Rabbits - gut in the field or when you get home?

Rabbits - Gut in the field or wait until you get home?

  • Gut in the field

    Votes: 113 78.5%

  • Gut at home

    Votes: 31 21.5%
  • Total voters
    144
  • Poll closed .
bluemike807

bluemike807

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
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Location
Eastern Ontario
Just wondering as Im going out this week for rabbit with my .22 - dont expect to gutshoot any so Im wondering if I should take the time to dress them as they drop or wait until I get home. Whats the general consensus?
 
Heres what you do, best rabbit trick I ever learned:

1. Hold rabbit by head or front legs in one hand and spin them 4-5 times.
2. Grab rabbit, head up, with both hands squeezing tight at base of rib cage.
3. Squeeze down, working your way down tight and you will feel intestines dislodge, then sepperate.
4. Keep working down and guts will exit rabbit bottom in one ball. All you have left is to remove heart, lungs and rabbits pajamas.
I'd show you in person if you come over and we shoot some. Its real easy and works great. No cleaning cold rabbits when you get home.
 
I gut em in the field and when I get home a quick rise and a little garlic and on the the Que they go............
 
Always clean them in the field ASAP, especially if anything but a head shot.

First snowshoe hare I ever took I shot with the shotgun. Thought nothing of it and threw it in the truck. Was home in a couple hours and started cleaning. Now I have a pretty strong stomach and have worked in fish plants, and around fish farms and processing ships, but sweet jebus that hare made me gag.

I have shot a couple with the shotgun since, but now it is a straight walk to the closest water and it gets gutted immediately.
 
;)
cath8r said:
Heres what you do, best rabbit trick I ever learned:

1. Hold rabbit by head or front legs in one hand and spin them 4-5 times.
2. Grab rabbit, head up, with both hands squeezing tight at base of rib cage.
3. Squeeze down, working your way down tight and you will feel intestines dislodge, then sepperate.
4. Keep working down and guts will exit rabbit bottom in one ball. All you have left is to remove heart, lungs and rabbits pajamas.
I'd show you in person if you come over and we shoot some. Its real easy and works great. No cleaning cold rabbits when you get home.
Click to expand...

Before guts blow out the end raise the rabbit over your head and swing it downwards letting your forarms stop abruptly when hitting your thighs. Guts blow out between your legs...or up in the air onto your back if you don't do the procedure right;)
 
I'm huge into cottontail hunting, must have killed well over 1000. Also big into Jack hunting.

Never have I once gutted one in the field

Here's my reasons:
- the action is much too fast to stop and get your hands in guts
- the beagle will eat the guts and get worms 90% of the time
- I don't like to handle my guns with cold bloody hands
- I'd rather be hunting

I hold them by the neck and shake out the piss.

If the guts are already blown up I step on the intestines and pull, leaving my hands clean and warm.

I only field dress big game.
 
I simply put some old newspapers at the bottom of at least two shopping bags in my pack. The newspapers absorb any blood or other fluids while the hares are in my pack.

I welded up my own hare rear leg gambrel that I keep in my shed. (You can do the same thing with a couple of strategically placed 3"-4" nails driven into the wall/studs)Hang the hare by the hind legs and pull the skin downward from the first joint of the hind legs. Make a small incision around the anus and stomach and if you do it right, pelt and guts will drop into the bait pile bucket you've placed immediately underneath the hare. Pull down to the neck and chop it off. Check to make sure the heart/lungs/liver were removed and you're basically done, except for cleaning/soaking the blood out of the meat and quartering, etc...however you prefer the meat.

The hare offal makes for good coyote bait. Not cleaning it in the field removes any temptation of my beagles becoming rabbit eaters and avoids potential parasitic infection. Also, be cleaning at home, I can wear latex gloves and have access to hot water and soap, should one of the animals prove positive for tularemia.

As for the smell...death is smelly and nasty - simply learn to deal with it. No different than mucking out the chicken coop, slaughtering a pig or cleaning a moose.
 
I am allergic to their fur so I handle them as little as possible in the field. When I get home, I take a Reactine and I have a board with 2 nails in it to spread their legs.
Lately I have just been gutting them the old fashioned way.

I once saw a guy tear one apart, he removed the front legs and wearing work gloves had one person hold the rib cage and he grabbed the hind legs in one motion he tugged hard and fast and the hare was gutted and 90 percent skinned.
 
Honestly my first reaction would be to gut in the field. However I have never hunted rabbit before, or anything else to be honest. But I'd love to start.
 
I've been hunting them for about 15 years now and have never cleaned one in the woods...

It's usually dark by the time we get back to the truck this time of year and supper is waiting at home.;)

Out to the garage after supper for some 'Rabbit Peelin'; string up Rabbits by their hind legs(ankles), place bucket to catch offall.

'Peel' Rabbit starting at the ankle of each hind leg, pull the hide right down around it's neck, pull front legs out of hide, cut front feet/paws off with game sheers, cut head off, make incision around ars*hole and carefully down torso, pull guts/organs out, quarter rabbit, place in bucket of cold water/baking soda solution, clean, rinse, package, then freeze or prepare.

Mmm... Rabbit Pie.:D
 
Once a buddy and myself had a rather stellar early spring snowshoehare hunt.
Just south of Southey, about 30 miles from Regina, if you'll pardon the pun.
It was one of those sunny spring days, with temps just below freezing after a long winter, but most of the snow was gone. This is what we called neon bunny hunting, as Mr Rabbit and friends often would stay still in the bushes, thinking wrongly they were invisible to a rimfire hunter's eyes!
We kept up shooting and shooting and shooting.....(26 in all)
After a time doing this both of us had our hands chaulk full of recently dead bunnies and when new shooting opportunities where available we had to drop all bunnies to unsling our 22s.
Well, getting home, we skinned/gutted rabbits for three hours in thier small bungloe.
Made for one long day.
PS: Thanks Jaydog for the video.
 
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