My New Thumb Stick Adventure

[Nicepix 5,650]

Since I moved over to France I haven't had a stick. Back in the UK it was customary to choose a stick around this time of year and then have it ready for the next beating season. Now I don't shoot I haven't had the need for one until we got a little 3 year old terrier from the dog's home last December. She had been badly treated and this showed whenever I picked up anything that resembled a stick;- fishing rod, rake, anything like that. So I cut a little stick and started taking it with us on walks to de-sensitise here which has worked and also got me back into the walking with a stick routine.

Today, I went out for a long walk armed with a pair of secateurs and the dog to find my new stick. I found what I wanted only 100 yards from home; a nice ash branch growing straight up its parent trunk and having an even fork. Stick cut and trimmed at breast height with the secateurs leaving enough on the forks to cut back and shape at home. Job done! Old stick left where I can recover it tomorrow. While walking along I surveyed my new thumb stick and saw that other than a minor kick about a foot from the forks it is remarkably straight.

Two and a half hours into the walk which is along green lanes around our house Lily suddenly disappeared down a ditch where a blackbird flew out. So I called her back, but all I got was barking from below. She had gone to ground again. I say again because a few weeks ago she disappeared in plain sight while walking alongside the River Vienne and didn't re-appear for two and a half days in a pretty poor state. She has an obsession with coypu and there are thousands of them over here in ponds, lakes, rivers, ditches, you name it. We even get them in the garden. Coypu make a strange sort of cross between a grunt and a hum and I could hear just that along with the Terrier's barking. Coypu can make a mess of dogs if cornered and my dog isn't a natural killer. I dropped a foul-caught mouse in front of here a few days ago and she played with it like a cat would. The mist hunting that she has done was to bring me a baby coypu, the size of a guinea pig, drop it alive at my side while I was setting a mole trap, then run back to the van. A killer she isn't.

Using my new thumb stick I dug into the soft ground under my feet and broke into a tunnel. The hole was widened until I was thwarted by a concrete pipe going under the track I had been walking down. Lily was barking continuously and ignoring my calls. I poked my new stick in and couldn't feel anything so I cut a long length of bramble that was draped over a tree and using my woollen Tilly hat as a glove probed the tunnel with the bramble. Nothing! Then a French lady arrived, walking down the lane. I explained what I was doing  and she suggested getting the fire brigade out which isn't as daft as it sounds because they are always doing things other than putting fires out. They man the ambulances for one thing, but digging a terrier out is probably more of a farmer thing.

I told the lady that I would wait a while then call my wife to bring a pick and shovel forgetting that she has buggered off to the Limoges Christmas market with friends. Just as the French lady was leaving she suddenly had a thought; what about the other end of the tunnel? It was only a few yards away at the other side of the track. Bugger me!  Never thought if that. So, off to the other end where access was easier and I didn't have to kneel and stick my upside down head into a mucky hole. With the aid of my phone torch app I could see the arse end of a coypu just a couple of feet in so I asked the lady in my best French to pass me the stick, which she did. Using the long forks on the new thumb stick I was able to hook the coypu's neck, shepherd style, forcing it to the side of the pipe and dragged it back so its scaly tail was within grabbing distance. The coypu was about the size of a West Highland White dog and from past experience I knew that they were built like a brick outhouse and had a pair of teeth that could inflict serious damage.

So, hooking the dammed thing by the neck and dragging it out needed a plan and the plan was drag with stick in right hand, grab coypu's tail in left hand, pull the coypu out of the pipe whilst dropping the stick so that when the coypu was unplugged and swung round my waist to be thrown down the banking all in one quick motion, I could grab the sodding terrier as it bolted out of the pipe after the coypu. At least I got that bit of choreography right.

While walking back towards home I found out the the French lady is British, lives locally and needs some rodent traps.

Anyway, my new thumb stick is now drying out under a heavy weight to straighten the slight kink and I am looking forward to using it for less arduous tasks in future.

[Tyla 3,179]

We messed around with coypu in France on the way to spain a few years ago. They were great fun, we never actually got hold of one but bolted a few into the river

[Nicepix 5,650]

13 minutes ago, W. Katchum said:

My lads been talking about getting some for his plummer since she was a pup if I thought it easy as drive over drop the dog an dog it out an come back I’d go?? Is it that easy

Yep.

You aren't allowed to shoot them. I think that rats are the only thing that you can legally shoot without a hunting licence. But if you wanted to take your dog for a walk along a river bank there is nothing stopping you as far as I am aware. Getting 'The Chasse' or local hunting group to deal with foxes, badgers and coypu is a problem from what I have heard. They don't want to know. I've been asked if I would trap them, but the problem for me is that I haven't got a hunting licence so I can't legally shoot the trapped animal, I can't legally release it and I don't want one as a pet.

One of my customers jabbed one with her garden fork and injured it to the extent that it was laying on the ground bleeding. Then she asked me to dispatch it for her. I took a garden spade to it and I'll tell you what; they are bloody tough animals. An axe would have been a better tool. (Just so you know )