Jackrabbit hunt

Does anyone know of a good outfitter that does a guided Jackrabbit hunt in TX ?

No disrespect Sir but this is a first for me, I've never heard anybody ask for a guided Jackrabbit hunt before. Were I you I would probably check around the Odessa, Pecos and Monahan's area's. We've got a ton of Jackrabbits this year but all the rain has the grass so high you can't see them until you bust one out. Those area's usually have a pretty good population of Jack's and it's more open and flat. Good Luck!

I trie eating one …once

HWY_MAN, the problem is we're from Red River county in the far NE and don't know anyone or have any contacts in western TX. I did find one outfitter that does combo hog/predator/small game hunts out of Stanton, but they are pretty pricey at $550./day per person with no food/lodging.

Any potential contact you can provide would be appreciated???

Right now everything is so wet, that off road travel is going to be awful. Farmers and ranchers won't want their roads trashed.

Try contacting the goose and duck guides, they might be able to set you up. This guy works out of Miles, Texas, Ike Eisenbach at Cut Em’ Outfitters ikee7033@gmail.com It might be the oddest thing he has done, but he might jump on board.

Check with the Javelina hunting outfits. Jackrabbits are normally present in same areas. One of my most fun hunting trips was a guided Javelina hunt in the Fort Stockton area with a day of Jackrabbit shooting added on. "Crazyhorse", the forum member who took me on that one is no longer with us unfortunately so I can't help you there. You might check with forum member Muley Mike. I know he has offered some self guided blue quail hunts on ranches he has access to. Maybe he can set y'all up on one that has a good jackrabbit population.

BTW, Jackrabbit backstrap cross cut into medallions then fried in bacon grease goes great with breakfast. Another idea if you ever get a bunch of them. I was dropping off some game meat at Kubys a few years ago when a guy had just dropped off a bunch of jackrabbit meat to be made into Jalapeno cheese sausage. Having given me the idea I have since added some to the small game and waterfowl sausage I have made at Kubys some years and it has tasted just as great as usual.

I remember y'all going on that hunt. Randall and 7-Mag's buddy are the only ones I know or knew in that area. Yep Jackrabbit is edible, some parts better than others. Backstraps are great and I've eaten every other part. Jackrabbit was a staple around native American camps in West Texas probably eaten more than any other meat source. In the 20's Pop and his buddies would grab their rifles after school and hit the area's around Hobbs NM hunting rabbits. They sold the Jackrabbits for 15 cents cleaned and cotton tails for 10 cents. Meat was meat and some a little chewier than others. Grand Ma loved rabbit and could make a jackrabbit as tender as a cottontail. Later on they started raising rabbits. First year I had the 17 HMR I shot 183 Jacks off the big ranch and only thinned them down slightly. With all the rain we've had this year I'll probably have to go after them again next year.

That sounds fun , I love seeing them l I remember when I was in basic at Lackland that base was covered up with them

I used to hunt rabbits in central Tx,,, shine them at night --out of the back of a truck---------- we got lots,,

Use to hunt them at night with a spotlight in southern NM back in the 50s and 60s. Somewhere in my stuff I have a newspaper article about having a jack rabbit drive because of them destroying crops in the 30s and 40s in NM.

Rabbit drives were pretty much a regular thing where cattle were being raised, 18-20 jackrabbits will consume as much grass as a cow in a day. As arid as this country is every blade of grass counted.

^^^^

This is how we always hunted them as well. Jacks in the daytime...once 'jumped' would run into the next county. But at night would freeze in the light of spotlight.

We had 800 acres up in Goldthwaite at the time, chock full of Jack Rabbits.

I can set you up,45 miles SE of Fort Stockton, if you are really interested PM me. Large ranch and tons of rabbits.

Y'all were the only ones I could think of that could offer what they wanted. They'll love that country!

PM sent, tks

1/2 grown jack rabbit is good, pan fry and make gravy, tasty

You won't regret this, I've been there a couple of times and it has the atmosphere of a true Trans Pecos ranch. What kind of shooting irons y'all plan on using?

The jack rabbit population varies by areas out west. As far as eating them...hard pass! Just like javalina...ain't happening. Rodents and hares folks, you want to eat either be my guest but not me. Been raised in west Texas my entire life and just because it could be eaten doesn't mean it should be eaten! Have ate cotton tails, tried javalina, and have ate rattle snake, Not going to fight to head of buffet for two of the three.

