WHY DO YOU HUNT

[jon8465 2]

Some great stories there lads. I started in my twenties when I shareda house with a couple of mates that went ferreting. I gave it up when I got married but divorced a couple of years back. Wanted to do something when I started to live on my own so I joined the local scout group as a leader and found out the other leader was into rabbit shooting so I got invited out with him and decided to get some ferrets to show him what fun it is. He loves it and can't wait to get out with them layer this year. He's religious and goes to church every week but says a few word whenever we make a kill. Now getting myself a dog to work over ferrets. I go hunting because I enjoy it with a friend and it gets me out evenings and weekends.

[Gaz_1989 9,539]

I think it's just in some people's blood from way back. My dad never hunted, nor did my grandad or my mates.

 

As a kid, probably 6 or 7 I would make mouse and rat traps in the garden.

 

At 10 I got a catapult and took the odd feathered victim.

 

At 12 I got my first air rifle and tried to teach my English bull terrier to retrieve - without much luck. Lol.

 

At 16 I got a Daysyate X2 sport, started getting some permission and looked into getting a beddy/whippet. I also started reading the countermans weekly and this got me hooked on ferreting and lurcher work.

 

Between 16 and 20 i never did get my lurcher with one thing and another, moving house, starting work and having a daughter.

 

At the age of 20 I got my first lurcher after going for a mooch on here with a bloke who had a litter of pups. Soon after that I got my terrier. At 18 months old I lost that dog lamping, he was never meant to be, we just didn't get on at all and I put that night down to fate.

 

For 6-8 months I just had my terrier and kept swapping between wanting a lurcher and a whippet.

 

I was on preloved one day and saw this bitch advertised as "3 year old rabbiting bitch, owner died so I'm rehoming her". The bloke knew nothing about her and just said she would have the odd rabbit on a walk, kill it and drop it.

 

To this day I don't know what made me get her, we just clicked and I really liked her temperament and something told me she would come good.

 

She is turning out a cracking dog, couldnt ask for any more.

 

And that's where I'm at now

[Richard Morgan 38]

a national past time for free nothing better to get away from the world grab the dogs and away over the fields half an hour or so its a different world u cant buy that.

[Carraghs Gem 1,675]

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[pbrookes 450]

My dad kept Lurchers and used to take me coursing from being little then when I was 12 bought me my first terrier for 25 quid from a dog show. The bookies was next door to the show and he said if I win you can have the dog. Well he won and I got him. The fog went everywhere with me and lived till he was 17. That dog introduced me to terrier work. The first time he went to ground and bolted a fox is still in my head 30 years on. Went back to that set every day for about 6 months hoping for another. Funnily enough still get em out of there to this day. Dave sleight used to go coursing with my dad and he got me interested in collie crosses when he used to take me lamping and ferreting . Mat some good mates from all over the world through hunting and seeing a good dog work still gives me the same buzz today as bolting that first fox with my old dog did 30 year ago.

[trigger2 3,129]

because i love it plain and simple.

 

[Bosun11 537]

Because I can't play golf....

[paulus 26]

something ive always done for as long as i can remember, ive tried most field sports over the years from fishing to hounds but always came back to the lurchers, nothing to beat the thrill of watching a lurcher you have bread, trained and sweated blood over preform well in the field, there is no better buzz for me and after more years than i care to admit that buzz is still there, even at school me and a mate bunked off down the local golf course to catch rabbits with gin traps looking back i wouldnt change a thing, apart from all the mistakes ive made

[artful212 394]

well none of my family hunted so it was chance for me when 1 was about 9 or 10

me and mates use to knock about some old factorys stealing and wrecking the place

the place was full of bunnies and hares and we use to bump into felas coursing all the time

me and a mate got friendly with a greyhound man who let us hunt his greyhounds to get them a kill

then we decided to get ferrets and i remember selling rabbits feet and tails in school for luck at 11plus lol

anyway we werent allowed a dog the greyhound man gt us a whippet greyhound called minx

we had brill few years we her until she killed a sheep and got mangled on barb wire fence

i got chance to go out wi few felas coursing when i was bout 14 kmck and po'n and sum gypo stole my fone

then i was working for my uncle and saved up and got a whippet bitch she killed bunnies but wasnt great

i carried on regardless then got into foxes and meeting other folk and the rest they say is history

and i wudnt change any of it my mum stil has the whippet as pet now she 14

[whippet 99 2,613]

Ever been asked that question, funny how a lot of guys that hunt when asked that question seem to get embarrased or start making excuses all depending on what company their talking to, why not nail your colours to the post. A couple of seasons ago i was out ferreting on some land that borders about 8 houses well out in the sticks, anyway had the longnet out and was just setting some purse nets when i glanced round to see a woman and a lad about 15 with her. Straight away i recognised her she runs a stall on the local market selling christian books and other jesus memorabilia shit i thought raving bloody anti just what i need. What you doing she asked, rabbiting i replied, oh do you mind if we watch she said, no i replied but be quiet, anyway collared the ferrets down they went and a couple of minutes later one in the net the dog pinned it i went and dispatched it the woman seemed fascinated that the dog took the rabbit but was totally indifferent to the ferrets, training i said, before long one came out of a pop hole and she saw the dogs course it catch it and retreive.Now her interest really came to the fore asking how the locater worked did it take long to train the dogs how did the nets work, and finally do you do this as a job, no i replied i do this as pest control but the main reason i do it is because i bloody well enjoy hunting. Postscript a couple of days ago i bumped into her lad and he asked me if i was up that way again would i like to see his ferrets, just proves you can convert the unconvertible. YIS KIC.

was wondering how penny taylor started off ..................................

[Millet 4,497]

I've never killed a thing in my life..it's so cruel the only hunting i do is on the net..i suppose it's a form of grooming..

[jambay5 191]

My Granddad kept racing greyhounds on his allotment, the guy a few down had a whippet and some ferrets, in the school holidays we always down there and the guy used to get us to handle the kits (not a euphemism) when i was a bit older he took me out ferreting and the rest as they say is history!! although while i was playing open age rugby i spent a few years not hunting!!

[rabbit mad 10]

Ive always had the dream of being self sufficient and living off the grid alltogether and ive also always had this fascination with poachers of old (mustve read too much fiction as a kid lol) I am very old fashioned in some ways and also dislike how majority of folk couldnt catch a carrot... And if something changed in the economy like greece for example... Millions struggling to survive without going to supermarkets etc for food, if something like that ever happens I want to be one of the few able to feed myself and my family

that is spot on what i have in my head.

[poacher3161 1,766]

Always thought poaching was more exsiteing than watching rotherham united play football. lol.

[skycat 6,173]

I hunt because nothing else comes close in terms of excitement, working with another species: the whole inter-species thing, forming a team with a dog, is what makes hunting special to me. Even in summer when I'm just exercising the dogs and they're working a river bank on the scent of some unseen sleek black prey, even without much real chance of actually getting it, that adrenalin thing kicks in and you're suddenly questing for something, and the outcome is never certain.

 

I see all these people just walking their dogs and I think how boring that must be. I have this hunger to find stuff, and if its edible so much the better. I think Robin Page got it right when he said that some people just have that hunting gene: a throwback to when we needed to hunt to survive.