Ratting With Dillan _3

[Phantom 631]

Last night Dillan and I went back to the Pig Farm for another Ratting session.

 

We stood and had a chat with the farm manager before we made our way to the sheds. Dillan had left the 100 with the NV Camera and light at home this time and had with him his Scorpion with a multishot magazine. We were both looking forward to hammering them good style this evening The sky was dark (sunningly dark skies out that way on the Milky Way is clearly visible) and there was a fair gentle breaze blowing towards us. So we both figured that it was going to be a great night with figures running into multiple dozens

 

Unfortunately the farm had more or less been flooded by the torential and persistant rain of late and this is what I am thinking caused the relatively low results.

 

I made my way over to the Shed of Horror *see my 1st ratting experiance for that title* :11:

Opening the window shutter at the end I put my baby in, flicked on the lamp and hey presto a large Scally tail appeared out of one of the feed hoppers to see my lamp. It immediately started heading in my direction and I knew exactly where it was making its way to. It would have come another two hoppers over turned right, ran along the pen wall and scaled the water pipe into the roof! This seems to be a favourite escape route for them. So I was ready with my crosshair on the second pen next to the hopper, sure enough Ratty apeared and I let the 16grain FX Micromissile loose, A streak of yellow left my gun and slammed into the large Rodent ripping a hole through the front of the chest, causing Ratty to jump up and do a combined backwards flip and barrel roll to his right, landing superbly on his back stone cold dead in the hopper

 

I then proceeded to the "R1 Highway" and from there have to I swap hands and shoot left handed, although I later found out that now I have changed the position of my lamp I can now use my normal shooting stance there Crosshairs in the direction and up went the 1ststage of the trigger. On went the lamp and I was greeted for the 1st time with an entirely clean gutter without a single body or any "high speed highway users" The rain must have been heavy round here to wash all the gutter (highway) clean. I then proceeded to the shed with the gate; this is the shed where I had the displeasure of having one of these ballsey rodents use my scope as a springboard onto my arm and my arm as a bridge to get onto the gate.

Lamp on I quicly scanned the "High Dive Corner" where they jump down onto any unsuspecting rifleman, It was clear so over the gate into the shed my rifle went, following along the wall to the right, I saw what was obviously a mouse FAIL it was a tiny Rat no bigger than 2 inches in length + tail. It was moving at speed and I failed to get a bead on it before it vanished through a hole in the breezeblock wall.

Quickly I scanned for other movements and caught a bright glint further down the shed I trained my scope on the glint, it was a piglet Remember guy's always confirm your quarry before letting off a shot.

 

My second shot came as I went down the side of the "Farrowing Shed" So far, this has produced shot after shot worth of rats. I slid into position close up against the corner (as I would be backlit and a sudden movement of black will spook them), My baby shouldered, eye at scope; Turning left I flicked on the lamp and there were a dozen or more eyes, glowing like orange gems, crosshair settled on the first as it did, up went the 1st stage, quickly followed by the scondstage and click, phut another streak of yellow made its way towards old scaly tail at about 20 yards. The yellow streak vanished as the rodent rolled over off the rubbish it was sitting on. Its mates just looked on. Off went the lamp and a second or two later another 16grainer was in the breech. Lamp on and this time the crosshair settled on another rodent, a millisecond later another yellow streak launched from my muzzle and embedded itself in another rodent that went down but began jumping and fell down the opening to the drain. Same again And thats three down in that one little gap between the sheds.

This time though; the others didn't hang around to see what was happening and I saw eyes begin to move leaving only the two bodies.

Next I moved into the farrowing shed, moving from one isle to the other and then moving down to the far end into another section that is usually in darkness this time it was well lit with flourescent lights. I couldn't find the switch to turn them off

Not a single rat was seen within this shed

 

I went back to the previously productive spot where I dropped another 4, most falling into either holes or the breaks into the drains and even with my surgical gloves on and my long forcepts I was not willing to recover any of those from the revolting liquid that had soaked them

I again began to move from shed to shed, I scored a very young Rodent as it climbed the wall above some pig 'houses', It dropped to the roof of the houses where I watched it flip about for a second or so then its tail stood up like a little arial mast, before it slowly lowered until out of sight. I had another small one from the same area later, this one made it to the top of the wall, the shot punched its way right through the skinny young one and hit the Iron girder behind, bouncing back and knocking the fatally wounded animal off the wall. It hit the top of the little pig houses where it remained unmoving.

