Rabbit stick success!...kinda

You are inspiring. Now if someone can just find me some time I would love to make and use one. :-)

I have such a hard time seeing the shape in some branches.

Questions - did you use dead wood or green?

Are you throwing sidearm? I would assume so.

Thanks for sharing.

Charlie
 
Nice work!:thumbup:

Throwing sticks are some of the most underrated tools! I say 'throwing stick' because, as you've shown, they're not just for rabbits! Many of the native California tribes were so proficient, they would regularly hunt coyote, deer, and other larger size game as well as small, from yards off. It is a wonderful art to practice!

I've got a few, and I agree a curved stick has its benefits, although a straight stick is great for overhand, higher throws too!

Here's two of my favorite users:

My old faithful. Has a weighted head for shorter distances and blunt force, but long and slender enough to fly well. I've sunk the head into plywood from about 20'. The head is conical and makes a great whomper, nut masher, etc. The tapered end is a great digging end. Made from Madrone.

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This is a even balanced flyer, also Madrone. This one was fire hardened and shaped. Has definitely seen a few!

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I love my clubs, throwing sticks, and give them all kinds of ab-use!:thumbup:
 
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Those look great. Its good to see others that actually use their sticks.
 
CShepherd said:
You are inspiring. Now if someone can just find me some time I would love to make and use one. :-)

I have such a hard time seeing the shape in some branches.

Questions - did you use dead wood or green?

Are you throwing sidearm? I would assume so.

Thanks for sharing.

Charlie
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They can be made with green wood, that is fire-hardened and shaped. These will be dense (esp. if using high altitude Scrub Oak!) and shaped to your desire, but take more time.

They can be made with dry wood that is not rotten, termite inhabited, or cracked. The use of hard, knotty burls can add to its use as a club...

They can be fire-hardened or not. It all depends on how long you want it to last and how dense you want to go with the effort. A fresh cut throwing stick from Scrub Oak on a full moon (hydraulics which yields a denser wood when fire-hardening), fire-hardened and bent, then shaped, was the skilled California Native method, this yielded a long, slender throwing stick that would be passed down as an heirloom. On the other end, it can be a dry stick found and roughly shaped, and will last as long as your skill will allow (missing!) but not be expected to last more than a couple seasons or a few years.

They can be thrown sidearm or overhand. Sidearm will naturally be optimum for ground based objects. I find throwing a straight stick has a more comfortable overhand. For longer distances your posture will be higher . I throw a kinda combo, angled sidearm, but sidearm is natural for me, I'm a lefty.

Hope this helps!
 
dogbane said:
I went to a rabbitstick workshop at the Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia, North Carolina today, made a few, brought a couple, and tried them out.

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The two that look like billets are Catawba (a South Carolin tribe) style rabbitsticks, carved out of green hickory. The weight of the heavy end gives it a good spin and a hard whallop on the strike. The same goes for the one that looks like a shillelagh. It's a Rappahannock (a Virginia tribe) style rabbitstick, this one made of water oak sapling. The knob end is the root bulb. The long bladed one is an older, generic one I made from a piece of lighting-killed white oak. The little crooked one is a bit of deadfall oak that I carved out for a child some time back.

After we made our sticks, we went to try them out on stationary (a five-gallon bucket) and moving (a soccer ball) targets.

We were pathetic.

Before most of us got to the field, a guy who had gone on ahead of us flushed a rabbit crom a copse. It ran by more than a dozen guys, each carrying multiple rabbitsticks. That was the safest rabbit in the world. Not one person tried a throw (my excuse is that the group was between me and the rabbit).

We started the ball rolling and it got whacked once or twice, but most people were missing it, including me. One guy who was consistently pretty good was a NCDOA entomologist who is registered at ZS as Joezilla.

My blade rabbitstick was a piece of crap. because I haven't shaved it down thin enough to be aerodynamic, it flutters to the target ineffectually. The child's stick isn't worth more than giving a kid some throwing practice. The two Catawba ones really sailed, and the bee guy had pretty good luck with his, but I had trouble controlling mine.

I did have sucess hitting the stationary target with my Rappahannock stick. Using a straight-elbowed sidearm throw, and aiming about two yards to the right of what I really wanted to hit, I whacked the bucket a couple of times. And while it looks like a flimsy stick, from the impact on the bucket, I have no doubt it could kill small game, assuming I could control my aim.

