Ratting with Owen Vining

[zini 1,939]

Well lads,

 

This is just some of the rats that I and Owen Vining shot last night down at Newbottle farm assisting Mark Vining in keeping there numbers down a bit .

 

There were probably another 30 or more that were shot that we couldn’t retrieve due to where they fell in between the farming machinery and behind false walls ect.

 

Mark Vining was kind enough to borrow me his NV scope and Owen was using his own one so we were doing a pitch black attack on the rats.

 

I haven’t seen that many rats in one place in my life. What we shot I would guess are not 1% of what are still there. Some of them rats are of monstrous size.

 

In one pig pen I and Owen witnessed a 8 to10 metre beam of wood with rats head to tail the whole distance 3 rats high (no bull). There must have been hundreds of them literally.

 

There were so many that the roof fell in in that pen when we started shooting the rats and they went crazy. A string of 5 or 6 rats were easy before they run through holes in the pens to hide.

 

Most of the rats were shot at no further than 10 metres with maybe 10 at the most shot further between 10 and 24 metres.

 

Owen was deadly as ever and was even knocking rats over while they were on the run using his shot gunning skills following the rats through his scope just keeping in front of the rats noses before pulling the trigger.

 

Classic shooting Owen and very humanely done pal I haven’t got that type of skill but I wish I did.

 

Guys this lad is amazing with an air rifle and his shooting is spot on. There weren’t many rats that needed a second shot to dispatch them and 99% of them were killed with either a head of heart shot from us both.

 

Thanks Mark, Emma and Owen for a lovely weekend and for the huge joint of pig that you gave us.

 

Regards

 

Si and LJ.

[zini 1,939]

More pics

 

Si

[19powell90 89]

nice post si

 

thats alot of rats

 

i would love to land a good ratting permission - heard so many hunters say that ratting is a great experience.

 

atb

 

scott

[owen vining 5]

Hi Si,

 

Well it was a real good night.

 

When you left this morning Mark me and my grandad we were plinking cans at metres.

 

Thanks for a good night shooting and see you when you get back from Canada.

 

Thanks Mark aswell.

 

Owen

[Ron Weasley 83]

Good on you lads! Looks a great night's work.

[secretagentmole 1,701]

They are not rats, they are cats!

[lighthunter 81]

good on you si,top ratting as always owen you are the one to watch in the future nice one guys.

[rossi_j 99]

Big bag. . .

 

Fat rats. . .

 

Top shooting. . .

 

Job done

 

Nice one lads.

 

.atb. .ste.

[fazerman 3]

the worlds a lot better place without these dirty little fookers so welldone and good shooting lads a truely superb size bag.

[zini 1,939]

thanks lads for commenting.

 

Sounds like you had some fun this morning owen buddy.

 

metres is a great bit of distance shooting buddy well done.

 

Glad that you enjoyed the day and night that we had together woody bashing and then later ratting i know i did mate.

 

Best of luck at the meet next month pal.

 

Best of wishes and love from me and laura

 

si

[pipa 299]

great shooting guys! sounds like a bad infestation of rats he has? what night vision scopes did you both use? looks like the pulsar one? and what you think of them? chris

[gurtwurz 792]

fekk! top work lads, that must've been an awesome night. excellent work all round-owen, youre a future star in the making mate, i expect to see you writing for a magazine in a few years buddy, youre a 'young john darling' mate, spot on

 

si, i expect no less from you buddy, cracking riflework as ever mate.

 

all the very best, wurz

[pianoman 3,587]

Aww Rat shooting is just the best sport of all I reckon. If only my rabbit shoots were as prolific in numbers! That's great to read what young Mark is up to with his shooting too. Makes up for the lack of sport on my permission the other night Si, I'm glad to see for you mate!

 

Simon

[zini 1,939]

Thanks lads.

 

Hi Pipa,

 

No there wasn’t a Pulsar NV550 model there pal. I wish I did have one though to film with as I would have got enough rat footage for a DVD rat shooting section in on night.

 

I don’t know what make and model Owen was using, but I do know that Owen was using a powerful Yukon extra IR illuminator that was awesome on his. It was like daylight through his scope.

 

Mine that I borrowed from Mark Vining was a D50 Pro model with mildot illuminated reticle.

 

It was a very nice model and ideal for ratting and medium range bunny shooting. Stick an extra IR illuminator on it and it would be awesome to for max range bunny sniping.

 

I want the Pulsar myself though Pipa and am saving slowly for it. It could be a good buy after my trip to Canada. I rate it as probably the best NV scope on the market for what I would use it for. The digital generation is as good as a gen2+ quality NV scope for over half the price less.

 

ATB

 

Si.

[fry 209]

good shooting its sounds like a plague of biblical proportions i lived on a small farm 20 years ago with a small land fill close by and when they had filled it and landscaped it a lot of rats took up residence with us. at the time i had a tatty old springer some one gave me an shot a few but the thing that really sorted them out was a very tame ferret i had! i stopped keeping him in a cage and he lived in a box in an out building and slept all day and in the evening would come runnin down when called for his tea.any way he could go where the rats could and killed them for the sake of it and cleard them out over a few weeks! i know this sounds far fetched but its true he went from being caged and snappy to living loose because my rottwieller rolled on him and i had to hand feed him in the house by the fire for weeks and it seemed pointless lockin him up again. he just dissapeared one day dont know where he went.

this is a pic of him in a tequilla hat with me an the late great hagar (RIP) no comments about my hair thank you. do people use ferrets to kill rats? p.s not doing a hijack just wondering if this may be a way to get the filthy rat population down, ATB frank