Snaring rabbits???
- Thread starter Brianma65
- Start date
I had very few breakoffs with brass, but copper was no good. I wonder how stainless would work?
BTW, I wonder if that's where their name comes from - are they called "snowshoe hare" because they taste like snowshoes?
canadian hunter312
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Brant County
Too much work snaring them...just get a few meat rabbits for the backyard and it'll be fresh rabbit dinner whenever you want...
Gotta visit the sparkies and pick through the stuff they use for Cannon plugs etc. Monel wire, generally around .020", with .025", and .015" around.
I ended up with a bunch, that was binned for the labels having fallen off, thus not being properly able to be identified.
Cheers
Trev
<gratuitous thread derailment - feel free to skip>
So, quick non-typical use of lock wire story:
I was visiting the local aerodrome for a nibble at the cafe. I noticed they were super busy, and as I approached the counter, the staff gave me a frenzied look and told me their dishwasher had broken. They were out of clean dishes and hand washing like mad to try to keep up with the onslaught of hungry customers.
No problem, says I, and go to have a quick look at the machine and what the problem is. Turn out part of the latching system has given way. It would need to be replaced, but I figured if I could temporarily secure it, it would get them through the day anyway.
So I scamper off to the hangar and grab some .050 stainless lock wire and twisting pliers. The hardest part about wiring it up was just the knee-dance I had to do around the staff as I was blocking their path between the grill and the customers. But I got secured, and used the twisting pliers to tighten my Mcgyvering up. Maybe just one more twist... Maybe... just one more... SNAP!
The wire breaks, and somehow, the tail of it comes flying back at my left wrist like a scorpion's tail. It punched a perfect .050 little hole in not just my wrist, but in that big vein in there! Without a word of a lie, the blood came out of there and went staight to the ceiling! I'm trying to cover the wound up, but I keep letting go as I struggle to get to my feet and work my way around the screaming staff and now-screaming customers. Plates, dishes, cups, cutlery, FOOD now all have a razor thin line of my blood across them. I stumbled out the door and got myself bandaged up. (You wouldn't believe how painful that silly little hole was)
I came out of the mens room, and the place is EMPTY. I can hear a parade of cars leaving the parking lot, and see all the kitchen staff out on the deck having a smoke break. Food still sizzling and burning on the grill. A tap still running. The kitchen looked like a horror film, if the villain was armed with tooth picks. I found some bleach under the sink, quietly cleaned the kitchen, then timidly drove away with an empty belly, and the heat of the staff's stares on my neck.
Kodiak Jack's handyman service... Call now! Ugh.
Actually, the great snowshoe hare cycle that occurred at the time of the meat hunting days, prior to WW2, tasted OK, but almost no one ate them. It was a starvation case, where people couldn't get anything else in the meat line. It was considered there was very little food value in them, when only the cleaned out carcass was eaten. The native bush Indians ate considerable more of the rabbit and they got by OK on them, but only until they got a moose!
I snared through a few cycles. Seemed to last about 7 years or so, where numbers went from tripping over the phoqueurs to hardly getting any. I remember some years, we used to cut big piles of poplar branches, and go back at night. One guy would spot, one guy woud jump on the pile, and the other would take a shot or 2 at the scooting rabbits (yeah, I know, not the safest thing. But hey, as my wife says, I was young and stupid then. Not so young any more.) Wasn't unusual to have a dozen rabbits bolt from a brush pile. Low years, you could go to 10 piles before spooking 1 rabbit. Grouse would go through a similar cycle, where we would go from limits almost every day, until they got so numerous they would get worms in the wing butts, and then for 2 years, you'd hardly see any, and numbers would rise again. We seem to be at the bottom of the deer cycle around here this year.
Boy this thread brings back memories.
Snared a lot of rabbits for trap bait as a youngster. They were always dead when I got to them. Did see a freshly caught squirrel in a tree snare. I dispatched it quickly.
