Carrying spades

[Dan Newcombe 58]

Odd question but does anyone have a clever way to carry their spade. 
 

Got a round mouth bulldog spade, not the rabbiting one that’s excellent but a pain to carry. 
 

A lot of my ferreting is on forestry sites so it’s often a decent walk in and I am thinking it would be handy to have a carrying strap on my spade to keep hands free. 
 

Does anyone do this, assuming I would need to drill the blade somewhere but don’t want to weaken it. 
 

Thoughts appreciated. 

[Born Hunter 17,832]

I drilled a hole in the tread plate on the outer edge of either side. One meter/yard trigger clip dog lead, loop the hand loop over the handle of the shovel and fasten the clip through one of the drilled hole on the tread plate. the head of the shovel will hang flat across your arse when being carried then. When needed for digging, it comes off in about 5 seconds. If you just tied to either end of the shaft then the head of the shovel will be any which way and it'll be sliding up and down the shaft, be a right game.

Anyway, worked grand for me!

Edited December 15, 2021 by Born Hunter

[Dan Newcombe 58]

That was my thought - how to stop the rope slipping up. I thought clips would work better. 

[Ferretman65 2,271]

4 hours ago, Dan Newcombe said:

Odd question but does anyone have a clever way to carry their spade. 
 

Got a round mouth bulldog spade, not the rabbiting one that’s excellent but a pain to carry. 
 

A lot of my ferreting is on forestry sites so it’s often a decent walk in and I am thinking it would be handy to have a carrying strap on my spade to keep hands free. 
 

Does anyone do this, assuming I would need to drill the blade somewhere but don’t want to weaken it. 
 

Thoughts appreciated. 

Get a young lad to carry it for you  

[Dan Newcombe 58]

Unfortunately my apprentice is only 2 so I have a while until he hits spade carrying weight, albeit he is keen already

[Born Hunter 17,832]

[Guss33 375]

Lucky you don’t live in Australia, your question would be how to transport my back hoe as our ground we ferret in is hard and rock. I have being watching videos and seen photos on how many digs you people do. I think we are lucky or our ferrets just have it in them to bolt the rabbits out or just kill and keep going. Can anyone tell me why we seem to be lucky to not have to dig and get held up in the land of down under. 

[Ferretman65 2,271]

59 minutes ago, Guss33 said:

Lucky you don’t live in Australia, your question would be how to transport my back hoe as our ground we ferret in is hard and rock. I have being watching videos and seen photos on how many digs you people do. I think we are lucky or our ferrets just have it in them to bolt the rabbits out or just kill and keep going. Can anyone tell me why we seem to be lucky to not have to dig and get held up in the land of down under. 

Maybe your ferrets our shit good ferrets will kill and move on sometime a.ferret get in behind a rabbit and kills it then it is blocked off from coming out but maybe the sandy soil ur doing makes the holes very big inside or ur just Dam lucky PS was only joking about ur ferrets being shit all the best  

[Dan Newcombe 58]

13 hours ago, Born Hunter said:

That’s pretty much what I’m thinking - good idea with the dog lead though, hadn’t thought of that, we only have slip leads so it never occurred to me 

[Guss33 375]

I don’t like the idea of leads or collars as I think they would get caught on tree roots. 

[delboy_187 904]

On 15/12/2021 at 15:50, Dan Newcombe said:

Odd question but does anyone have a clever way to carry their spade. 
 

Got a round mouth bulldog spade, not the rabbiting one that’s excellent but a pain to carry. 
 

A lot of my ferreting is on forestry sites so it’s often a decent walk in and I am thinking it would be handy to have a carrying strap on my spade to keep hands free. 
 

Does anyone do this, assuming I would need to drill the blade somewhere but don’t want to weaken it. 
 

Thoughts appreciated. 

In your hand be best bet . mutts walking beside ye easy once obedience is in order tbh . sorted ...on series's side have someone with ye to help

[terryd 8,693]

yea full sized spade has to be in your hand going through cover or if its one them small ones you can get away strapping to your bag but even they get snagged