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comanche

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Everything posted by comanche

  1. comanche
    One of my grandchildren was kind enough to share part of his personal menagerie with me recently. To my shame I acted in a rather ungracious way and feeling unable to provide adequate care for his generous but unsolicited gift decided euthanasia was an appropriate course of action. In hindsight maybe I acted a little hastily. Social stigma aside, does not the humble head louse represent the ideal in low maintenance-pets. Consider; Breeds well & available at no cost Requires no expensive cages No cleaning of hutches
  2. comanche
    "H. Hediger director of the Zurich zoo,records rats diving into the zoo's aquaria, destroying fish and plant life." Quoted from Clive Roots' Animal Invaders .
  3. comanche
    Phil,back in my jeweller's days you would have been surprised how much of my gear owed its origins to the work-bench. My old pike rod did actually have a couple of missing eyes replaced with silver items. All my home-made purse nets were built on German/nickel silver rings turned -up and silver soldered at work. . Nowadays I'm a bit too tight to buy proper net rings(Agouti ones are good though) and tend to scavenge piles of old horse tack and hay nets for rings or even cut links out of bits of chain.
  4. comanche
    I confess I hoped OTC's interest might be peeked,if only to confirm that they are not traps. Bucket holders are a possibility but they are a bit over engineered in my mind for that. Thanks for the input everyone and if I do find out anything I'll keep you posted. The traps were nothing special-an old Fenn,usual mole clamps and a rat cage but I don't turn anything down if its free
  5. comanche
    I've been given these odd looking items . I've posted them in the Trapping section simply because they came in a sack of old traps. My own leanings are towards some sort of pig-collar or other livestock restraint but I'm in the breeze really. There is a row of short spikes behind the T-shaped spring . Any ideas or does anyone actually know?
  6. comanche
    Another log revealed a cluster of less exotic and less legally sensitive smooth newts. One of which I did touch before tucking them back up for winter.
  7. comanche
    Fishing rights automatically come with the ownership of land bordering surface water. They are part of the Riparian Rights that allow an owner use of the water abutting their land . Riparian Rights go with the land and cannot be divested of. However,the owner can lease ,give or sell a strip of land next to a water to a third party or club in which case they will effectively become Riparian owners for the course of the agreement and may also use the water for purposes other than angling .The owner can also simply allow access or sell permission for fishing in which case the anglers
  8. comanche
    Doing a favour for a friend I found myself looking for logs to weigh down a cover over some hay bales I'd stacked for her. The very first log I shifted exposed these little chaps. So the log went back very carefully.
  9. comanche
    Tomburras-the silencer worked well. A lot of "The Old Boys" would've had little need of expensive Hushpowers.
  10. comanche
    If you actually work out the formula for the cartridge size/pellet count using the usual no 6 shot the optimum pattern for the .410 is achieved at a lot less range than most people assume. It actually works out at well under 20yards for a 2.5" cartridge and a heck of a lot less for a 2". Most people use too big a shot size. Small shot gives more pellets, better patterns and has plenty of energy at .410 range. Use 8s if you can get them-no more squirrels skipping through the pattern. I remember reading that the velocity of a pellet from a.410 is only about a tenth less than tha
  11. comanche
    Very fond memories of an el cheapo "El Chimbo" folding single barrel hammer .410. Though the early memories were not quite so fond. After a few silly misses I patterned it only to find it shot high and was ridiculously tightly choked. So I (er, had )the barrel cut down to remove the choke. It was brilliant for ferreting and when I was Keepering used it in preference to the 12bore on rough days as I could bump the bag up with a few low birds without blowing them to bits or anyone shaking their head at me. I think the highlight of its career was two mallard with one shot,albei
  12. comanche
    I meant to update on progress a while ago but forgot. Or was I trying to hide my embarrassment? Just in case anyone else ever has a similar problem I'll share but needless to say I felt a bit of a duck when I worked it out. Having checked vacuum hoses and done the obvious it was time to ask for help .I trawled the Suzuki forums without success. Plenty of idle system faults mentioned but nothing relevant to my rock-steady 1800rpm tick-over Computer,sensor or some "emission system fault" were the rather expensive sounding diagnosis from people professing to be mechanics. Even had one
  13. comanche
    Unless it died laughing at my canoeing technique it probably survived. S'pose I could've hurled my paddle at it but then I would have been ,as they say"Up sh*t creek without one", and the tide on the Arun is not always forgiving
  14. comanche
    I think the wording on tunnels is something like "suitable for restricting acces by non-target animals while not impeding the efficiency of the trap". Apart from legal considerations, If you have to cover a trap anyway, it may as well be with something rigid that guides the intended victim squarely towards the trigger. Using something like conifer fronds or sticks covered in leaves there is a risk that that a strong animal like a squirrel might push through towards the bait from the wrong angle and trigger the trap with a twig or be miss-caught.
