Digging or ferreting?

[DottyDoo 500]

Just my way of working,I,m not criticising other peoples methods,I,m not a pro pest controller,just a hobby,

 

and dotty as for ma name being mud I couldn,t give a flying fxck,

 

 

 

i wasnae slating anybody all i was sayin some places its cool, some its not

 

i ferret a farm on me doorstep, on there hedges an river banking i can afford to be a wee bit laxie dazy so tae speak.....

 

however now an again i get a phone call that the veg/herb garden gate was left open an bunnys are in there, if i was to go ferret them out, leave an closethe gate behind me, an leave a bunny in there, im sure the farmer would start questionin my skills

 

also if you get payed for jobs, they need to be clear if ye say they are clear

aye mate,I,ve just fell oot wi the wife,

 

 

[stealthy1 3,964]

Had two digs this year, both to killed rabbits in stopends

[comanche 3,071]

As a youngster digging was something that I avoided . For a start I was quite weedy and anyway my spade skills extended no further than tickling the soil to find a few fishing worms .

If my ferret-a gigantic hob called Sidney,given to me because he was supposedly too big for work -stuck I waited until it came back , was thankfull for its return and depending on the time either moved -on to another burrow or went home . It was just part of the game .

As I became more experienced I realised that digging wasn't something other folk did . Once I aquired a jill and started using Sidney only as a liner(and taking my mum's whippet along as a marker and back-stop)things started running more smoothly but it also became pretty obvious that by not diggiong I'd missed-out on a few rabbits in the past . How often were the lay-ups only a foot or two down ?.

Nowadays digging is just part of the game . Something to be avoided by being quiet,staying out of sight of the holes and keeping the dog still but nothing to be feared and often profitable .

To be honest on big days when I'm working with my mate and his lad dealing with sprawling burrows of several hundred holes it is a rare day when we don't have the odd dig.

 

On the other hand . This afternoon I went out with ten rubbishy old nylon nets and a ferret in my pockets .

It was just a spuddle-about to sharpen the dog's marking and hopefully put a bunny in the game-pocket . Three little burrows and four bunnies later we went home more than happy with the result .

It was just like stepping back 40 years to the days when all I actually owned was ten nets ( and don't them spindly old nylon things catch well when you do bother to clear the brambles and debris from the holes !) .

Just like then ,if the ferret had stuck I'd have been late home for tea !.

 

The late Fred Taylor got it right to my mind when he wrote something along the lines ," free-running jills bolting rabbits cleanly into nets is ferreting at its purist ".

 

Doesn't always work that way of course .

Edited December 17, 2010 by comanche

[bush wacker 77]

( and don't them spindly old nylon things catch well when you do bother to clear the brambles and debris from the holes !).

thats why i love 4z nets ive got 10 hemp but never use them unless i have to,ive not had a bunny get out a 4z net yet,but i loose 2 out of 3 with the hemp one

[The one 8,507]

Think ive half replied to this in another thread.

If im ferreting new permission and the rabbits havent seen a ferret they tend to fly out,if im ferreting where some one else has tried and for what ever reason the rabbits have seen a ferret before my ferrets will bottle them up and ive got to dig them out .

I think a few folk try bigger places than they have gear or ferrets and once a rabbits found its safer underground in a stop end it will try that again .

[theferreter 311]

only had the spade out 4 times this season all to dig out a hob

[tote 856]

So it seems some people dig A LOT of holes when they go out. Realistically how much digging do you do over a season? We've had ONE so far. . . . and maybe 2 more times when we have had a kill but it wasn't somewhere that could be dug to. We are not super quiet, my partner smokes and the rabbits have often been chased by dogs, and the holes are marked by the dogs having a good sniff. Yes the rabbits are sometimes VERY hard to bolt, but bolt they do eventually, even if it is eyeless. So what gives with all the digging? Not knocking it just wondered how come everyone else seems to be doing it several times everytime . . . . .

 

They don't always bolt mate.

 

Have you read this thread?

 

http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/180313-a-sad-day-ferreting/

 

Sometimes not digging isn't an option, the above won't be the first time a ferret has got caught on the wrong side of rabbits in a stop end. Imagine this scenario, a jill has got a ferret bottled up in a stop end, she works away at it and eventually manages to get over it and ends up in the stop end. Another rabbit or rabbits appear and press up against the first one jamming it into the ferret who ends up well and truely stuck. You have two options, 1- wait untill the rabbits move so the ferret can come out, could take half an hour but would probably take far longer, sometimes hours. Or 2- get the locater out and get digging which would useally be the quicker option.

[Ideation 8,216]

So it seems some people dig A LOT of holes when they go out. Realistically how much digging do you do over a season? We've had ONE so far. . . . and maybe 2 more times when we have had a kill but it wasn't somewhere that could be dug to. We are not super quiet, my partner smokes and the rabbits have often been chased by dogs, and the holes are marked by the dogs having a good sniff. Yes the rabbits are sometimes VERY hard to bolt, but bolt they do eventually, even if it is eyeless. So what gives with all the digging? Not knocking it just wondered how come everyone else seems to be doing it several times everytime . . . . .

 

They don't always bolt mate.

 

Have you read this thread?

 

http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/180313-a-sad-day-ferreting/

 

Sometimes not digging isn't an option, the above won't be the first time a ferret has got caught on the wrong side of rabbits in a stop end. Imagine this scenario, a jill has got a ferret bottled up in a stop end, she works away at it and eventually manages to get over it and ends up in the stop end. Another rabbit or rabbits appear and press up against the first one jamming it into the ferret who ends up well and truely stuck. You have two options, 1- wait untill the rabbits move so the ferret can come out, could take half an hour but would probably take far longer, sometimes hours. Or 2- get the locater out and get digging which would useally be the quicker option.

 

 

Yes mate, i fully accept that and use locators and will dig when needed, all i was saying was its funny cos there are a lot of people on here who ferret and use very similar methods and understand the 'rules' to getting bolts, and yet some people seem to dig several times everytime they are out whereas others can count the digs of a season on one hand.

 

We had a b*****d the other day, tucked up deep under tree roots in a one holer, the rabbit managed to squeeze into a spot that couldnt be dug and where the ferret couldnt get to anything but a couple of inch square piece of the rabbits back and couldnt get past to the head/neck end.. The jill in will not leave until she has killed, handy if you can dig, but in this case it meant a long wait.

 

But then i've seen rabbits bolt, get grabbed by the head by a dog, managed to kick back into the set and still bolt 2 mins later. . . . . . . so who knows. . . .

[Gerry48 10]

Each to their own realy mate hey? Personly I never put a ferret to ground without a collar so I can always tell exactly were they are in the warren.I personly prefer to do several small warrens in a day and keep on the move than stay at one or two large ones so with good ferrets we tend to give them 15mins after the last bolt and if we havn't seen them we'll get a mark on them.After which a fag and a cup of coffee and if they still havn't moved we whip them out.In my part of the world they are rarely more than three feet deep so doesn't take long and then your off to the next burrow.

Couple of weeks ago we had a 4 and two 2's in stop ends and two singles by the spade which put an extra ten in the bag for the day.So to me that more than makes up for a bit of digging.

 

But as I say it's each to their own and as long as you are happy doing things the way you do them thats all it's about

 

ATB

[Gerry48 10]

Spot on mate.