Memorable ferreting times.

[Aycliffe-Ferreter 7]

So whilst thinking of ferreting I thought I would share a few stories.

Tiny polecat.

So a friend and I took our ferrets out and walked a long the railway line past a quarry and you come to a wall and on top of the wall a hill and a rabbit warren of about five holes, my friend first entered his ferret which starting squealing and ran out for its life and he ran after it and caught it and then a few moments later my hob ferret did exactly the same thing. What we saw was a tiny polecat stick its head out of the hole and no lie the head on this thing was no bigger than a thumb, so I blocked up the holes and went back the next day with some dog food hoping to catch it. I found a small hole no bigger than if a mouse hole where it must’ve dug out and escaped. 

 

Snared polecat.

A friend and I found a polecat hob in a snare in a quarry many years ago and we removed the snare, we took it and put it down a rabbit hole and a rabbit ran out and the polecat ran out and grabbed it by the arse and pulled it back in, never seen a ferret so fast. At the time I couldn’t keep it and so I gifted it a Scottish guy I knew and he told me he put it down a rabbit hole and it ran out and legged it and he ran after it and he couldn’t catch it.

 

Silver Ferret.

One day I was at an allotment site where a woman had said she had seen a ferret and it was in a chicken allotment just over the fence and so I spoke to the guy who said he had a live rat trap and so I put a few cat biscuits in and waited the next morning I went and could hear the hens making a noise and I knew the ferret was there and it was in the trap and it was a silver hob ferret, I picked it up and it was squeezing out the gap and so I had no choice but to grab it and see if it was tame and so I did and it was very relaxed. I put it in a nice fresh cage and gave it some food and then I took it hunting and I put it in a large rabbit warren and it ran in a few seconds had bolted a rabbit turned round and straight back in and seconds later it had ran the whole warren and another rabbit bolted, there’s one thing about the wild caught ferrets they definitely have some speed about them. 

atb