last 50+ years, cottontail for the first 20 and snowshoe for the last 30+, so I'm probably a pretty good source.

In general cottontail meat is whiter and more tender no matter the age. Snowshoe is a little darker, and the older ones can be as tough as old jackrabbits. I'd say it's like comparing turkey breast meat with thigh meat. And the flavor is somewhere between turkey thigh and veal, and that's good!

We always soak ours overnight in saltwater, which pales up the meat and keeps flavor mild.

I grew up on the border, so we use it lots instead of chicken in Mexican food. We also fry the young ones and use them in any rabbit recipe you can name. We either freeze the sections raw in vacuum bags or slow cook them in a little water till tender, then strip the meat and freeze that for later use. We take 25 pound batches to our local smokehouse, which uses it to turn out 30-pound batches of pepper sausage, summer sausage, smoke sticks and lots more. One year my son-in-law thought he was collecting for sausage, and so did I. We ended up with 60 pounds of sausage, and that's a LOT of sausage. But we ate it all before the year was out.

Snowshoe is really versatile stuff, and since we get a lot in peak years we've had the opportunity to experiment a lot. We've never found a bad recipe, and in fact just about quit buying chicken or turkey in years of high abundance.

You didn't ask for it, but here's our "quick" dressing technique, a serious consideration with 10 or 20 rabbits at your feet. We used it in my youth for cottontails, and it works great for snowshoes too:

Put your knife blade flat against the side of each lower leg joint, and lever the foot over it to snap the bone, then draw the knife to cut it free. Just takes a second. Now make a small cut in the hide on the back and lay your knife down. Grab the head in one hand and the shoulders in the other and spin the head till you feel it pop free from the neck. Now grab the hide on each side of the cut and pull your hands apart to peel it off. Might be a few tuffs left around the lower leg and tail, so pull those free too. Hand the body to your hunting pard and move on to skin the next one. If you're by yourself, skin all your rabbits before you start gutting in order to keep your hands free of blood and ease skinning.

Take the skinned rabbit in your hand and tip the "head" down so the guts slide forward against the ribcage. Slip your knife point in and move it down till you start thinking you might rupture a gut. Now tip the "head" straight up so the guts fall down and mostly out. Use your knife to cut forward through the ribcage and free the heart and lungs. Sweep it all out, then split and clean the pelvis and you're done.

With two guys going, you can clean at the rate of about a rabbit a minute. One guy can do it all in less than 2 minutes.

 

[texcl]

Wow, your snow shoe hares look alot different than the ones we have here in ND. I'll shoot a couple after deer season and post them for comparison.

 

[BrownBear]

I look forward to seeing them!

 

[Deadeye]

We have them here in Utah but not as many as you ,apparently,have there. I clean them the same way you do. We have another pure white rabbit that has no season on it ( looks like a big snowshoe) We shoot hundreds of those some yrs. when they are thick.
Deadeye

 

[John Tice]

Great hunt and great pics :thumbsup: