Shooting at poor defenseless animals.

Well, we went on another rabbit hunt. I often go with my buddy Tony from work, and my little brother Jed has gone with me in the past. This was the first time that my cubicle neighbor (and push up buddy) Dirk has come along.

From the lousy cell phone pics, you can see that we had a pretty successful hunt in the desert to the west of the Oquirrh mountains.

My little brother Jed was the "dark horse" who scored the first rabbit of the day using his Ruger 10/22 with iron sights (his red dot ran out of batteries). The rabbit made a break for it when Jed was about five feet from his hiding place and didn't make it further than ten feet. Jed may be a cold hearted killer, but thanks to our mom, he dressed warm and had a thermos of hot chocolate.

The second bunny of the day. I was amazed at the difference my new optic (Eotech 512) made; I could adjust the brightness to make the reticle highly visible even with the reflection from the snow and I was able to acquire targets much more quickly than with irons or a standard red dot scope. I'm thinking of naming my rifle Anne, after a woman I've spoken to in the past. Anne is a lot like my rifle, you can try to have an intelligent conversation with both, but all you get in return are loud, annoying, unintelligible and unpleasant sounds. Maybe I'll just keep calling her (my rifle) Irene...

#3 - Tony dispatched this one to bunny heaven. Or bunny hell - we really couldn't tell by examining his corpse. I like to think that this bunny beat his wife, dealt crack to young bunnies in his neighborhood, and that our vigilante justice made the world a better place.

As Jed and I were walking over to inspect the dead bunny #3, we jumped this jack who was really good at playing hide and seek until we practically stepped on him. I got lucky enough to hit it before Jed (AKA Mr. One Shot One Kill) was able to plug him.

Dirk spotted lucky bunny #5 heading behind our line and was laying down a heavy volume of suppressive fire which allowed me to clock him (the bunny, not Dirk) as he ran across a flat.

Tony broke the legs of bunny #6 - and we all expended an embarrassing amount of ammunition trying to put an end to it's suffering. Somehow, we forgot to take a picture... just as well, we probably would have missed with that shot as well.

Bunny #7 would have lived to die another day, except he decided to pause and look back at us from a clump of sage brush. Jack Rabbits blend in with the sage brush amazingly well; I put two rounds where I thought I could see him. The first shot yielded a small burst of what appeared to be snow getting blasted off the brush. I thought I had missed, but as I walked away I remembered that snow doesn't drift on the wind like rabbit fur does - I went back to the clump of brush and found the dead bunny.

Dirk got the 8th/final kill of the day. As we were walking back towards the Pathfinder, yammering on about the price of pork bellies, Dirk still had his mind of getting the last jack of the day. He pegged this guy as he ran directly away from him. The crazy thing is that after getting knocked flat in the snow for 5 seconds, this "Bruce Willis" of bunnies stood back up. I yelled to Dirk to hurry and finish him off, when Tony decided to do it for him - you'll notice from the pic that the visible hole goes all the way through the rabbit.

I don't think Tony was very happy that someone shot more bunnies than him on this trip (hee hee); he usually gets more than anyone else.

Final Tally:

• Scar Belly - 4
• Tony - 2
• Dirk - 1
• Jed - 1
• Jack Rabbits - 0

AAR (After Action Review)

Sustains:

1. Eotech sights rock.
2. Snow on the ground makes for a good hunt.
3. It was a beautiful day and we got some good exercise while we pissed off PETA

Improves:

1. Don't listen to guys in Toyota Tundras who tell you that there's a great spot, teeming with bunnies, just 5 miles down the road.
2. Don't take your Nissan Pathfinder, which still can't drive in reverse, on a dirt road covered with heavy snow unless your passengers don't mind getting out and pushing your vehicle to turn you around, when you should have never listened to the guys in the Toyota Tundra in the first place.
3. Never assume that you friends wouldn't actually use their cell phone camera to take a picture of you from behind as you are relieving yourself in the snow.