Most rabbits killed with one lurcher on nights lamping now let's be truthful lads about this one

[OldPhil 5,364]

Edited April 28, 2022 by OldPhil

[Bosun11 537]

3 hours ago, OldPhil said:

For so many years ,..folk have harped on about numbers, bagging up, etc, etc...

Until I started catching rabbits for wages, as opposed to sport or flogging shushis for a pittance,

I was always worrying if other guys were taking more rabbits than me...

This idiocy used to spur me on, day and night...

But, the sheer diversity of having to produce a result, frequently in front of a paying client, pretty soon cured me Every location presented different problems, each job was a challenge.

Catching rabbits, where there is an abundance of rabbits, is good craic, great fun,...often arduous admittedly, but, sporting hunting, lacks the gut wrenching, stressful hassle of being under the cosh, as regards getting, that all-important pay cheque in the bank..

It can become,.. emotional..

Anyway,. all that is now a lifetime away for me,.. it is done and dusted....finito...

However,.. if anyone gets a chance to peruse this wee treatise, I think you will enjoy the script,.. and numbers wise,..it kinda puts everything,... into perspective

 

At the age of 15, Jack McCraith reached a momentous decision; "Everyone knows how to catch rabbits," he said. "I'll learn how to sell them."

On his first buying trip, he biked into the countryside and bought two rabbits which he skinned in the back yard and hawked around the neighbours. Within 20 years he controlled a rabbit empire which stretched across half of Australia. In a 40 year career, he exported more than 130 million rabbits.

Wherever the rabbits went, he went too. Rabbit chillers and trucks, emblazoned with the legend JOHN A. McCRAITH, Rabbit Exporter, Spencer Street, Melbourne, dotted the back country from the Simpson Desert to the Nullabor Plains. It was a cut-throat and difficult industry filled with unscrupulous people and dreamers. Chillers were robbed or sabotaged, buyers absconded with the buying money, trucks broke down hundreds of kilometres from the nearest garage. The trappers were tough men but Jack McCraith was tougher. When he had to sort out problems in the bush, he used his fists. His methods were unorthodox. He was a big gambler and he brought the same gambling instincts to his business life. Many of the exporters went broke, but Jack McCraith survived and prospered.

The Rabbit King is the previously untold story of the Australian rabbit industry, and how it kept some people alive in the harshest times and made other people very rich. It is also a personal re-telling of an old story about a poor boy who makes good. It is the story of the rise and rise of a man who perfectly suited his time and all that reveals about the way we lived and thought then.

 

Brilliant post Phil

And the one which re-answeres the question as to why I never went for magical numbers in the 80's.

In those far off days I used to knock about in a Lurcher & Terrier club who's members boasted a couple of lads who did some serious rabbit numbers...

All was done 'up Scotch' and they bought cars and caravans to get em up there and carry the catch, where they could stay over and amass huge halls. They supplied their rabbits to a couple of dealers and the rest to the private zoo at Haigh Hall in Wigan. The numbers they could catch would see every one of their outlets unable to take anymore and i seen those photo's and they had no reason to bullshit when they talked about the money they made.

I was just a kid and though I never found outlets like those for what I caught and I loved running for numbers, I never caught more than I could get off a fellside.

For me, it was more of what I could get out of the dog, and though we had an 83 off Shap,  taking over 130 rabbits over 3 consecutive nights with the same dog were good nights for me.

[D Lloyd 2,790]

Some great reading and old pics lads some very good bags fare play to you all.

It was all about testing my dogs loved the numbers pushing them hard but nowing when to stop them as IV never had a dog that would stop trying for me I think IV been very lucky that way.any money from the catch was a nice bones but as long as nothing went to was I was happy

[nothernlite 18,028]

Alot of ground was ruined with lads hammering it for the cash 

[chartpolski 20,418]

7 hours ago, Bosun11 said:

Brilliant post Phil

And the one which re-answeres the question as to why I never went for magical numbers in the 80's.

In those far off days I used to knock about in a Lurcher & Terrier club who's members boasted a couple of lads who did some serious rabbit numbers...

All was done 'up Scotch' and they bought cars and caravans to get em up there and carry the catch, where they could stay over and amass huge halls. They supplied their rabbits to a couple of dealers and the rest to the private zoo at Haigh Hall in Wigan. The numbers they could catch would see every one of their outlets unable to take anymore and i seen those photo's and they had no reason to bullshit when they talked about the money they made.

I was just a kid and though I never found outlets like those for what I caught and I loved running for numbers, I never caught more than I could get off a fellside.

For me, it was more of what I could get out of the dog, and though we had an 83 off Shap,  taking over 130 rabbits over 3 consecutive nights with the same dog were good nights for me.

Back in the 70's a couple of pals of mine had an old caravan at Stirling and went up on a Friday night and came back on Sunday night and lamped and ferreted the whole weekend. 

They used to get huge bags of rabbits, and sold them around the clubs and pubs of Newcastle for £1 each and had any amount of buyers.

I went a couple of times with them, and it was great fun, don't know if I'd enjoy it so much now though.

The numbers aren't there now, and you're more likely to get thrown out of a pub or reported to the police these days for trying to sell a rabbit ! But it's good memories.

No, the Jason King lookalike isn't me, I took the photo ! !

Cheers.

 

[jukel123 6,570]

Anybody ever read 'The Way to an Island'?

The author took the tenancy of an inhabited island, (Skokhom), with the idea of eradicating all the wild rabbits on the island and replacing them with 'fur' rabbits. He then intended to cull the rabbits periodically to harvest the fur and meat.

He eventually failed in his endeavour because he could never fully get rid of the wild population and gradually they became the dominant type.

Good read though.

Edited March 25, 2022 by jukel123

[levigsp 938]

2 hours ago, nothernlite said:

Alot of ground was ruined with lads hammering it for the cash 

I saw no where ruined where there were huge numbers, as soon as numbers got low in the area the cash men moved on.  

.

[levigsp 938]

I saw no where ruined where there were huge numbers, as soon as numbers got low in the area the cash men moved on.  

I ruined ground as I was being paid for that exact reason.                                                 Also ground was ruined in average and low number areas, that included most of England,  it was ruined by people who were not interested in the future and would take the last rabbit if possible.

By the mid 90s where rabbits were low numbers due to lamping etc and two serious new strains of myxi, along came vhd1 and did 99% of what was left in a lot of areas but not all. By 2018 a lot of areas were hit by VHD2 killing 99.999999% in all those areas as far as i no, there has been a total absence of recovery.  

We now know that VHD effected rabbits first and later hares, this was true of both strains even though I was laughed at the first time I mentioned it, by all sort of folk including vets. The last outbreak of VHD2 in caithness rabbits was in 2016 and then 2019 in hares.

[nothernlite 18,028]

2 minutes ago, levigsp said:

I saw no where ruined where there were huge numbers, as soon as numbers got low in the area the cash men moved on.  

.

Hows uist still crawling with rabbits  cathness still the same numbers ,?

[levigsp 938]

1 minute ago, nothernlite said:

Hows uist still crawling with rabbits  cathness still the same numbers ,?

have you read the post before yours?

 

 

[nothernlite 18,028]

Just now, levigsp said:

have you read the post before yours?

 

 

Just did  your good at typing

[levigsp 938]

29 minutes ago, nothernlite said:

Just did  your good at typing

I do it to exercise my arthritic fingers.

 

[levigsp 938]

G

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by levigsp

[OldPhil 5,364]

Nice strong, chunky dogs 

Just my type,...good workmanlike units,...hard to break...

 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by OldPhil

[nothernlite 18,028]

18 minutes ago, OldPhil said:

Nice strong, chunky dogs 

Just my type,...good workmanlike units,...hard to break...

Very nice