3 Days Ratting - Day 1

[RemyBolt 420]

Sorry about the uber delay everyone. Manic super crazy busy!

 

Right, where to begin.

 

I got a call from the farmer because house 2 and house 10 were infested. Would I be able to go on a major session to clean it up? Okay, that's not word for word.

 

Well, I booked Friday off work, which allowed me to go shooting Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night! Oh my goodness, did I go to town in that place!

 

After a long day at work, I need to get some sleep. I planned to be down the farm and shooting by 10pm. At it turned out, I overslept and the petrol station that had my energy drinks on offer was closed. So I end up paying the price and having to divert to Asda on the way to the farm. This journey alone made me ANOTHER 5 minutes late. I was outraged haha. I'm kidding. 3 nights straight ratting....there's no way I was going to be angry about that.

 

My last few sessions in House 10 proved to be very lonely with not a host of rats. The reason for this was simple. The light from my night vision screen was illuminating the walls of the area where I was shooting. So, if I wanted to use night vision, I was going to have to find a way to stop that light escaping. This was the dilemma of the day. The simplest solution, put my hand over the screen and only let a small part of it (the part showing the crosshairs) stick out. With plan in hand...literally, I dropped my headlights and slowly pulled up to the front of House 10. Good old stealth ninja, in a Vectra, technique. Works every tim.....DAMN IT! Stupid motion detecting floodlight. I couldn't have been light up any more if I was wearing the lights off a Christmas tree. There goes the stealth approach. Logic, with a touch of frustration, kicked in at this point. "Screw it, they know I'm here. So I took my time and got ready. Load up my little RatCatcher, check spare CO2, make sure I have a pouch full of .22 Accu-Pell ready to go, lube up the gun, and step towards the front door.....which very quickly hampered my superhero feeling. It was locked and I forgot the combination for the lock. After a little umming and arring....and checking through some text, the code revealed itself. Moments later the lock was off and I was inside. Lovely and warm.

 

Sure enough, my announced arrival meant that I was sat on my tod for the first 35 minute. However, that began to change. The first couple of rats appeared. Like miniature gorilla's in the mist, but not really gorillas, and there was no mist. Once they were clear of their hiding place, the real fun began. PPFT, squeak, scurry, silence. That was the order for the day.

 

On the egg belt there were very quickly 2 dead rats. Shortly followed by one in the bottom right corner who decided to squeak loudly, walk out a little, then stand up for around 5 seconds. It was as if the little beasty was saying "WOO! Here I am everyone. This is my house! Oi, you with the gun...try and hit me when I'm stood like this!" To which any of us would have replied "Ppft" from the barrel of a gun. Number 3 for the night.

 

Then it went quiet for a bit. Minutes started to tick by and they became very cautious again. What was going on? It was as if they could now sense me. I was scanning the main areas with my night vision and then I realised...I had stopped covering the screen I was looking through. They could see me as if lit up by that stupid floodlight outside. This was not going to work. A new light blocking solution was required.

 

You know when you were a kid and you hide under the bedsheets with a torch to read your favourite book? Well I never did that. But for some reason that idea stuck in my head. I needed to drape something over me to blot out the light and stop it making me visible. Time for a hoodie to be repositioned. Hood up and halfway over the gun, and we had an effective light shield, as well as a really weird sight for anyone spying on me. Stupid as I felt, it worked.

 

Within around 1 hour, the whole place was swarming. I went from shot, reload, target, aim, shoot, reload...etc, for what felt like 25 minutes. After which I had another 13 dead rats 9 of which were retrievable! I was blazing. A quick change of the CO2 made me pleased I was using a CO2. It was hot inside, although only 5 degrees outside and I could carry enough CO2 to punch out 100+ shots on the side of my gun. Love this gun. However, it's not the easiest thing to change CO2, in the dark, under a hoodie, without making any noise. Fumbling around like a worthless weirdo in a chicken farm, reminded me of the first time I tried to take off a bra in the dark. The part that made it awkward, not putting the end of the CO2 cylinder screw down. There was no way I was going to find it again if I did that...unless I turned the lights back on, and scared off the rats. Finally got it sorted by then though. Once again it became a waiting game.

