Anyone here ever eat jackrabbit?
Yes, though I prefer cottontail. Young jackrabbit is OK; older ones are inedibly tough and generally taste very gamy as well. A (literal) rule of thumb is to try to tear the skin where the hind leg meets the belly. If you can’t tear it fairly easily with your bare hands, the rabbit will be tough.
When cleaning any rabbit, I examine the entrails closely, especially the liver. If I see anything that looks unhealthy, such as worms, or spots on the liver, I throw the carcass away. I also wear gloves when I clean and skin rabbits, in case of tularemia.
When I was growing up in So Cal we used to hunt cottontail, every once in a while we would take a couple of jackrabbits. My mom would fry the cottontail and cut all the meat off the bones of the jackrabbits and run it through the meat grinder with an equal amount of pork and make sausage. (Good eats)