Some of you may remember the bunny hunt I had among the vines a couple of months back. Jane who spotted for me then also does conservation work at a historic house not far from my town. Unfortunately as they plant trees the rabbits there are wreaking havoc. Jane had told me about it alot before but there's due process to go through when culling pests on government properties like that so it was a while before we could proceed.
That was supposed to be the first Sunday night of my holidays, over 2 weeks back, but both of us were feeling the effects of the flu and we postponed the outing. I meant to do it last week but we're selling our house so we needed to prep it for photos and inspections. Not surprisingly the shoot didn't happen. Then Jane was over for bible study last night and said "We need to do this really soon as we're planting seedlings this week." So we set the date and headed out there tonight. I almost didn't go because my back has been playing up badly all day. Lucky I persisted.
I was a little prepared for the number of rabbits but the sight that met me was staggering. There were at least a hundred - probably double that. Unfortunately I lacked the presence of mind to load as soon as we rolled in the gate, something I almost always do when arriving at a property. Still, I'd never been there before and it's better safe than sorry, especially when night hunting, so I loaded my Anschutz 1400 22lr and we nailed a couple to begin with, then set about the task.
Walking about with a hand spot was mildly effective and we knocked over a few more but it began to run out of power so we headed back to the car and set out with the main spotlight. The figures began to mount up and eventually Jane said "I've got a tarp so you can lay them out for a photo". I thought about it and said "Well, how about we pick them up as we go and put them in the tarp in the back of the car." So we set the tarp in the CRV so it wouldn't leak blood, etc into the car and tossed them in as we went.
Jane is a decent spotter and we knocked over many down on the river flat in a field connected to the house. Soon we began to fill up the tarp and grab previous kills as well. Oddly enough we came across rabbits I'd forgotten about and tossed them in. Finally when we returned to the house yard we had a LOT of rabbits. So in the end we came away with 16 rabbits in the tarp.
But no sooner had we packed everything away and got ready to leave I said "Isn't that another dead rabbit there on the grass?" It was......17.
Then Jane said "What about the one under the tree over there?".........18.
And they were only the ones we found. One lay dead in the grass on the other side of a fence I couldn't get over. Another 2 were hidden in the culverts and clods of the river flat field and a 4th was somewhere in the long grass beside the river. And they're the missing ones I can remember!!
So, the tally for the evening turned out to be 22. Not a massive dent in 150 to 200 but a good start. I can't really shoot there too often. The proximity to neighbouring properties and roads makes it diplomatically difficult. But it was good fun and Jane was a brilliant spotter.
That was supposed to be the first Sunday night of my holidays, over 2 weeks back, but both of us were feeling the effects of the flu and we postponed the outing. I meant to do it last week but we're selling our house so we needed to prep it for photos and inspections. Not surprisingly the shoot didn't happen. Then Jane was over for bible study last night and said "We need to do this really soon as we're planting seedlings this week." So we set the date and headed out there tonight. I almost didn't go because my back has been playing up badly all day. Lucky I persisted.
I was a little prepared for the number of rabbits but the sight that met me was staggering. There were at least a hundred - probably double that. Unfortunately I lacked the presence of mind to load as soon as we rolled in the gate, something I almost always do when arriving at a property. Still, I'd never been there before and it's better safe than sorry, especially when night hunting, so I loaded my Anschutz 1400 22lr and we nailed a couple to begin with, then set about the task.
Walking about with a hand spot was mildly effective and we knocked over a few more but it began to run out of power so we headed back to the car and set out with the main spotlight. The figures began to mount up and eventually Jane said "I've got a tarp so you can lay them out for a photo". I thought about it and said "Well, how about we pick them up as we go and put them in the tarp in the back of the car." So we set the tarp in the CRV so it wouldn't leak blood, etc into the car and tossed them in as we went.
Jane is a decent spotter and we knocked over many down on the river flat in a field connected to the house. Soon we began to fill up the tarp and grab previous kills as well. Oddly enough we came across rabbits I'd forgotten about and tossed them in. Finally when we returned to the house yard we had a LOT of rabbits. So in the end we came away with 16 rabbits in the tarp.
But no sooner had we packed everything away and got ready to leave I said "Isn't that another dead rabbit there on the grass?" It was......17.
Then Jane said "What about the one under the tree over there?".........18.
And they were only the ones we found. One lay dead in the grass on the other side of a fence I couldn't get over. Another 2 were hidden in the culverts and clods of the river flat field and a 4th was somewhere in the long grass beside the river. And they're the missing ones I can remember!!
So, the tally for the evening turned out to be 22. Not a massive dent in 150 to 200 but a good start. I can't really shoot there too often. The proximity to neighbouring properties and roads makes it diplomatically difficult. But it was good fun and Jane was a brilliant spotter.