 

Sat in the dark, alone, imagination making you think giant rat people were right beside you, and that the sound of the rats running through the roof was really rats charging at you, mass attacking, ready to start eating you and poison you with disgusting infections, while the desire to slam on that powerful torch brought the idea that you'd illuminate the face of a man sized rat monster that was going to eat your face, and nobody was around to save you....bloody hate my imagination! I'm not afraid of the dark. I regularly go solo camping on Dartmoor, so I'm not afraid of being alone, but when you're alone with an enemy, something about it starts your head going!

 

During this time of darkness, and surrounded by the scurrying of little beasties, even with intermittent checking of the night vision, you find your mind drifting off to the weirdest places. When you look around in this level of darkness, your eyes adjust, and you start to see things. Sometimes these things are real, but other times they are simply the mind playing tricks on you. Spectres appear, weird lights, but never just pure darkness. Even in the darkest of times you will not see just black. You will see weird twinges of light here and there. As if the speckles of colour experienced when your eyes are closed, have decided to manifest themselves for your confusion. During this time the thought process would dart here and there. At one point I actually thought of some really good one liners for the write up for the forum, but managed to forget them all. Not ideal.

 

If you have no idea what I'm on about with your mind going off on one, then get out into the woods, alone, on a dark night...oh wait, that's how horror films and some murder cases start. Maybe not. Don't do that. Anyway, back to ratting.

 

Quickly enough, when the first few rats came out, there was a load again. Slower between shots than before, but rarely more than 2 minutes between shots. The vast majority of shots were head shots, but a couple of times there wasn't a head visible. These times I would have to make a weird squeak sound that really just sounded like over puckering your lips and pretending to kiss someone. This usually got me an opportunity for a smooth head shot, but now and again they probably realised it was really just some strange guy blowing kisses at them, and they ran away.

 

My last shot of the evening was a beauty! Have you ever seen a rat drag away it's compadre, get shot through the eye, then twitch for a second or two as if it was having 'sexy time' with it's dead friend? Well, there's a first for everything. That's all I'm saying. After this, I sat around for another hour, in total silence. Thursday's session was truly over.

 

After a while of sitting there like a weirdo I realised that I should have let the rats come further out of the holes before shooting them. There were bodies blocking holes, which would have freaked out enough rats to stop them coming out to be shot! Stupid me. But we learn from our mistakes.

 

At the end of the session, I had pumped through two CO2 cylinders, around 45-50 shots, and bagged a total (including 90's) of about 35 rats. There may have been more, but I was not bothered to check. Way too hyped! The lights were back on and I was going to be setting some snares and traps. Woodga would be proud.

 

At 4:30am, or there about I packed up and went over to the car. Picked up my camera to get some photos of the devastation and realised it was WAY TOO light. No fricking batteries! Are you serious. I threw it down onto the back seat of the car. In a total freak accident, it managed to bounce back at me, land on the stoney floor and crack the lens! How the hell that happened I'll never know! It was a cruel end to a wonderful night! On a side note, thank goodness for ebay!!! New one only £55. Not good, but at least I didn't have to spend hundreds on a new one.

 

All in all though, as far as shooting goes...bloody brilliant! Some really good shots, a few missed shots, but a great time. With Day 2 only hours away, I was excited!!!

[shep41 31]

Brilliant writeup mate keep them coming . The Ratcatcher comes into its own inside buildings.

[ratbuster 807]

Great write up, really enjoyed it, as I was at your side !

[patterdale 673]

I enjoyed reading that

Nice write up fair play.

[jamesS410 106]

As above, a cracking write up. I've been looking forward to it since the teaser and it was worth the wait. Thanks for sharing