Ratting, First Time Out In A Long Time!

[RemyBolt 420]

Be prepared for a long winded story. Hope it's entertaining for you.

 

Well, yesterday was my first secret from my wife. She is a veggie and I'm a fan of burgers, steak, chicken breast, venison, and going out to get it myself! So yesterday, I was being chauffeured around a chicken farm, getting to know the lay of the land, learn the house (it's a barn, but they call it a house) numbers and which need the most work. It was a beasty Ford truck, and the land was pretty 'rugged', so please don't think I'm one of those hunters that is literally chauffeured around. I'm not that rich.....yet haha.

 

The first house was referred to as being 'riddled' so I'm thinking "Right, this will be fun". My previous hunting has been year of rats and pigeons since I was a kid, and quite a few rabbit outings in my early 20's (my parent's were not fans of me hunting, so I had to hide it even as a kid....pretty crazy hu?). So I'm there, with my Crossman RatCatcher. It's a single shot, bolty reload.

 

So it's a riddled house and thus it's going to be an easy shot...but I totally overlooked the fact that we had a ratting dog with us! As soon as we got into the house, the dog shot off and bust up a rat in the first 5 seconds! So I line up, distracted by the dog's brilliance and *POP* totally miss the rat I was aiming at. Not a good start. To make matters worse, while the other 8 rats scattered, 2 of them ran towards me and up the door frame I was stood in. So I grab my knife, flick open the blade, and get ready to slam the blade through the nearest rat. I refuse to be made a fool of! By the time I had my knife out, the rats had cleared the ground infront of my, and had managed to pass within a foot of my face, up and over the doorframe and into hiding!

 

Okay, that means the hunter is 0:1 to the dog.

 

Then the real embarrassment occurs. TAIL ENTICEMENT! We've all had it. You know when you can see the tail of the rat hanging down, and you can't get the shot to shoot it, but when you go to grab the tail and stab the rat, the tail is pulled up before you can grab it! Three different Tail Enticements in the next few minutes.

 

One word of note, my previous ratting has been with normal rats. You know the kind that are seen in Pets at Home and other pet stores. Well, these things were like Ratzilla! I've seen cats smaller than some of these things. I always used to laugh when my friends would tell me of these giant rats they had shot up. I've never seen them, so they must be fake. Well, I stand well corrected. To my childhood friends....you're still lying about the huge rats you shot!!! haha

 

So we move on to the next 'house'.

 

This house apparently is not as bad as the first. When we get there, my friend runs infront of me and delays my entry. Considering he didn't have a firearm at all, it was a bit frustrating. I don't mind him doing that, but the issue is that he's not seen me shoot before. So I'm then having to shoot a running target! Nothing worse than having someone believe you're an awesome shot to then find out you can't pop for toffee! I'm not a brilliant shot, but I don't often miss a rat.

 

House 2, 1 rat, 1 miss, 0 kills for me or the dog!

 

So over the course of the evening we go around a few other houses so that I get to know the area. Then he starts showing me the upper areas where the eggs are processed. This is where his biggest problems are (he's one of the farm managers) when the rats get up on the egg belts and start chewing the belt or electronics. Apparently in belt 20, they were calling out an engineer every week, costing £300 a time average. We go upstairs at one of the houses and he shows me what it's going to look like. While he's showing me, one of our little friends turns and looks at us. Neither of us were expecting anything on that belt because it was an inactive house. Well, needless to say, we all know that as soon as I saw the little fella it was clear that he won't be chewing anything but a chunk of Bisley Magnum. I am please to say that his friend further up the belt enjoyed his serving of lead just as much. Both of them stopped dead on the spot. No spasm, twitching, spinning, or anything! Very surprised and very happy too.

 

So now that I have got to know the area, I set off, by myself, back to the first 2 'houses' (sorry, that really annoys me that they're called houses!!!)

 

So I get to the first house and line up on one of the spots where the Tail Enticement was going on. Click. Lights off, and ears open! I wait until I can definitely hear a rat scurry somewhere that isn't covered by boarding or corrugated iron. I pop the light on and see my little tail enticing friend, sat there on his 'perch'. I was already aimed in the right direction, head to scope, and provide him with his serving of Magnum (everyone's favourite ice cream). Light back off, and ears primed and ready. When I hear some more scurrying, it's just out in the porch style area. I say porch, but it's basically the first room to the 'house'. It's about 100 feet long and 18 feet wide. I go out and in the corners of 2 of the beams, out pop a couple of rats. Not happy! Tail Enticing all the way! Little buggers!

 

Thankfully, I remember something I saw outside to make 'rat stalking' much easier. I pull out a plastic crate, swing it inside to sit up on and decide to wait them out. Some people refer to it as sitting on your butt and waiting for rats to show themselves. You're wrong, it's rat stalking. Like Deer Stalking, but much less effort.

 

After a while, Mr Rat pops his head out at the same moment my friend pops into the house. PERFECT TIMING! He sees me scope up and bust this rat, that was only showing his head! It stops, stone cold, and starts spurting blood. Then it spasms and falls down the back of one of the panels. We can hear it scrambling, then it goes quiet. My friend, the farm manager, it not tired of telling me how good a shot it was and made me an open offer to come down and shoot on the farm whenever I want.

 

All in all (okay, I'm just cutting it short because my wife has come downstairs and I don't want her to read this...she thinks I was out shooting targets for night shooting) I ended up with 10 definite kills, and 6x90's. If you don't know what a 90 is, it's a shot where you're 90% certain you killed the target, but you can't confirm it.

[RemyBolt 420]

I'll try and get some pics next time.

 

Finances allowing, I'll get some vids too.

 

I think I'll be out there again every other weekend. Don't want the rats getting too used to the sound of guns.

[Skot Ruthless Teale 1,701]

Nice write up mate!

[The one 8,483]

Nice read mate