  15. comanche
    Its not the best picture . My excuses include that I was back-paddling a canoe at the same time as fumbling with my very basic camera. It shot out of the river as we approached ,climbed about twenty feet up the tree( that's around six metres and twenty three inches for the French site members), and sat there having a scratch.
  16. comanche
    I'm not convinced the trap as featured is likely to take the UK by storm. Certainly not in exterior situations. By the time measures have been taken to lessen non-target access and some sort of corpse capture system incorporated that keeps the entrance to the trap clear yet stops dead squirrels falling on passer-by's heads the idea begins to look like just another "interesting " design. Indoors there might be an application for it but you could still buy a lot of Tom n Jerry traps for the price of one of these monkeys. I could be wrong but I believe that NZ only has one
  17. comanche
    Interesting question. I think the Duffus-type device counts as a trap as the mole is trapped against the tunnel roof not in a tightened loop. On the other hand;the old versions of tunnel mole "traps" -from which the Duffus was probably derived often relied upon a horse-hair or twine "snare" as an integral part . Its a bit academic really as we all know nothing deals with a mole infestation like putting a few virgin's toenail clippings down the runs .
  18. comanche
    There is a bit of a sad follow-up to this story. The lad caught his fish last Sunday evening. Monday morning the Environment Agency in their wisdom decided to open the sluice from the millpond that feeds the little stream we were fishing and managed to jam it open. There are mutterings that it was a very convenient "accident" designed to rid the pond of silt. At least 250 sizable fish along with uncounted smaller ones were found dead on the stream bank when the water- level dropped . To compound the affair the EA and local council then decided that the surviving fish needed rescu
  19. comanche
    Not on purpose. I don't think it would have been long before this young one realised how easily the door could have been forced open:)
  20. comanche
    For the purpose of restricting non-target access some say the loft hatch and roof might be acceptable . But a roof is not a tunnel . So the answer to your question has to be that you need some sort of tunnel not only to stay legal on the non-target front but to guide the quarry onto the plate at the right angle.. Fenns were designed to be used in tunnels with a firm roof that allows the jaws to close but doesn't leave too much head room for the quarry to flip upwards. In a loft situation with little risk of non-targets the tunnel, perhaps, does not need to be as long as you would
  21. comanche
    Following on from Kay's lovely pictures of deer doing it. In some of the other pictures taken of the same subject the male can clearly be seen holding the Queen's sting out of the way.
  22. comanche
    The eight-year old grandson decided just as I was due to deliver him back to his parents that he " Really,really,really ",wanted to go fishing. I suspect it was a delaying tactic to avoid some last-minute homework so, like the dutiful Grandfather I am , of course sent him up the garden with a spade and bait box while I rummaged through the shed for the rod he'd discarded after his last perch-bothering exercise. He didn't have a lot of luck on the worm front; not just because the spade was a bit big but mainly because he had to compete with the chickens emptying the bait-box as fast as
  23. comanche
    Mk6s are a bit big for deliberately setting for weasels . Its only my opinion but I rate the Mk6 as a far superior and more humane trap for squirrels than the Mk4.
  24. comanche
    The Basc legal reference to not "cruelly " beat,torture etc gives you the answer. As long as you are satisfied that your method will be effective and intend a humane end to the rat you have not acted illegally. Certainly if you have the" reasonable excuse" of legitimate pest control. The word "cruelly" as defined by a dictionary infers the infliction of pain or suffering and you are looking for an instant effective kill. A good stamp or even backing a vehicle over an injured rabbit might not be aesthetically pleasing but as long as it done for legitimate reasons with the intent to a
  25. comanche
    The wife of an old boss made a mean squirrel and bacon pie for the beater's days. Skinning them can be a bit like getting a nun out of a wet-suit and they really are only at their best in the autumn and winter when they have a lovely nutty taste.
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