Most Unusual Catch I've Ever Had

[krawnden 1,036]

While ferreting yesterday I was setting some longnets near an old barn. My terrier disappeared into the barn and was gone for a while. 'Odd', I thought. Once I'd finished setting the nets I whistled her out and she took ages to reappear. What the hell was the big attraction, I wondered. So I went in to investigate, and she immediately dived through the gap between these rearing pen sections, then squeezed to the left behind them -

 

 

When I followed her I could see that at the back of the barn was a concrete feed trough about 2' off the ground that ran the full width of the barn. It was full of dead leaves -

 

 

And to the left, where she had gone, was a big pile of old home made poultry drinkers -

 

 

She was marking strongly, and trying to find a way to get in amongst it all. I was convinced she must be marking rats, so as it was pretty dark back there I put the torch on my phone on to get a closer look. Couldn't see anything at first, then I spotted a couple of bits or rabbit shit - very odd! So I started moving all the drinkers out of the way, with the terrier getting more and more frantic as I did so. Eventually I'd got them all off and there was no sign of a rabbit, but the terrier was frantically digging in the bottom of the trough. Dead leaves were flying everywhere and it revealed what at first looked like a narrow piece of sheet metal about 3 inches wide. But as the leaves were removed - I joined in to help - I realised it was actually a piece of box section about 8 foot long. Every 12 inches or so it had holes about 1cm diameter, and about halfway along I could see rabbit fur sticking through the holes -

 

 

Yes, there was a rabbit inside the box section, which had been hidden by dead leaves underneath a big pile of poultry drinkers two foot off the ground right at the back of an old barn!

 

There was so little space back there that I decided to try and get the box section out as if the rabbit had bolted where it was there was hardly any room for the dogs to manoeuvre and they could have missed it. It was heavy as hell and extremely difficult to get the bloody thing out on my own. I'd assumed all I'd need to do was upend it and the rabbit would drop out. But the space inside was so small the rabbit was wedged tight like a cork in a bottle so that didn't work. So I put in one of this year's jill kits that's completely inexperienced. Because of the holes in the box section I could see exactly what was happening - the jill went straight up to the rabbit and started working away at its arse. But the rabbit refused to budge. The jill tried and tried but the rabbit was not for shifting. All the while the terrier was doing her best to break her way in -

 

 

Eventually the jill shuffled out backwards and I picked her up and tried her in at the other end instead. The rabbit wasn't at all impressed with having a fert latched onto its face and backed out in pretty short order -

 

It did the jill the world of good and she went on to bolt a further 5 rabbits over the rest of the day so I was delighted to have got her off to such a good start.

I caught the rabbit-catching bug 40 years ago, and over the years since then I've seen, found, bolted and caught rabbits from all manner of different spots. But I can safely say that this was the weirdest and most unusual of them all. And a reminder of the fact that our mutts often know better than we do....

 

[bullmastiff 610]

Brilliant, thanks for sharing!

Good find by the terrier and you couldn't ask for a better way to start a ferret off.

[Flacko 1,732]

Terrier a bonus there mate good on her atb Flacko

[skycat 6,173]

I have to say that with the little dogs we catch twice as many rabbits in cover. At this time of year pretty much all are caught in cover as the only rabbits around are too savvy to risk breaking cover. Just wish mine would give the odd yap though. She's silent, unlike her dam.

[mad4it 694]

nice one ,a great way to start a ferret top marks to the terrier.

[Moe 108]

Cant beat a good little nose.

[socks 32,253]

Little willow would be an asset to anybody's team ... Cracking little dog .......

[NEWKID 26,367]

Good that, can't beat a terriers nose.

Edited December 30, 2015 by NEWKID

[bunny bandit 98]

Very nicely done. enjoyed reading that.

ATB and happy hunting