 

I went back to the R1 where I saw a huge Sitter, just staring at me! Another ballsey fearless rodent.

This one was going to be easy and looking at the size of it I needed to recover it, one of the biggest I've seen and its just waiting for me to slap the lead right between its shiney eyeballs. Crosshair directly on its forhead, 1st stage up, second stage gone, I saw the yellow streak of light as it reflected off the back of the pellet and to my total amazement the pellet whipped over the forehead of the animal, right between the ears

Damn F K! I had missjudged the range and I should have aimed at the nose.

That was to have been the very best shot of the night, resulting in a monster of a rodent. Instead it turned out to be the worst.

I was hoping to put this thing against the tyre of the LandRover to give you all a sense of how big these things were. I kicked myself mentally and verbally. "Next time you dumb ass aim for the fecking snotter!" I heard myself saying out loud.

Another trip to the end of the building next to the R1 had me putting the gun through and flicking on the lamp, I saw the butt end of one Rat, making its way away from me, it turned left near a cardboard box and down into a pen, It was of course a no shoot!

 

The strange thing though was this Rodent appeared to be BLACK in colour and although fat, it seemed shorter in body length than the others.

 

My final shot of the night came as I walked the length of the 3rd shed, I rememberd those last couple of occasions when the rats had climbed up the water pipes and int the roof space. So I walked down, with the lamp on. I came to an area where Dillan had mentioned a nest in the roof.

Sure enough there was a nose and whiskers twitching, It couldnt see me and it thought it self safe tucked up in its nest. How wrong! I placed the silencer on the beam at about what was deffinately what you call PBR :11:

 

Still sniffing the air between the nest and the asbestos type roof I squeezed the trigger and the rodents head exploded backwards and upwards with what sounded like a loud POP inside the roof space. I heard the pellet strike the Iron Girder at the top of the building. As Dillan said "I couldn't have missed that one if I'd tried!"

 

Here are three of the ones I could recover easily. The large one was the first shot of the night, the others are the sort of size you'd maybe expect to find running around an infested house.

 

Close up

 

Not sure of the total count, I know I had at least a dozen confirmed (not all mentioned).

 

And I'm not sure what Dillan's body count was, but although it had been extremely quiet compared to the last couple of trips, it was still an exciting time and again I owe massive thanks to Dillan

 

All the best

 

Phantom

[Sweeney-Todd 208]

Hi Tony.

 

Brilliant write up mate

 

Me think's you are liking this Rodent hunting

Sound's like a good permission there with a good bit of work to do.

 

Good pictures mate

 

SP for the count.

 

 

ATB.

 

 

Bill.

[venomviper 129]

hi ya tony me old pal

good to see you at the dirty rats matey

and the write up was fantastic to plus piccies as well

and tony pal the website has brought me so much work in as well thank you very much buddy

 

shay

[stealthy1 3,964]

The top one's a right fat f**ker, looks like its swallowed a piglet, have a slut mate

[ArchieHood 3,692]

Now were cooking Tony Gets the old heart going done it Just found that book about the Rat I offered you about 3 years ago.Drop me a line and I'll get it in the post.

[redeye jedi 39]

cracking write up there phantom.

[dillan 19]

Good write up Phantom and session, almost feels like I was there

Yes, not the bestest of nights, managed to get 9 shots off with 6 for the bag, they didnt appear to be playing the white man last night, I feel the night cam would have been more productive for me in a static position, it appeared that every time I spied my quarry with the red lamp they slinked off as I just found them with my cross hairs.

