bullmastiff 615 Posted January 17, 2014 Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Both me and Tess had a pretty hard weekend last weekend. Lamping all Friday night, Saturday morning and walking bloody miles in search of some quarry. Home, quick kip, then back out on a friends permission for a days mooching and shooting. Saturday night I contacted a friend to see if he was out lamping and got the message back saying they were going first thing in the morning and to be at his for 3.30am. Unfortunately there was a good film on so I sat up past midnight watching that instead of being sensible and getting my head down!! We were in the fields by 4.00am and had a bloody good morning With Tess managing three really good runs and another few holes in her chops... By 7.30am I was home refilling the flask and getting some sugary porridge down both me and Tess then out again to meet Chris at his house for a day's Ferreting! Rik couldn't make it this weekend due to work commitments so it was just Chris, his son, Tess and myself. As there was only two of us to net up, we decided to focus on the easier warrens that we could Long net. First Warren was in a fairly open bottomed hedge on a bit of banking at the edge of a Turnip field and was about twenty yards long. Chris set about getting the long nets down whilst I cleared the debris through the hedge for the nets to go through. Ferrets in and within a few Min's the first rabbit popped out to sit next to the hole and sat watching me and Chris's boy before it took off up the hedge and into the net. First one was in the bag! Next one kept hole popping and giving the Ferrets and Tess a bit of a run around, it had been having a staring competition with Tess from inside one of the holes for a minutes or two. Luckily Tess didn't jump in and scare it back down. After another minute of mucking about it decided to risk it and headed down the hedge and into the net near Chris. Number two in the bag! Number three came out shortly after, again on Chris's side but run back up and through the hedge to get caught on my side. On the video you can see Tess come flying past me having jumped off camera and landing 12-15feet to my right, pushing through the hedge and very nearly picking it up just in front of Chris. She kept the pressure on it until it hit the net then did the usual and showed absolutely no regard for the net at all, trying to retrieve it net and all!! (what happens when you don't introduce them to nets until 2-3yrs old!!) One more Rabbit was in there holed up by the ferrets but with a dig varying from 4-6ft on the box we decided to pick up the ferrets as they showed and move on! Next bury is set into a 8ft deep ditch and it's on the field side of the ditch so again is a really easy one to net up. Pocket full of purse nets each and we had it netted in no time. Again ran two Ferrets through and shortly had two more bunnies in the bag with one of them fielded nicely by Chris's lad! (hopefully Chris has some footage from his camera) We tried one more on this bank but although it showed fresh droppings outside and looked really fresh, we didn't get anything. We had decided to cross over to the other side of the road and try up near the wood when unfortunately something came out the hedge in front of us. Shouted at Tess but it was too late, off across the wintered stubble and Tess had it. Bit embarrassing as it was in front of Chris and his son but there was nothing I could do about it... We got ourselves sorted and set off to the next warren, we had been fairly successful here before on occasion but when we arrived it looked deserted with no droppings and leaves and debris in most of the holes. Although it's fairly long and has all sorts of rubbish in the hedge, it's a fairly easy one to net and Tess was showing a bit of interest around some of the holes so we thought we'd give it a go any way. Chris got to work with the Long nets again whilst I cleared the hole through the hedge for the stop net. Once we'd netted up two Ferrets were entered and we sat back to wait for the action to start. It wasn't long before the first Rabbit came running up the inside of the hedge, Tess managed to keep some pressure on it so it didn't have time to get back to ground and it bounded straight into the net. Shortly followed by another into the exact same part of the net! Nº6 and 7 in the bag and there's more rustling as leaves are flung from a hole next to Chris's boy as another Rabbit launches up the hedge. Tess got behind it through the hedge but couldn't get close enough to put it under pressure, so it slipped down a hole near the top of the Warren. Almost immediately after, a Rabbit comes barreling back down the hedge so I presumed the escapee had run straight into the jaws of the second Ferret underground and turned and fled back? either way it was back down in the warren and the Ferrets showed on the surface, so both were put in where the Rabbit had gone down. Off they shot with none of the usual little 'shake and sniff' before going to ground. Chris's son had been checking out the bottom of the warren were we couldn't quite