The primitive yells of my hunting partners distracted me from the briar in my boot that was digging into my ankle for over an hour. I’m pretty sure my ear was bleeding, but I couldn’t tell if it was blood from my ear, my nose, or the game in my pouch. Of course, I chose to do this on purpose, this self-mutilation. Diving into an eight-foot tall briar patch with a loaded shotgun. All in the name of good taste or good times or good manners.
Some liken it to being Southern, I, on the other hand, enjoy the cold air, walking with friends, drinking gas station coffee in the car, and of course, the resulting sweet meat. I tolerate the brief discomfort and my weathered face and hands because I think that a meal is incomplete without a source of protein—preferably of the meaty persuasion. However, the cost of meat and its short shelf life at home can make it difficult to maintain a carnivorous diet. Fortunately, the opportunity to obtain your own organic, free range meat is easier than you think.
Hunting is a classic way to enjoy nature, promote sustainable eating, exercise in the outdoors and ensure that your food was never living in a cage. Most people assume they can’t get into hunting because of cost, accessibility, or knowledge, but with a little research and practice, you can become a conscientious provider for your family and friends.
The months of January and February bring one of my favorite hunting seasons and one of the most accessible for new hunters—rabbit season. Rabbit is a delicacy that is hard to find in restaurants, despite the fact that it was once a staple for Depression era families across America.
During the early and mid 20th century, much of the southern United States was heavily farmed and routinely clearcut. In the years of the Great Depression, when the financial security of the United States and funding for farmers was in jeopardy, there was an abundance of fallow farm fields and early regrowth forests. Fortunately for poor folks, rabbit, quail and other game birds prefer this type of habitat, making for an abundant source of cheaply obtained protein. Originally caught with thriftily assembled rabbit boxes and snares (unfortunately minimal information can be given on the rabbit box here as it is deserving of its own complete piece), rabbit hunting was also as simple as driving or walking down dirt roads with a .22 rifle and sharpshooting rabbits near the road. Eventually the most practiced and fruitful rabbit hunting was with the assistance of some briar resistant beagles or hounds. The dogs are trained to trail and essentially run the rabbits for optimal shot opportunities for hunters with shotguns, thus, lessening the necessity for people to jump into the thickest of brambles. However, if, like me, you don’t have time to train beagles, you must dive into the sea of briars yourself.
The first step of a successful rabbit hunt is to find a clearcut to hunt. The natural succession of regrowth from a bare clearcut forest shows grass and forbs sprout first, followed by small woody vegetation and early successional trees, and finishes out with pines dominating the former plants to forge the way for large hardwoods and pines—your apex forest. Rabbits happily live in these first few environments. Their preferred habitat is thick undergrowth that is composed of fennel, various blackberry varieties, ragweed, broomsedge, panicgrass, and a wide variety of other native plants.
Once you have found your habitat, gather a few friends (all of whom must be licensed to hunt), shotguns and thick clothes. The process of rabbit hunting is preferable for those who are turned off to the idea of sitting in a deer stand in 30 degree weather waiting for a deer to meander by at its own leisure. You and your group get in a line and walk in a line, wading through the thick undergrowth and brambles that hold our furry delicacies.
Rabbits are difficult to shoot. As you can probably imagine, they run fast. They are small. And they are very elusive. As you are walking, or more accurately pushing through, thicker growth and vegetation, the rabbits are disturbed and scatter. Once they run, the shot provides itself. If you have not been completely shredded by the brambles and your chilled fingers still operate, these opportunities can occur many times during a long morning of walking in the brisk winter air. Be alert though! Rabbits can appear simply as a flash of brown and it can take a few sightings to adjust your focus.
A successful rabbit hunt can provide anywhere from one to twenty rabbits depending on your goal at the onset and the hunting restrictions in your state. In Georgia, hunters are limited to 12 rabbits per hunter per day. As rabbits are known to reproduce quite efficiently, the opportunity to reach that limit lies explicitly with the group of people most willing to dive into that human shredder and sacrifice their comfortable Saturday morning.
Enjoying eating rabbit is quite rewarding after you have learned to hunt, clean, butcher and cook them. One rabbit provides 5 primary cuts of meat, and a successful hunt can provide an enjoyable solution to feeding a lot of people. Depending on what you prefer, you can fry, roast, slow cook, or grill these tasty morsels. If your palate is more refined, you can try your hand at sausage, terrine, rillettes, or pâté.
If by some chance your hunt has no kills, you had the opportunity to exercise as the Neanderthals of old and to spend a crisp winter day with some friends. And that is what is most important—but the true “other white meat” sure is good eatin’.
Story by Gresham Cash
Photos by Paige French