You guessed it! Another rabbit hunt.... Enjoy

B

butta9999

New member
G Day all, how are we.... I went for an afternoon shoot at my dad's work again yesterday for rabbits. I shot 43 rabbits in 2 and a half hours with my .22 Brno. I brought 35 head shots home and left 8 in the field. They had first signs of Myxo virus.

I was using winchester subsonics for ammo. The rabbits their are in a plague at the moment. Nearly every square metre on the 500 acre property has multiple rabbits on it. Its actually hard to imagine or explain in words but in reality its actually a surreal site.

And i only walked less than half of the property and shot no rabbits on other sides of fences..

Enjoy the photos.. Any questions im happy to answer..

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Good shooting ! I dont envy you having to clean all them though. I usually stop at about a dozen at a time, thats enough cleaning for one day. We have snow shoe hares here, and close to town they are heavily populated. I hunt rabbits with an old Remington 121 with iron sights, and take head shots only.
 
Im the same mate, i only shoot when i can see the eye no good wasting meat. I gut on site and it took me an hour to skin them when i was home not too bad.
 
G'day. Don't you wish you could have a semi auto? I might have to come down there and have a closer look at how bad those Rabbits are. How close were you able to get for the shots?
 
Yes Skulls i miss my dad's 10/22 ruger semi auto. The range was from 10 yards to about 65 yards was the longest shot. I cant express to you mate how many rabbits are on this property.

Im not joking in one spot where i had spooked them they were lining up about 20 rabbits back waiting to go through theie escape holw through the fence.
It was quite funny.

When i had taken a shot and was gutting the rabbit in the 2 minutes rabbits would start to appear as if nothing had happened.
 
There seems to be pockets of rabbits around Australia. No where near the amount before the Calicivirus was introduced.

Had fun though, and yes plenty of bunnies where i was hunting...
 
JohnKSa-

Mate the CZ is a fine rifle. It is almost too easy when using the Subsonics.

As for the Myxo virus it was introduced into Australia in 1950 to bring the rabbit numbers down. It killed off about 95% of them. As the years went on rabbits became immune to it.

Any rabbit which catches Myxo will die. The usual signs are swelling around the eyes. Sometimes the eyes are completly shut. In this case the rabbit has not much to go. I usually knock them over the head as you can just pick them up.

There is no danger of the virus infecting humans or other animals. But you would not eat a rabbit which has myxo.

Myxo will generally only be present when rabbit numbers are high in concentrated areas and is passed on by mosquito bites. Usually in the spring when moisture is around and mosquito's breed.

I have hunted rabbits for years and seeing these sick rabbits is pretty cruel. Its like the Ebloavirus for bunnies. Not a nice way to go..

I hope that answers the question for you John. :)
 
Good shooting!

How bad is the environmental damage from all the rabbits? They must be having quite an impact.
 
Did I hear that right? That it only took you an hour to skin all those?

Nice shooting by the way. What are you going to do with all the meat? Freeze most for yourself and give some away to your buddies also?
 
wow that is a lot of rabbits! :eek:

i remember seeing videos of folks putting up net type fences to catch all the rabbits (like a gill net) and the bunnies would fill the thing up and tip it over and the others would get away. that was back in the 80's if I remember correctly.

man looks like you still have a rabbit problem over there.

over here, (i am originally from South Dakota) we have similiar problems at times with prairie dogs. They can ruin a good pasture real fast and if a horse steps in a p-dog hole they will break their leg and you have to put down the horse (not a pretty sight and I have had to put down one of our best horses because his leg was beyond saving). :mad:

either way the p-dogs here or the rabbits there make for a lot of shooting and looks like you might need to get a spare gun so you can rotate between the two otherwise you will shoot out the barrel real quick from all the rabbit shooting if the numbers are that high for shooting on just half the property
 
G'day.
You must have some good rabbit recipes to share. I'd get awfully sick of rabbit stew.
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I remember as a teenager, shooting and eating lots of rabbit. It was a treat to get sausages.:eek: My brother and I got so sick of eating Rabbit that we would only bring home a few to feed the dog.

We would often shoot out to 120m and occasionally a bit further. High Velocity ammo was the only type to choose.
 
I hope that answers the question for you John.
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Thanks much for taking the time!

Looks like fun. Wish I could drop by and shoot a few--might even be willing to help you clean & skin some. :D
 
JeseryDrez- Yeah mate only an hour i have skun thousands of them. A lot of them were 3/4 grown which helps a lot. It is the big old bucks which can be a bugger to skin on your own.

Yep i freeze all of them and then share with family and friends. I only keep 4 or 5 for myself.

MTT TL- In this case the enviromental damage is quite bad. Like i said in previous the population of rabbits on this 500 acre are in the thousands. They do poison on occasion but like always they return.

For example 8 rabbits i shot were milky does and were full of kittens. Anywhere from 6 to 10 each. So thats minimum 48 other rabbits would of been born. If half were females thats 24 minimum and they had 6 kittens in 6 months time. Thats 144 rabbits now. So from 8 does you could end up with 150 rabbits in 6 months. thats born. Not counting the parents and brothers.........
 
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