get the stop net to cover one of the holes due to several strands of barbed wire running through the hedge. He'd noticed the purse net I'd set was strung through the stop net and down another hole.... quick fumble about pulling on the draw cord and Nº 8 was in the bag!! (lucky we like to push them pegs home so far!!) Nº 9 was a quick run for Tess through the hedge and it got picked up just outside the hedge before it got to the nets. It had all gone quiet and the Ferrets were starting to show at several holes so we decided to pick up, on the way back to the Ferret box I still had a niggling feeling that the rabbit that had escaped at the top of the warren and the one that had run back down were different Rabbits so I popped the Ferret back in right in the top hole at the far end. 30 seconds later and Nº10 hit the nets, Result, double figures!! The black clouds had started to swing in and the wind was picking up, so with the weather forecast of yet more torrential downpours and flooding in the back of our minds we decided to pack up. Chris's son had other plans though and convinced us to do 'just one more'. It was only a smallish 7-8 holer, in a thick, tight bottomed hedge, close to the road so Tess was tied to the spade and we got netted up. Just the one Ferret this time, we sat back to wait. After waiting for several minutes (which felt like hours!) and with visions of ending the day with a horrible dig in the bottom of this tight thorny hedge, a Rabbit tried sneaking out. Even though it was caught in the net it kept trying to sneak off until Chris managed to climb into it too grab the net. Nº11, Whoop! Whoop! Easy catches, no digging, hardly any crawling around in thorns or nettles and finished by 3.00pm with double figures! I could get used to Ferreting like this!! Heading home with thoughts of a hot shower, roast dinner and bed, I remembered I had a boot full of meat to sort out... I finally got home at 9.30pm, had a slap about with a flannel, a bowl of the wife's Special K and passed out on the sofa! Not quite what I had envisaged! lol. Still, I had a cracking time and did several different types of hunting over the weekend. Life doesn't get much better!! Anyway here's the video, Apologies for the quality but trying to ferret and film at the same time doesn't tend to work too well! 2 Quote Link to post
bullmastiff 615 Posted January 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2014 Bloody hell, I didn't realise how long that was!!! sorry.... Quote Link to post
chrismdd 787 Posted January 18, 2014 Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 Cheers for the write-up Luke. I've been spending the last few days battling with that cheap HD camera of mine and doing my first ever edit and upload of video, so here go my first ever efforts (I'm no Spielberg!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiBnfdy6Hq4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7eifNXfFLc and an end of day shot: http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/tt242/chrismdd/Kaelanandthehaul120114_zps90011819.jpg Chris 4 Quote Link to post
breeze 1,336 Posted January 18, 2014 Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 You don't own a Black lab type called Benson aswell mate do you ? Only joking mate . .. . Good little vid that is Quote Link to post
Tiny 7 1,694 Posted January 18, 2014 Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 Great little write and vid Quote Link to post
socks 32,253 Posted January 18, 2014 Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 You need to teach the karate kid how to kill a rabbit quicker .......... 2 Quote Link to post
bryson 562 Posted January 18, 2014 Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 great write up and good vids lads great to see the youngen out enjoying himself Quote Link to post
bullmastiff 615 Posted January 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2014 You don't own a Black lab type called Benson aswell mate do you ? Only joking mate . .. . Good little vid that is Yeah, I hadn't realised how much I shout at her until I started filming! I should give her more credit and leave her to get on with it really. I tend to shout a bit when Tess is right behind them, she's flattened Chris's nets a few times and I keep thinking she's going to break/rip them! Also on that last Warren there was loose Barbed wire strung through the hedge and three strands of tight Barbed wire on the far side that she kept bouncing off. She doesn't seem to care but I keep seeing the vets bills floating in front of my eyes!! lol Quote Link to post
ArchieHood 3,692 Posted February 1, 2014 Report Share Posted February 1, 2014 Excellent post Luke, dont know how you remember it all...... Hope tomorrow is a good day, look forward to meeting up with you both............ Quote Link to post
The one 8,529 Posted February 1, 2014 Report Share Posted February 1, 2014 Nice bit of film mate Quote Link to post
Geordieboy 23 Posted February 1, 2014 Report Share Posted February 1, 2014 Cracking read mate, really enjoyed it Quote Link to post
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