Steady Day with Trigger2 and his Retired Dog ferreting.

[Guest vin]

hello all

 

Went down Shropshire this morning early set off..and long drive..But 1st day of year on some permission thats overun with bunnies.

 

We took the ferrets, my dog and jons dog trigger..and went to a wood where they were running into on the lamp...On trouble is the sets we did find and the dogs were marking were in brambles that were just too thick to work in..and no way of montoring where or what would be bolting once the ferrets were in..

 

We did a little three hole set the dogs were well making and the ferret had hold of the rabbit as soon as it went in the hole..I could hear it just up the entrance so i managed to pull it out without having to dig..I like that.. . shame the rabbit was nit so healthy though... it was really skinny and stinky it was not at all healthy..

 

So we moved onto another area of woods,but the sets were just all through the woods,everywhere,the dogs were dizzy with scents and obviuosly everytime a solid matrk was aparant,it would be in an impossible bramble patch etc etc..so we jsut kept on having a seady walk and mooch about letting the dogs knock em up out the cover etc etc..we eventually got a decent mark and decided that it was impossible to purse net the amount of holes on the wood slope we were on...there was just holes everywhere..So i ran the new quick set long nets all the way around the sets on and dropped the ferrets in..we had 2 out after a few minutes and they hit the nets perfect.jon was well impressed with the longnets how quick they went up and back down rather than mess with the purse nets.

 

We then moved onto the hedge heading back towards the car.. the hedges had burrows all the way along but my dog was not on top Marking form at all today,and she was not giving us any clear marks on this hedge that looked alive with sets..right at the end of the hedge old trigger pointed a hole out and we just pooped the ferret in to have a look..out ran a bunny from next hole down ..so he was spot on..we followed it to the next set along and put ferret back in..it was straight on the bunny and had it up a stop end 2 foot down..So john had a little dig down to extract bunny and ferret..very easy going and done in all of 10 mins and away.

 

last hedge of the day, was where we should have started and we managed to catch another 3 in no time.. they were very hard to purse net so I did the long net down 1 side of the hedge and left the dogs on the other..it worked a charm..4 bolted I had 2 in long net and Molly caught one of the bolter when it made the mistake of running into the field and going for it like a hare on a mission..

 

It was time for a walk back to car before dark and a long drive back up North.. all in all a great day with good company on a nice spot of land with no stress.. Next time we will have a good bag now we know where to start.

 

ended with 6 as we left the shitty unhealthy one for the buzzards circling above us all morning.

[whin 463]

sounds like agood walk but hard going for youe 6 rabbs yo mabe need to clear out the holes with cover on them get afew helpers and tallyho

[Cookie423 21]

Sounds similar to the holes round my way. Going to have to get a quickset soon. Good write up mate.

[Guest vin]

It was a lot of work for 7 bunnies...but believe me i have worked a lot harder for a lot less...LOL..we all have.

 

Its also tricky when you normally go to a place at night and run them into certain spots...but things change in the daytime..we went to one little spot 1st where we would have bet money there was at least half a dozen bunnies.,it was a little patch of rough around a large old tree on a slope about 100 yards from the hedge and the woods....At night we have run 20-30 rabbits into that single patch many nights.. there was a large set of holes,mostly little digs and a small old warren of about 5 holes,then a little 3 hole at the top of patch.

As we were walking upto the patch 2 rabbits came out of rough and ran across field into woods... but at night they would never make that journey while the lamp was on.. we had 1 rabbit out of the little 3 hole set..the bigger warren had nothing but scents from lots of use but no one home... its the same on the hedges leading upto the woodland..they run into the sets at night,but dont stay there in the morning..By then they are 200 yards into the woods under a bramble patch.. LOL.

[johnny boy68 11,726]

Well done lads..........sometimes the company and being out outweighs the numbers you get.