pics ov your biggest hobs

[lampingkid 56]

that pretty big

[stroller 341]

ive worked all shapes and sizes and i dont have a preferance. i use a med sized hob a bit of a plodder and not too bright but the bunnys bolt well from him, alternatively i have a tiny jill who literally gallops around the sets often running overland and diving back down holes like a stoat and she bolts the rabbits well. but like everyone i have a favourite and she is a largish jill that is totally focused on the job

[celtic 28]

i like working way big ferrets and wee ferrets not yet try my new boys but will doing it next sunday

[bullmastiff 615]

When I was younger we always bought a Hob as large as possible to work, we never bred our own as the local papers were always full of ferrets for free.

Most large Hobs just look big because their fat and thicker haired. We always looked for a decent coat on the ferret, if it was fat then it didn't matter, it would soon work that off!

We only ever had one collar so would work up to 4 medium sized Jills (just fit through a net) uncollared in large buries but if it went quiet for several minutes then the collared Hob would be sent in to move the Jill on and mark for the dig.

We also used it for Rats. Most of the size is muscle and fat, they can actually squeeze through pretty small holes and can happily follow a rat about most places, we tried ratting with Jills but had a few get killed, never had a large hob killed though....

 

Took a tiny little ferret off an old guy once, it was in about 4" of sh*t, in a tiny cage with four others and in a terrible state. He wouldn't sell them to me so I went back and stole them.... Not proud of it but I was 13 and horrified of the state they were in (ferrets were my life at the time!)

Four of them died within a few weeks of getting them but one survived. It was tiny and a Hellcat!! managed to get it used to being handled (just) and got it working, it was like a Ferrari Ferret! flashing through the holes, nets and hedges. Not too bad if your working with a few people but if your on your own, a few Rabbits hitting the nets almost simultaneously was hard to deal with!

Just didn't like the speed the small ones worked, they would burn out so quick you had to quit by lunchtime.

 

I did't get any photo's of the Hobs but got one of my Jills.

Edited December 5, 2011 by bullmastiff

[KittleRox 2,147]

Good Post

[old school 562]

i dont mean to go off topic but i wanted to find out something..... Now, i'm not into ferrets in anyway really but i used to have mates that bought, swapped and sold ferrets regularly, i know that the biggest problem they had were skulkers that cant be caught or biters!! i dont think i've ever heard of them talk about a ferret that wouldnt work, especially if it was hungry!! i got given a wee jill that would run holes and do nothin but after it seen a draw with the mates hob it was a blood thirsty wee rascal .. so can they not all work eventually?? and is the skulkers and biters not just down to poor handling??

[pj1967 2]

is there a need for such big lumps?,genuine question what they gonna achieve any better compared to shall we say the size of your average jill id think they lay up regular and be fecking nightmare with the nets,certainly not for me,but im often wrong

I like to use hobs with longnets & jills with purse nets & my biggest hob i use like a liner with a mk3 on instead of a line. A lot of people tell me theres no need for a liner with modern technology etc. But i believe in keeping old traditions alive & there may come a day when your batterys fail or the knockerbox stops working.

[bullmastiff 615]

But i believe in keeping old traditions alive & there may come a day when your batterys fail or the knockerbox stops working.

 

Another way I got taught was using Brambles to find the rabbit in the stop end.

Strip all but the end thorns off a straight piece of bramble about two-three foot long then poke it down each hole. You can feel a surprising amount and tell which way the holes go and dig on about 5 feet intervals at a time. If the rabbits holed up in a stop end then the thorns rack some of the fur off and it sticks to the end.