I'd do the same with a rabbit. I'd have no interest in watching one suffer needlessly.
Neither do I.
Long ago, I was about 11, friend and I walking down a trail frightened a rabbit that ran down the trail a bit and dodged left into a snare set by someone. We were kids, with no "weapons" and were shocked into inaction by the struggle and (surprisingly) crying of the rabbit. By the time we got over the shock and thought of finding a stick of some kind to finish it, we prevented almost none of the suffering. I never used a snare for anything after that.
Have shot and eaten lots of rabbits (some even before that event) but it turned me off of snaring as a source of "fun". Food or "survival" is another issue entirely, but just for the fun of doing it, not any more, and I'm 68 now and have never been in a true survival/starvation situation. Lost a couple of times, but never long enough to feel the need to snare any food.
We always felt the "jackrabbits" tended to be tough.
I have eaten a good many rabbits and hares, and as has been noted, cottontails are far superior to the snowshoe hares,
and jacks.
I have never snared them, since without having been bled, I would not eat them, but I shot a lot of them with the 22.
The snowshoes,, you learned to be watchful, since in their winter coat, often all you would see if they were sitting still
was their eye. I found that when bunnies were on the "up" section of their cycle, often, just finding a good location.
[read: plenty of runs and tracks] and sitting in one spot quietly, yielded results.....2 or 3 of them in a short time. I shot at
least a ½ dozen coyotes while sitting quietly at such locations. Bonus!! Dave.
and jacks.
I have never snared them, since without having been bled, I would not eat them, but I shot a lot of them with the 22.
The snowshoes,, you learned to be watchful, since in their winter coat, often all you would see if they were sitting still
was their eye. I found that when bunnies were on the "up" section of their cycle, often, just finding a good location.
[read: plenty of runs and tracks] and sitting in one spot quietly, yielded results.....2 or 3 of them in a short time. I shot at
least a ½ dozen coyotes while sitting quietly at such locations. Bonus!! Dave.
Londonshooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
I came out of the mens room, and the place is EMPTY. I can hear a parade of cars leaving the parking lot, and see all the kitchen staff out on the deck having a smoke break. Food still sizzling and burning on the grill. A tap still running. The kitchen looked like a horror film, if the villain was armed with tooth picks. I found some bleach under the sink, quietly cleaned the kitchen, then timidly drove away with an empty belly, and the heat of the staff's stares on my neck.
Kodiak Jack's handyman service... Call now! Ugh.[/QUOTE]
Kodiak jack, I feel like I was there. What a horror show. McGyver award not forthcoming.
When I was a kid we snared a lot of rabbits. Varying hares. Typically there was a big hole melted in the snow meaning that death was not quick and this for neck-caught, never did get one by the middle. Same as PapaClaude's observation. Maybe we weren't doing it right. Best set ever was on runway jumping off a rock or when we made a spring pole.
Kodiak Jack's handyman service... Call now! Ugh.
[/QUOTE]Kodiak jack, I feel like I was there. What a horror show. McGyver award not forthcoming.
When I was a kid we snared a lot of rabbits. Varying hares. Typically there was a big hole melted in the snow meaning that death was not quick and this for neck-caught, never did get one by the middle. Same as PapaClaude's observation. Maybe we weren't doing it right. Best set ever was on runway jumping off a rock or when we made a spring pole.
the spank
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
I never had the horror show so many of you make it sound like? I would invariably find a dead frozen hare in the snare. Thaw it, clean it and then Grandma would make a stew. Cottontails we never snared as it was first illegal to do so in the area I lived and secondly there wasn't enough snow for established runs to set on anyways. We hunted them by putting miles on the old boots, kicking brush piles, pushing edge cover and often running them with my buddies beagles. I don't think we ever put a cottontail in a stew. There was no need, they were tender and tasty. Oven baked in a nice sauce or fried, even done in shake & bake. They were great. BTW great pic of the young fellow OP. I am sure your snares will yield some success! Good luck and have fun guys!
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