Did you know they yard up in winter. Had some friends come up years back for an antelope hunt, we saw hundreds if not thousands of jackrabbits on the property in one big herd.
One of the guys was my wildlife professor at SFA, he had never seen so many jacks at one time.
It looked kind of like a horror movie.

We have jacks on the family place along the Red in Cooke Co but not any big numbers.

Most ranchers will be happy to have someone shoot them. I don’t remember the exact number but something like fifty rabbits will eat as much as one cow. Out in arid west texas you might need hundreds of acres per cow. How many rabbits are likely on hundreds of acres? They can be a real problem.

I used to get the job of stacking them on the back of grandpa's pickup when they had drive in our part of Runnels county.

I said 18-20 and I was way off, after a little research it seems like 40 rabbit's is the agreed upon number. What I didn't figure in was the range of a Jackrabbit and that seems to be around 10 to 15 acres with them having anywhere from 2-6 litters a year. Since they mature at 10 months they're breeding the same year they were born. Kind of explains why we have jackrabbit explosions in some years. They're born fully haired with eyes open and ready to eat. Mom comes by and nurses from time to time but they're pretty well on their own within 4 weeks. With everything so green and wet this year I suspect we'll have one of those explosions going into next year. We're so wet the mesquites are sagging and the grass is lush and green standing about 2-3 ft tall. With 2-6 litters a year and 2-4 per litter it don't take long to have an out of control population. It's pretty easy to understand why jackrabbits can be the number one competitor when it comes to cows and vegetation.

All kinds of studies have shown that jackrabbit populations from low to high are on a 7 to to 10 year cycles. Learned that from a falconer about 10 years ago.

I should open this up down in my uncle's ranch. He is inundated with those guys. Fall jacks are tough too. #1 birdshot seems perfect for them and a .17 hmr work.well

A friend told me a 5.56 with a suppressor seems to work well

I’ve heard that 20 gauge #7.5 works just fine on them.

If you really want to test your skills hunt them with an open sight pistol, I'm not talking about shooting out of a truck, I'm talking flushing them while walking. If you can throw dirt on a running Jack Rabbit with an open sight pistol you're shooting well, hit one and you're just damn lucky. My old S&W K-22 has lucked out many times.

I will tell this as a true story , I don't care if anyone believes me or not. circa 1972 , I was in college at WTSU in Canyon. ( part of the A&M system now)
I had access to hunt a small pasture that had dozens of Jackrabbits, One afternoon, I spied one at about 150 yards looking right at me, I fired, thought I missed , I put another round in the chamber, and watched thru the scope as the animal wobbled , then fell over. I walked to the spot , rabbit was dead but intact.
I found where the round cut thru hair high on the shoulder, but did not break the skin, Maybe scared him to death , maybe just his time to die, or can a
sonic boom be fatal to a hare at that distance ?

I don't know the situation now , but when I was living in the Borger area , there was a ton of land in the Canadian river bottom that was open to public
hunting. Depending on the year , jackrabbits were scarce or everywhere. good luck

MO

When my aunt moved out to west Texas, me and my cousin got in good with most of the local ranchers, and they'd let us shoot rabbits to our heart's content. They were a major pest to them, and a good days worth of fun to us kids.

17 hmr works very well

The best 12ga load I have come up with is #1 birdshot or Lead BB and #2 duplex. If you reload, try it

I won't use a 22 LR on jacks again. They are just too tough. 22mag is a minimum imo

For long range shooting, which is very challenging, 223 sounds perfect

fun

You guys are lucky. Here in SW, OK there hasn't been any jackrabbit in years. We used ride in the back of a pickup at night and shoot them on country roads and wheat fields.

Approximately twenty years ago the rains came at the right time to the Trans-Pecos and all the wildlife populations exploded.

We were shooting at huge coveys of Blues and when we would shoot Jacks and rabbits exploded in all directions. I have a picture of a friend of mine bending over and picking one up out from under a bush. At the end of our hunt he wanted to take some rabbits home to his wife and walked a circle about 70-80 yards yards wide around camp and shot 7. There were lots of jacks that he passed up.