Howdy, a couple of days ago a post about eating rabbit showed up on Food & Spirts. This post did not get much play, but it did make me recall a true tail about Jack Rabbit hunting from my now seemingly distant past.
A bit of background is required. I spent 40 years in Midland, TX in Oil and Gas. Y'all also know that the area around Midland has many dry land cotton fields. What you may not know is that most of those cotton fields are surrounded by what we called Mesquite Pastures. These Mesquite Pastures were once cleared and clean cattle pastures. When oil was discovered on much of this land, the owners quickly decided that mailbox money was much easier than ranching and just moved off and left these pastures go fallow. These once grassy pastures became choked with Mesquite, totally covered. This cover became an intense breeding ground for both Cotton Tails and Jack Rabbits, thousands of rabbits.
Well, had several Aggie Cotton Farmer friends, mostly around Midkiff, TX. One day one asks if I would like to come down and shot Jack Rabbits in his cotton field. Seems that at night the Jacks would leave the mesquite pasture and come into the cotton. When the cotton plants were emergent, the Jacks would eat the tender shoots and the plants would die. Many of his fields were surrounded on 3 or 4 sides with mesquite pasture. You could see wide swaths where there were no plants due to the Jacks. No plants mean no money, he wanted them dead.
On our first foray we went with flashlights and 22's. We were amazed and astounded by the numbers. Jack Rabbit Friday Nights quickly became an obsession.
Wound up being about 6 of us. For about 15 years from late 90's into the 2000's every Friday night in the Spring and Summer was Jack Rabbit night. Weapon lethality quickly escalated, mostly AR type 223's, some 220 Swifts (220 Swift will VAPORIZE a Jack) and AK's. Any caliber we could get copious amounts of cheap ammo. I also purchased a Super Spotlight from an outfit in Australia that they used to hunt kangaroos with. You could cook a rabbit in its skin with this light, awesome reach out power beam.
At dusk until about 1 or 2 in the morning we hunted Jacks. The number of them was staggering, they would come out of those Mesquite Pastures by the hundreds in waves. We literally shot until we just got too tired to shoot anymore. We would kill hundreds every night, truly hundreds. I was on some Varmint site at the time reporting this. It got to be such a big deal that people from all over wanted to come to West Texas to shoot rabbits. The farmer said Hell Yes they can come, just don't drive on the crops. For a couple of years we scheduled folks from all over to come shoot Jacks.
Well as you might guess on a site that had people from all over looking at it, we always got the reprimand of 'Why are you not eating what you kill?'. The old, 'Coyotes gotta eat too' was not good enough. Of course, what these Yankee types did not know were a couple of things. A Jack Rabbit is NOT a rabbit; it is a Hare. Like a duck, it is all dark meat, and the meat is covered in a silver skin like pork ribs. NO sane person, especially a Texan would ever eat a Jack rabbit.
So now, having made a short story long, is the part that tickled me about the Food & Spirts rabbit post. What we always told the stinkin' Yankee's was the famous Texas Jack Rabbit Receipe. That recipe is to take your Jack and skin it and nail it to a board. Then did a 3' X 3' hole and put about 1' of cow or buffalo chips in the bottom, light them and let them go to coals, cover with 6" dirt. Put the board with the rabbit in the hole over the coals and cover with sheet of tin. Let cook for 1 to 2 hours. Remove the board with the rabbit, pull the rabbit off and throw it away and eat the board. This generally stopped all calls for eating Jack Rabbits.
An aside, man do I miss those days, really, really miss them. Most of those years were with one or two of my Grandsons and that was so wonderful. Times change, Granddads get old, boys grow up and find girls. Also, something changed in West Texas. In the late 2000's the number of Jacks began to drop, then plummeted, dunno? I just know that prior to that you could drive down 349 or 158 and see Jacks sitting by the roadside ALL the time. Not so anymore. Glad for the cotton farmers, but sad for those like us that love to stay out most of the night shooting Jacks be the hundreds!
