The New Rat Permission

[Jonjon79 13,358]

This is the one that came out of the blue one night last week - the guy pulled over and spoke to us while we were shooting rats on another permission.

 

We loaded up our kit at about 8pm yesterday - my mate took his .177 S510, I had the .22 Super 10, both with NS Vipers and cheapo monopod shooting sticks. The kit I was most thankful for last night - wellies and the litter picker.

 

It turned out that this small pig farm is 5 minutes round the corner from me. I never knew it was there.

When we arrived, the owner was out feeding the pigs and geese.

We had a chat and he showed us around.

It's a long thin bit of land with pens all down one side.

He showed us the one nasty pig, a big fecker, and said to not go into that pen. All the others were ok though.

He moved the geese closer to the house so that we could access their enclosure.

 

As we walked along, using a torch to look in the pens, the rats were easy to spot - they were on the troughs, in the bushes, darting across the lane. They really weren't difficult to see.

 

The owner put some feed in a couple of empty pens to help us. He showed us how to switch the electric fences off then, left us to it.

 

Because the bit of land was so thin, shooting into the pens was at ranges of 5 - 15yrds. Both of our set ups were at 10x mag and zeroed for 30yrd so, there was a few misses until we got used to it.

We managed to get some longer range shots at 30ish yrds looking along the lanes. It was difficult to increase the ranges by shooting at an angle into the pens because of all of the fences.

We were adjusting parallax and IR for most of the shots.

 

Some good shots went in - side on shots when they poked their little heads out. A fair few front on shots when the more brazen ones stopped to look at us. Some where so close that we only had a fussy rat shaped figure with eye shine to aim at.

 

Until the pigs went to bed, we had to pass on loads of shots - the rats would be in the troughs, sometimes close to the pigs snout or, they'd be on the ground by the pigs legs.

 

As soon as the night settled down and we started to get used to the ranges, it went well. I was picking them off fairly regular and, further up the track, I could hear the S510 firing, quickly followed by the sound of an AA Field meeting a rat.

 

Most of my range time so far has been spent with rabbits in mind so, I tend to check my aim points from 20 to 45yrds.

I think I need to start practicing on the 8yrd spinners at 4x mag.

 

All in all, it was a good first visit. We retrieved 21 rats and, had a lot of fun.

The owner is a nice bloke so, we'll try to get back there asap and, hopefully, put a noticeable dent in his rat population.

[moxy 617]

Nice write up fella and top shooting. You can't beat landing lucky with good permission and flattening a few rats.

 

[Jonjon79 13,358]

Cheers Moxy,

 

It was a good evening. Since returning to the sport, I've never had such a busy permission.

[steg 609]

Nice one JJ! Holdover's certainly fun at close range..every yard closer seems to gobble up another big chunk of mil dot once you get down to about 10 yards if you know what i mean.

 

Nice read that mate ??

[si brown 8,486]

Sounds like a great night Jon and a good start to the rat cull

Good right up too

What's your rat bashing pellet of choice?!

Atb si

[Jonjon79 13,358]

Nice one JJ! Holdover's certainly fun at close range..every yard closer seems to gobble up another big chunk of mil dot once you get down to about 10 yards if you know what i mean.

 

Nice read that mate ??

Cheers mate,

 

You're spot on - the funniest shots of the night were when I got my ranges wrong and the pellet went low. When that wet mud kicked up in front of the rats, they really jumped

 

At 10ish yrds, they were bang on the crosshairs

[Jonjon79 13,358]

Sounds like a great night Jon and a good start to the rat cull

Good right up too

What's your rat bashing pellet of choice?!

Atb si

Cheers Si,

 

I was using JSB RS .22 (13.43gn) - they come out os this S10 at around 620fps.

I'm still new to hunting with .22 but, these things were hitting hard. There were a few front on shots, right between the eyes, where the rats just curled up

[Jonjon79 13,358]

 

Sounds like a great night Jon and a good start to the rat cull

Good right up too

What's your rat bashing pellet of choice?!

Atb si

Cheers Si,

 

I was using JSB RS .22 (13.43gn) - they come out of this S10 at around 620fps.

I'm still new to hunting with .22 but, these things were hitting hard. There were a few front on shots, right between the eyes, where the rats just curled up

[mark williams 7,568]

Well done lads,

 

Sounds a good permission JJ

[Durham John 693]

Nice one JJ

They a nice pellet the. 22 rs

[bigmac 97kt 13,824]

Cracking write up and nice shooting JJ

 

top class

 

atvbmac :thumbs:

[philpot 5,069]

Good read Jon and what looks to be a good new perm.

 

Lucky man

 

Phil

[PeskyWabbits 464]

Well done there.

It is scary how rats can really take over.

 

And it is so hard keeping the food locked up but available for the livestock.

I use traps and poison, but lead pellets are the most reliable.

 

I think I am obsessed now on controlling rats. You had a good night there.

[si brown 8,486]

Well done there.

It is scary how rats can really take over.

 

And it is so hard keeping the food locked up but available for the livestock.

I use traps and poison, but lead pellets are the most reliable.

 

I think I am obsessed now on controlling rats. You had a good night there.

rat basting has to be one of the worlds best guilt free pleasures

[mikewh79000 16]

Hi guys

 

Pro writeup- pro feedback from others

Immaculate photo

What a difference when the experts strut their stuff.

Trying to cultivate a farmer here for ratting.

Airrifle pestcontrol is all new to them.

With the old 6ft limit here one can understand why.

 

Keep 'em coming

 

Safe shooting