I plan to get out and practice more. The best advice we got from the instructor (and reinforced by a recent episode of Survivorman) is to always have your stick in your hand when you're in the bush. Because, other than a good arm, opportunity is a big factor for success. And if stealth is an issue (avoiding zombies or baddies), or if firearms aren't allowed, a rabbitstick might be your best opportunity to feed yourself.

But today, if we had had to feed ourselves with our skill, it would have been an epic fail.

Well, maybe not, if the entomologist was willing to share his rabbit with a dozen other guys.
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This is a write up a very nice buddy of mine did for zombiesquad. It has some glorious pics of the choctaw stick.
 
And not to get too post crazy, but rather late anyway, NICE SHOT MD! Those sticks look fantastic and fancy!

I didn't even eat that bunny. It was so full of ticks that I froze it, thawed it, and fed it to my friends python. It is quite amazing what little pressure it takes to kill a small animal with a stick. I killed a squirrel with a hard piece of fungus in front of awe struck other college students one time. I couldn't believe that it had enough force to maim, let alone kill the bushy tail.
 
Thanks Joe!!! Please get as "post crazy" as you want. I love seeing all the different ways to make something. Kinda gives me inspiration to try more styles out. I think I'll make one or two more tomorrow that are the Catawba style that you posted. They look like a great "multitool" style, throwing stick/club/batton/etc...
 
Joe you must have great aim to hit such a small target. :D

Congrats on the rabbit, I am going to have to give this a try.
 
You're an entomologist Joe? Not a machetologist?:D

Rabbits, like gophers, have weak little hearts, and die often from the shock alone. I've picked up a rabbit on several occasions that I barely struck, was still in mid-shock and not fully dead...

BTW, I do love the arthropods! Got one of the same cicada sheddings (in Belize) you had in your mouth in a photo!
 
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The simple act of throwing something is one of those tell tale leaps that humans made migrating from simian to sapien. Not many animals (with exceptions, in nature, OF COURSE!) can throw stuff, and apes like chimpanzees throw stuff when they are angry (ask me to do an impression some time, I'm good at it). However, to be able to throw a missle with accuracy greatly improved our chances of catching game.

Rocks, sticks, arrows, bullets, ballistics = accuracy! The rabbit stick is a neat little gem, because the waited one side of the stick makes it rotate faster. (hey does that mean an axe would work well as a rabbit stick?) You want to throw it side arm, due to the fact that it increases your kill zone by..oh..3 feet! Think about it if was thrown at said critter horizontally or vertically. Even tripping them up will get you meat on the rock later. Thats how that little lepus became python food, tripping and breaking its leg and then I went in for the neck break. Yoy!
 
lungcutter said:
Joe you must have great aim to hit such a small target. :D

Congrats on the rabbit, I am going to have to give this a try.
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Incredibly lucky. You only see the post of the one that I killed, not of the 20 other times I missed the other hoppers, wingers, and climbers in the front yard :foot:



There was once a criminal in australia that robbed a bank with a rabbit stick. He came out in the street and saw three guys right in front of him.
He asked the first one : "Did you see me rob that bank?"
"Yep!" said man number 1. The criminal hit the man in the head with the large rabbit stick and killed him.

The Criminal growled "Did you see me rob that bank?" to the second man. The second man said "I sure did!". That reply was met by a crack on the head, killing the second man.

So the third guy is sitting there, watching all this. The criminal looked over to him and asked him: "Did you see me rob that bank?"
The third guy replied "No, I sure didn't, but my wife did, let me go get her!"
 
Choctaw rabbit stick hunt tidbit:

"There the youth employed clubs for procuring squirrel, rabbits, and wild turkey. In hunting turkeys, forty or fifty boys each armed with three to six clubs, would for a long thin line around some two to four square miles, in which were numerous blackberry thickets. At a signal relayed along the line from the leader, the young hunters gradually converged on the largest thicket. After much turning back and dodging here and there, the turkeys would attempt to break through the circle. Turkeys flying low were said to be easy victims, and on one occasion the boys returned with a deer. " Excerpt published by Frank Bryan.
 
Congrats! I have tried and tried but I have never gotten those to work for me, not even on stationary targets. I think I just need some more practice.
 
Very impressive folks.... Lately I have been on a sling kick. Trying to work on my accuracy and enjoying the simple fun of it. This is a great thread.

Oh, and squirrel is delicious!
 
mastering the throwing stick is one of my 2010 goals.. bu My form is not right, I can;t seem to hit the broad side of a barn....
 
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