3 Days Ratting - Day 2

[RemyBolt 420]

Day 2.

 

After a satisfying session, and with a load of snares set up, I was hyped about going out shooting. But for the time being, I had to get some sleep.

 

When I got home I took out all the batteries I had and set them to charging. Got changed and went to bed. My chicken poo smelling trousers sat on the kitchen floor. This is code to my wife for...don't wash these!

 

Waking up around 7:30am, still knackered, I checked my phone. Low battery. It seemed I had set everything charging except my phone. Kissed the wife good bye, as she went off to work, then went straight back to sleep. The plan was to get set up in House 10 before it fell dark. The logic behind this was that rats will be hungriest after waking up on an empty stomach. I still had plenty of peanut butter + Nutella + vegetable oil bait left to lure them out. So I was going to need my rest.

 

By 11am my phone had received a load of texts from the farmer. When I looked at it I started to panic. 6 texts! All from him. Oh dear. But as it turns out, they were happy text, and not "Gert awff miy land!" style text. The only thing he asked me to do was leave a note on the egg belt controls saying if there were any dead rats on there. The girl that works House 10 freaked when a massive rat fell off the belt, followed shortly by another. You'd think she would be used to them by now, what with it being a near weekly occurrence. But it seems not.

 

Played around with the ol'Ratty, shooting spot on, before I set out. Another load of CO2 (thank goodness I buy in bulk) and another handful of pellets in the side pouch. Batteries loaded up for my night vision, infrared cameras, and front mounted torch, and I'm good to go. Just one more thing...a thin fleece blanket. Not because of the cold, but because it made sense that putting this over my head in place of the hoodie, would be much more effective and comfortable. So off I set for my second round of rat smashing! A quick into the petrol station to pick up loads of cans of Relentless, and I'm golden.

 

Pulling up at House 10 again, I set everything up, gun ready to go, spare batteries in one pocket, the other pocket empty and ready for dead batteries, and my torch and IR illuminator work...wait a second.....crap. Where's my pressure switch? I have 2 pressure switches on my gun, one for IR and the other for the front mounted torch. Where's the one for the IR illuminator? Why is it a stupid button switch? Either in my sleepy haze when unloading the batteries for charging, or my wife's meddling with my gun on the kitchen counter (trying to tidy up, no doubt), the switch for my gun mounted IR now has a regular press button, on or off, and not the normal pressure switch. The on/off button should be on my second 'spotting' system. Speaking of which, where is that? Shooting with a 4x scope does not make it easy to spot targets. I had planned to change to a lower magnification, or variable zoom, but I love the set up how it is, so just sorted out an alternative spotting option....which I seem to have forgotten. Well at least I know where my pressure switch is....not here!

 

Sat on the same steps as before, I got ready. It seems my ability to snare rats is....well, it gives me plenty of room for improvement, let's put it that way. So traps with zero effect, it was now time to start shooting as soon as I found a target.

 

It's at this point that I am in a personal quandary as to whether to talk about my mind racing away in the darkness, once it finally fell, or whether to skip this part and say that I didn't see a single rat for bloody ages!

 

The egg belt was my main focus, as well as a tray of 'seconds' (think crap eggs, but the rats seem to love them). After the first hour...nothing. After the second hour, I heard a little scurrying, but still nothing. Hour 3...my first shot opportunity. Well, almost. The rat was only half showing it's head through a hole by a feed/grain tube. It poked it's head into the gap of the hole, but it didn't actually come out, then it pulled it's head back and left just half the nose still sticking out. I didn't have a proper head shot available. Impatience and general excitement, as well as a calculated assessment, see my crosshairs scroll slightly to the right of the hole, to the thin ply wood wall where the rat's head should have been. "Sorry mate, I missed a rat in the hole and popped a small hole in the side"...yeah, that's a good excuse, but he's already given me permission to shoot through the roofing if I can kill a rat, so he'll be fine with it. Honesty is the best policy after all . So, I decided to take the shot through the wall to where the head/brain should have been. Crack. The pellet slams cleanly through the wall. I hear the rat scurrying for a few seconds, then it went quiet. I assume a kill, but as the body cannot be retrieved, it's a 90 (90% sure it was a kill).

 

A long wait ensues and I hear squeaking down the egg belt. I turn, see a really bright eye staring back at me about 15 meters away. I smile. For the rest of the night that eye was there staring back at me. Probably because I had slammed a pellet down at it and hit my mark. Kill number 2. Shortly after that another rat came out down the belt. Another pellet flew down at this rat too. Definite hit. It squealed loudly and bounced around for a few seconds then disappeared out of view. I thought it was a clean kill, but clearly not. My only non-guilt in this situation is that I recognise it's less cruel to shoot a rat and let it bleed out over a short time period (a minute or so), rather than let it haemorrhage as a result of poison over the course of days. Having said that, I hate not getting a clean kill. I still prefer to keep suffering to a minimum! I can confirm that rat number 3 was found the next day when the 'nesting boxes' were checked.

 

Again, it took a long time for any scurrying or movement to come through. Nothing was moving. I was just sat there with a fleece blanket over my head, like a kid in a rubbish halloween ghost costume. When suddenly I hear a car pull up. Immediately I think back to a few gypsies I had passed on the drive over here. So I sit quietly and listen. 2 voices. Both male. I can't quite hear what they're saying. I slide my hand into my pocket and get out a knife. When suddenly the farmer and one of the other farm workers come into the chicken house. We surprised the crap out of each other. The darkness was playing tricks on my imagination, so I wasn't expecting to see them, while they were not expecting to see a guy with a blue fleece blanket draped over his head, with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. After the initial surprise we all laughed. I think I mainly laughed because if I couldn't get my head around the fact that the voices outside were theirs and not the gypsies. I remember my initial thought being "I'm glad you're hear guys. That'll even things up against the gypsies outside." When the truth is, it took a few more minutes to realise that there were not any gypsies outside. It was clearly time for more Relentless.

 

They had come to check the water for the birds. I explained about the shot I took through the wall. He was more impressed than angry and I even got a "Well done."

 

Later on, once they had left, and another 30ish minutes had passed, I heard nothing. But just curious, I scroll around and check what's about. I see a bright glimmer coming out from under one of the food lines on the opposite side from where I was facing. It looks like nightvision eye shine, but it's just not quite right. So I pop on my normal torch and take a look. It was a bright reflection of a nail in a piece of wooden panel. As I was checking it out, a small nose poked up from the gap between the panel and the feed line/gutter. Crack! Another pellet through the wall shot. A quick scurry, and then nothing. Either it was a brilliant clean kill, or I had missed and the scurry sound was the rat turning and darting off.

 

Throughout this session, it had faded from evening to night, then from night to the very beginning of the sun rising again. In total I had shot around 6 rats. A damn site different from the 30+ yesterday. The one thing none of them expected....me, tomorrow, taking them out again!

[forest of dean redneck 11,643]

Don't really visit this bit,but glad I did,great write up.

[ratbuster 807]

Keep them coming ! nice write up

[j j m 6,540]

good write up mate

[walshie 2,804]

My eyes hurt!

[David.evans 5,323]

Exellant, some match sticks for your eyes may help !

Looking forward to the next installment

Atb dave

[The one 8,483]

Nice write up mate but it sounds like there starting to get lamp shy ?.

[shep41 31]

You should be writing in the shooting mag's. mate.

[Rez 4,961]

No pictures = didn't happen

[RemyBolt 420]

No pictures = didn't happen

HAHA, I wish day 3 never happened.

 

My new camera has arrived, so next time I'm out, I'm getting some pictures!