A bit of background is required. I spent 40 years in Midland, TX in Oil and Gas. Y'all also know that the area around Midland has many dry land cotton fields. What you may not know is that most of those cotton fields are surrounded by what we called Mesquite Pastures. These Mesquite Pastures were once cleared and clean cattle pastures. When oil was discovered on much of this land, the owners quickly decided that mailbox money was much easier than ranching and just moved off and left these pastures go fallow. These once grassy pastures became choked with Mesquite, totally covered. This cover became an intense breeding ground for both Cotton Tails and Jack Rabbits, thousands of rabbits.
Well, had several Aggie Cotton Farmer friends, mostly around Midkiff, TX. One day one asks if I would like to come down and shot Jack Rabbits in his cotton field. Seems that at night the Jacks would leave the mesquite pasture and come into the cotton. When the cotton plants were emergent, the Jacks would eat the tender shoots and the plants would die. Many of his fields were surrounded on 3 or 4 sides with mesquite pasture. You could see wide swaths where there were no plants due to the Jacks. No plants mean no money, he wanted them dead.
On our first foray we went with flashlights and 22's. We were amazed and astounded by the numbers. Jack Rabbit Friday Nights quickly became an obsession.
Wound up being about 6 of us. For about 15 years from late 90's into the 2000's every Friday night in the Spring and Summer was Jack Rabbit night. Weapon lethality quickly escalated, mostly AR type 223's, some 220 Swifts (220 Swift will VAPORIZE a Jack) and AK's. Any caliber we could get copious amounts of cheap ammo. I also purchased a Super Spotlight from an outfit in Australia that they used to hunt kangaroos with. You could cook a rabbit in its skin with this light, awesome reach out power beam.
At dusk until about 1 or 2 in the morning we hunted Jacks. The number of them was staggering, they would come out of those Mesquite Pastures by the hundreds in waves. We literally shot until we just got too tired to shoot anymore. We would kill hundreds every night, truly hundreds. I was on some Varmint site at the time reporting this. It got to be such a big deal that people from all over wanted to come to West Texas to shoot rabbits. The farmer said Hell Yes they can come, just don't drive on the crops. For a couple of years we scheduled folks from all over to come shoot Jacks.
Well as you might guess on a site that had people from all over looking at it, we always got the reprimand of 'Why are you not eating what you kill?'. The old, 'Coyotes gotta eat too' was not good enough. Of course, what these Yankee types did not know were a couple of things. A Jack Rabbit is NOT a rabbit; it is a Hare. Like a duck, it is all dark meat, and the meat is covered in a silver skin like pork ribs. NO sane person, especially a Texan would ever eat a Jack rabbit.
So now, having made a short story long, is the part that tickled me about the Food & Spirts rabbit post. What we always told the stinkin' Yankee's was the famous Texas Jack Rabbit Receipe. That recipe is to take your Jack and skin it and nail it to a board. Then did a 3' X 3' hole and put about 1' of cow or buffalo chips in the bottom, light them and let them go to coals, cover with 6" dirt. Put the board with the rabbit in the hole over the coals and cover with sheet of tin. Let cook for 1 to 2 hours. Remove the board with the rabbit, pull the rabbit off and throw it away and eat the board. This generally stopped all calls for eating Jack Rabbits.
An aside, man do I miss those days, really, really miss them. Most of those years were with one or two of my Grandsons and that was so wonderful. Times change, Granddads get old, boys grow up and find girls. Also, something changed in West Texas. In the late 2000's the number of Jacks began to drop, then plummeted, dunno? I just know that prior to that you could drive down 349 or 158 and see Jacks sitting by the roadside ALL the time. Not so anymore. Glad for the cotton farmers, but sad for those like us that love to stay out most of the night shooting Jacks be the hundreds!
Gig'em, Ole Army Class of '70
