patience pays off!

[drakeshead gunner 26]

The old saying goes when its bad its bad but when its good then its bloody good, well I think myself and my hunting pal have seen both these extremes. After bumping into an old friend after a few years of not seeing eachother I was quickly drawn in to air rifel and ferretting forms of pest controll. He took me to his permissions and shared alot of his knowledge with me, after sharing the storys of my days with another friend we decided that we would put or selfs out there and try and find our own permissions.

 

After weeks and weeks of refusals and being told 'come back next year lads', my hunting pal phoned me up and told me we could be recieving our first real chance. An old family friend who worked on a farm had told him of rabbit destroying the farmers crops and obviously my friend offered our services. We arranged to speak with the farmer to iron out any deatails and before we knew it our first permission was a 563 acre farm with an additional 30 acres of fields that he grows crops on.

 

Now we were origionally planning on just using my old friends equipment as we were not expecting such a lucky first permission, but with the scal of our task we decided that it would make more sence to aquire our own. I converted an old rabbit cage and purchased our first hob from good working stock, and also tarted up a carry box i purchased just so we looked the part. the final purchase was a locator and collar and we were on our way. The day before we planned to give the ferret his first propper workout we informed the farmer we were going to be on the land and it was set.

 

Early the next morning I loaded the hob, the two labs and the rest of the gear in the car and headed off to pic up my mate, we arrived at around 7:30am and started by scouting the area to find out where the main burrows were and let the labs off to send anything that was still out back down their holes. Straight into the thick of it the dogs were in and out picking up the scents straight away, all you saw where little white tails off like the clappers. We decided a plan of action and headed back to the car, I preped the ferret while my pal started clearing the first area as we were overun with thorn bushs. We netted up and then it was time for the ferret to prove his metal, first hole and within 5 minutes the first bolt. I dispatched the rabbit and we were straight onto the next one, that area went quiet so we moved on. Blanked on the second area but the third produced another two bolts and two easy digs, let the dogs off on the third area as i was confident of them around the ferret even though it was only their first time out together and we only had 25+ holes and we were a few nets short. Only had one runner but got away being abit quick for the labs but they had a good time chasing it anyway.

 

Ended up with 6 in total, and even though its not a great number turned out to be a great first go at it and looks like we have a ferret with great potential and the dogs just see it as an excuse to be out lol. Going to give the saff a run out next time too and see if we can beat our PB by one or two.

 

Have some pictures but it wont let me upload them, saying there too big largest only being 3kb. help on this would be appreciated.

[The one 8,627]

Mate as long as you enjoyed yourself that's the main thing a few rabbits are a bonus

[darbo 4,779]

good write up sounds like you enjoyed yourselfs.