Dillan

[dillan 19]

Just got the clearance from our lass for another session at the rats for tomorrow night if you fancy a session Phantom

Dillan

[davyt63 1,845]

hi phantom/dillan

well done lads nice to see forum members getting out with each other

 

regards

 

davy

[hunter1989 91]

hi lads

 

nice read up and shooting,sp awarded

[andyz 30]

Nice write up Tony, never been ratting myself fr what I can gather they can be very hardy buggers to kill.

 

Good shooting as always.....

 

ALB, Andy

[rossy08 33]

Nice write up Tony, never been ratting myself fr what I can gather they can be very hardy buggers to kill.

 

Good shooting as always.....

 

ALB, Andy

 

 

nice going there phantom, hows things been not been able to get on hear for ages.

 

good to see youv been keeping up the good work though pal.

 

atb

Andy

[festa 206]

nice write up there tony buddy looks like you had fun

 

atb gary

[Phantom 631]

@ Sweeney-Todd

Cheers Bill, Yeah its a bloody good permission , its such a shame the two local pig farms to me have gone

After that 1st time, I'm ready for anything It was a quiet night; either most had drowned due to the place been flooded or Dillan; his normal shooting buddy and I making a great impact

Still even if most had drowned due to the flooding, they'll soon be back in numbers (could explain why so many babies were seen and shot).

 

 

 

@ 'venomviper'

Cool; It took me a bit of time to think of the appropriate metadata (data about the data in the site) so the search engines may pick it up more easily for you. Any update's you know where I am

 

@'stealthy1'

Cheers Stealthy; that big f**ker, was really not that big Compared to some, we've seen there

That one was a good 22inch from nose to tail; and believe me when I say thats nowhere near the biggest we've seen.

Dillan was at a feed silo for ages waiting for this big fecker to put more than its whiskers out! We were both waiting guns shouldered for quite a while aiming at the point between the silo and a girder for that fecker to show itself. I only caught a quick glance of it as it ducked back into safety But I think it was gonna take a lot of lead to knock that fecker off. Jeeze my cat looked small by comparrison

 

We'll get one of them huge feckers one day that we will be able to recover and have a tape measure or summat to measure them with.

 

@'ArchieHood'

 

Archie my good Sir, PM inbound I look forward to reading it

 

@'redeye jedi'

Cheers Buddy

 

 

@'dillan'

I dunno buddy, It was another fantastic experiance at the rats; I am truely greatful to you

It was a big fooker wasn't it? One day it will be brave enough to meet a couple of pellets from us

 

:11: I'm typing out this reply and you ring me :11: See you in half hour buddy

 

 

@'davyt63'

Yeah its a real pleasure to share a shoot, People only have to drop me a PM and they can have a gander and a shoot at either of my two main permissions

 

@'andyz'

Andy, until Dillan offered me a shoot neither had I. Its an experiance and a half . Scarry as sh!te the first time Read my 1st write up and laugh your ass off

 

@ 'rossy08'Andy, Just made a comment on another thread re: you and Gringo Welcome Back

 

 

@ 'festa'

OoooooH Yeeeeahssss ?Its allways been great around there

 

 

 

Right,

Dillan just rang me, so gotta go pump up the baby SOOOOOooooo glad I purchased another tin of FX today

 

TTFN

 

Phantom

 

sorry for late reply guy's Apparently I quoted too many people . So it wouldn't let me post it yesterday as I wrote the replies

[zini 1,939]

Yet again an excellent read Tony buddy.

 

SP awarded

 

Good to see that Dillan is sharing with you and you two are getting out together and enjoying some quality time smashing rats.

 

I was going to put banging some rats but I though Bill would of been on to that comment faster than I could edit it LOL

 

You still up for New Year at mine and Laura’s new flat buddy in Germany? We really are looking forward to having you for 2 or 3 weeks, however long you wish to stay, your really welcome Tony and we will treat you like a king buddy while your with us.

 

Both I and Laura think highly of you mate and you know if you ever need anything where we both are

 

We have already bought your Christmas present pal. I'm sure you will love it. Im not telling you what it is as it’s a secret mate.

 

Si

Edited October 7, 2010 by zini