Snaring rabbits???

Yeah, many school chums during the junior high years, several teenage boys were early risers especially down Woodside way. Could always tell the stronger flavor of snared rabbit caught early in the previous evening versus a freshly shot one.
 
Late winter bunnies can have a cedar and or poplar after taste.... ain't that bad. starving man would be happy to have.

This is how we used to cook bunnies... one rabbit debone all meat, cut meat into 1" cubes or smaller, drop into pot of boiling water for just a min or 2. drain the water off, add 2 tablespoons of butter to a frying pan, add rabbit meat and cook until just browned.
Add salt and pepper and enjoy.
Fed myself and my roommates all through college and was dammed tasty to boot!
Hardest part was deboneing enough rabbit to feed five guys!
 
I remember having rabbit stew,a lonnnggg time ago . It had vegetable and gravy,and some kind of paste?? A thick slab of dough? Cooked in the oven maybe. I don't recall a tree flavour though.

I did eat some deer,that we shot ,in Devils Lake Ont.
Now that tasted just like a tree:)
 
cdn1canhunt said:
Late winter bunnies can have a cedar and or poplar after taste.... ain't that bad. starving man would be happy to have.

This is how we used to cook bunnies... one rabbit debone all meat, cut meat into 1" cubes or smaller, drop into pot of boiling water for just a min or 2. drain the water off, add 2 tablespoons of butter to a frying pan, add rabbit meat and cook until just browned.
Add salt and pepper and enjoy.
Fed myself and my roommates all through college and was dammed tasty to boot!
Hardest part was deboneing enough rabbit to feed five guys!
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That's the recipe I used for my very first rabbit, (as suggested my some folks with a lot of experience) but I wasn't impressed. Still too chewy and gamy. Ever since, I've been cutting it into strips and doing it like chicken wings. That reminds me... there's a big American sportsing event coming up. Better get a few bunnies for the game!
 
kodiakjack said:
That's the recipe I used for my very first rabbit, (as suggested my some folks with a lot of experience) but I wasn't impressed. Still too chewy and gamy. Ever since, I've been cutting it into strips and doing it like chicken wings. That reminds me... there's a big American sportsing event coming up. Better get a few bunnies for the game!
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Wow. You must have tough teeth.
 
Here is a successful set and an unsuccessful and very aggravating set..... lol

Tracks_zps29a06214.jpg


wabbit2_zps92b203ae.jpg
 
One thing that may help with the gamey taste is soaking the meat in buttermilk. It works for other gamey meats. I think a lot of the gamey taste comes from the fact that the animals are not bled. I've had beaver (the kind that builds dams, and chews on trees) that had been trapped as well as some that had been shot, and there was a huge difference in taste. Also, one of my wife's uncles used to snare moose in winter, and it was pretty horrible too if it dies in the snare, whereas shot is excellent. Most times, it would still be alive and he would shoot it, so it wasn't too bad, even though tougher than hunted.
 
I heard the Innu ,cut the mocks? Or knees? Not sure exactly what they're called. But this removes any ,gamey or browsy taste.
I wonder if you could do the same with a rabbit?? :)
 
Brianma65 said:
I heard the Innu ,cut the mocks? Or knees? Not sure exactly what they're called. But this removes any ,gamey or browsy taste.
I wonder if you could do the same with a rabbit?? :)
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Some animals have musk glands on the hock, but that usually gives a musky taste if not removed. Snared rabbit tastes like poplar, to me. The best I found is to soak them and change the water often, and remove all the membrane you can. Soaking (dégorger in French) kidneys removes all strong taste from them, so I assume the same would hold true for rabbit if soaked for a long time.
 
Papaclaude said:
Some animals have musk glands on the hock, but that usually gives a musky taste if not removed. Snared rabbit tastes like poplar, to me. The best I found is to soak them and change the water often, and remove all the membrane you can. Soaking (dégorger in French) kidneys removes all strong taste from them, so I assume the same would hold true for rabbit if soaked for a long time.
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How long?
 
the spank said:
I've never found the taste of snowshoe hare all that bad. It's good done in a stew and in a rabbit meat pie. However it is poor table fare next to cottontail. Those little guys are tasty as hell!!
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Funny I always found it opposite cottontail taste was good. The snowshoes we got almost always came out of a cedar swamp somewhere and tasted like it. European hares/jackrabbits were even crappier tasting and we used to do the soak in buttermilk overnight trick didn't help much! I always wanted to make a wild game meatpie some rabbit, ruffed grouse and veg and gravey
 
cdn1canhunt said:
Funny I always found it opposite cottontail taste was good. The snowshoes we got almost always came out of a cedar swamp somewhere and tasted like it. European hares/jackrabbits were even crappier tasting and we used to do the soak in buttermilk overnight trick didn't help much! I always wanted to make a wild game meatpie some rabbit, ruffed grouse and veg and gravey
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You definitely misinterpreted what you read. I said the taste of snowshoes was ok but nowhere near as tasty as cottontail.
 
I set my first rabbit (snowshoe hare) snares when I was six years old and the largest cycle of rabbits, maybe ever seen in northern Canada, was underway. When I was twelve and the next cycle was underway, I probably could have written the book on snaring rabbits. When I was about ten or twelve I got a fox in a rabbit snare, but he broke the wire and got away. Talk about excitement as I followed the fox track down the frozen creek in a skiff of new snow, knowing I had a couple snares ahead. The tracks led straight to the willow bunch I had cut a good rabbit trail through, then damn, snow ripped up and willows broken, where the fox had been in the snare, then broke the wire. Talk about a downer!
 
the spank said:
I've never found the taste of snowshoe hare all that bad. It's good done in a stew and in a rabbit meat pie. However it is poor table fare next to cottontail. Those little guys are tasty as hell!!
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Shot or snared snowshoes? Shot are OK. We used to make a pretty good stew or burgoo with them. Snared, not so much.
 
Papaclaude said:
Some animals have musk glands on the hock, but that usually gives a musky taste if not removed. Snared rabbit tastes like poplar, to me. The best I found is to soak them and change the water often, and remove all the membrane you can. Soaking (dégorger in French) kidneys removes all strong taste from them, so I assume the same would hold true for rabbit if soaked for a long time.
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I haven't tried long-term soaking, because I haven't snared a rabbit in close to 40 years, and learned the "dégorger" after that, but with kidney and heart, I soak them for 24 hours, changing the water every hour or so (not during the night). Takes all the strong taste away. So I imagine the same would happen with rabbit.
 
Brianma65 said:
Thanks for the advice ,everyone. I'm sure we're going to have fun.

Down hill skiing for me,Brad,it's my first run of the season and my fourth run ever.:)

Marble Mountain.
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Gonna be in my neck of the woods(Humber village)
Took my 3 year old daughter rabbit snaring last month and she caught her first rabbit. Well, she just kinda looked at me as I set the snares and tried to explain to her what I was doing and why. She got pretty excited when we caught her first rabbit though, makes it all worth it.
 
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