Put In My Place.

[comanche 3,295]

I invited an old friend ,Stu, who used to do a bit of ferreting to join me and my usual partners in crime Martin and his son James on visit to bit of my local permission. Its been hit pretty hard over the last couple of years so we decided to split into two teams to cover more ground . Martin and James set off with their two proper lurchers in one direction, while Stu and I accompanied by my "semi-lurcher" went the other .

 

Trusting the dog's nose we skipped over a lot of dead burrows until we settled upon one the dog showed an interest in . We set a lot of nets for four rabbits but hadn't expected things to be easy. The next burrow he marked was just as big and ran either side of our boundary. We debated the pros and cons of hopping the fence . On my own I confess I would have gone for it but I had a guest to consider. As it happened a pick-up appeared in the field so perhaps it was best that we had hesitated. Even better was the fact that a quick chat with the farmer gained us permission to do things legally . It turned out that young James in the other team had already spoken to him and was doing some virgin holes on the other side of the farmer's field as we spoke.

 

We had three rabbits in quick succession. I noticed Stu struggling to extricate one from a net as , even in death, it had its teeth clamped around a section of dead bramble.

 

He grinned at me and said," Bl**dy Hell . The things are arming themselves . This one's tooled-up."

As he wrestled the net free another rabbit exited from the uncovered hole ,bounced into a section of long-net , which snagged and failed to hold the bunny. By now my dog had appeared from the other side of the hedge and he set off after the fleeing rabbit . I had a pretty poor view of proceedings but just assumed he would return after doing his best, but inevitably empty mouthed . Stu ,on the other hand had a better view .

 

Apparently there were twist and turns and at one point the rabbit had belted under a fallen ash while the dog had executed a superb leap over the top without breaking stride . Then he lost sight of the chase and went back to re-setting nets. A few seconds later the dog reappeared : carrying a rather deflated looking rabbit!

 

We had just finished doing one more little bury and brought our total up to ten rabbits when Martin and James appeared. They had eleven, trumping us -even though one of their rabbits was a mere halfling.

While we began the inevitable post mortem on the day's activities Stu became very agitated in his telling of how my dog had leapt insurmountable obstacles in his quest for the run-away bunny and executed a superb live-to-hand retrieve .

Its not often someone "bigs my dog up" and I had starting to inwardly bask in the glow of glory when young James(the b*stard) piped up," What? Brian(not his real name) caught a rabbit ? ....It must have tried diving down a blocked hole!"

Edited February 15, 2015 by comanche

[northern lad 2,292]

Enjoyed that mate

[random 659]

Nice read and memories made,you will be telling that for years to come no doubt,well done!

[luckyplum 50]

great write up mate the "semi lurcher" done well, cheers plum !

[breeze 1,386]

Good write up once again mate..... "Rabbit dived into a blocked hole" Hey the cheeky bleeder Bet it's the last time you take him on your permission

[comanche 3,295]

Good write up once again mate..... "Rabbit dived into a blocked hole" Hey the cheeky bleeder Bet it's the last time you take him on your permission

Ooh no ,he's welcome to take the micky ... his permission is better than mine.

[Gaz6br 193]

Well done mate

 

Sounds a fun day

 

Gaz