Rabbit Massacre
Posted 07/13/2025
After eating my way through the holidays last year, I desperately needed some exercise, so when a couple of my buddies said they wanted to go pheasant hunting, I called my friend, Casey, who’s got access to thousands of acres of prime habitat in Oklahoma’s panhandle and booked a trip. Considering the limited success I have, it’s a miracle that I still go, but such is my relationship with pheasant hunting. If I happen to bag a bird, great, but if not, it’s not the end of the world, as there are peripheral benefits to be found on every pheasant hunt. I get to stretch my legs. I get to watch the dogs work. And whether I bring a bird home or not, I get to make another memory.
The four of us had managed a handful of birds, but because of a decades’ long drought, population numbers were down, and our rooster-per-mile ratio left a lot to be desired. I was sick of walking. Mercifully, the guy who owned the place we were on pulled up about the time I was ready to drop. We walked over to thank him for letting us hunt, and I noticed a classic over/under on the seat beside him. I gave a long, low whistle, and he handed it right over. It was a was a thing of beauty. I had heard my whole life that this particular brand of shotgun had a fit that didn’t always match its finish, but this one was flush. The landowner passed me a couple of shells, but as we’d already walked up the one rooster that called that mile section home, I didn’t have anything to shoot at. He pointed to a stack of irrigation pipe on the other side of the road and commented that there was usually a rabbit or two in there. I crossed the road and sent a dozen of them scattering to the four winds. Every pipe in the pile was choked with cottontails. The two shells I’d been handed were still smoking and one of the rabbits I’d shot was still twitching when the rest of my hunting party stepped around the side of the truck to see what all the fuss was about.
What happened next could only be described as a massacre. At the landowner’s urging, we shot every remaining shotgun shell in our vests, limiting out in a matter of minutes. Turns out, the guy had recently had to put a calf down after it stepped in a hole and broke its leg. Rabbits had been blamed, and war had been declared. The landowner told us to leave the rabbits for the coyotes, but none of us felt good about that, so the decision was made to clean them, instead.
We were staring at a mountain of cottontails and dreading the chore ahead of us when my friend Casey casually mentioned that he could save us a lot of time and trouble by showing us how to clean a rabbit without a knife. He told us he had recently watched a YouTube video where a guy was field dressing cottontails by literally squeezing out their insides with nothing but his hands and that it actually worked. To demonstrate, Casey picked up a rabbit, took a vise grip at its neck and started squeezing south. The bunny’s abdomen immediately swelled. Every time he took another grip, the rest of us took another step back. When it was clear that something was about to pop, Casey spread his legs, raised the rabbit above his head and then flung it at the ground like he was driving home a railroad spike. I instinctively closed my eyes, but it didn’t matter. The noise that followed left little doubt as to what happened. It sounded like a dead cow’s bloated carcass had been dropped off the roof of a two-story building to splatter on the sidewalk. I opened my eyes to see the two guys I’d brought along on the hunt doubled over and laughing hysterically.
Casey immediately grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.
“Man, are your friends okay? What are they laughing at, anyway?”
“Beats me, buddy,” I answered, “but if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with the rabbit guts hanging off your ear.”
The four of us had managed a handful of birds, but because of a decades’ long drought, population numbers were down, and our rooster-per-mile ratio left a lot to be desired. I was sick of walking. Mercifully, the guy who owned the place we were on pulled up about the time I was ready to drop. We walked over to thank him for letting us hunt, and I noticed a classic over/under on the seat beside him. I gave a long, low whistle, and he handed it right over. It was a was a thing of beauty. I had heard my whole life that this particular brand of shotgun had a fit that didn’t always match its finish, but this one was flush. The landowner passed me a couple of shells, but as we’d already walked up the one rooster that called that mile section home, I didn’t have anything to shoot at. He pointed to a stack of irrigation pipe on the other side of the road and commented that there was usually a rabbit or two in there. I crossed the road and sent a dozen of them scattering to the four winds. Every pipe in the pile was choked with cottontails. The two shells I’d been handed were still smoking and one of the rabbits I’d shot was still twitching when the rest of my hunting party stepped around the side of the truck to see what all the fuss was about.
What happened next could only be described as a massacre. At the landowner’s urging, we shot every remaining shotgun shell in our vests, limiting out in a matter of minutes. Turns out, the guy had recently had to put a calf down after it stepped in a hole and broke its leg. Rabbits had been blamed, and war had been declared. The landowner told us to leave the rabbits for the coyotes, but none of us felt good about that, so the decision was made to clean them, instead.
We were staring at a mountain of cottontails and dreading the chore ahead of us when my friend Casey casually mentioned that he could save us a lot of time and trouble by showing us how to clean a rabbit without a knife. He told us he had recently watched a YouTube video where a guy was field dressing cottontails by literally squeezing out their insides with nothing but his hands and that it actually worked. To demonstrate, Casey picked up a rabbit, took a vise grip at its neck and started squeezing south. The bunny’s abdomen immediately swelled. Every time he took another grip, the rest of us took another step back. When it was clear that something was about to pop, Casey spread his legs, raised the rabbit above his head and then flung it at the ground like he was driving home a railroad spike. I instinctively closed my eyes, but it didn’t matter. The noise that followed left little doubt as to what happened. It sounded like a dead cow’s bloated carcass had been dropped off the roof of a two-story building to splatter on the sidewalk. I opened my eyes to see the two guys I’d brought along on the hunt doubled over and laughing hysterically.
Casey immediately grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.
“Man, are your friends okay? What are they laughing at, anyway?”
“Beats me, buddy,” I answered, “but if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with the rabbit guts hanging off your ear.”
About the Author : Kyle Wright
Visit authors website | View more articlesKyle Wright pastors a church and counsels addicts and alcoholics at an inpatient rehabilitation treatment center. It’s heavy work. The time he spends in the woods and on the water lightens his load. Writing about it does too.
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