Recalling unusual stories about hunting forays reminds me of one morning whilst out rabbiting with my friend Shaun.
We netted a two holer along a beck at the bottom of a field and entered the ferret after a minute or so a stoat
emerged from one of the holes and skipped through the net and made good its escape running for its life We looked
at each other in disbelief I wouldn’t have thought a stoat would be so afraid of its larger relative the ferret
needless to say there were no bunny’s at home that day. Other unusual residents we have bolted from rabbit holes
include a bird which I think it was a fieldfare what it was doing down a rabbit hole I have no idea. I have read
in one of the late Brian Plummers books of him bolting a feral cat whilst out rabbi ting and the difficulty he had
extricating the wild tangled cat from his net. One creature to beware of when ferreting rabbit holes are rats.
They can often be found living alongside rabbits one occasion comes to mind. I was out ferreting some rabbit holes
and had my two dogs Brock & Ben
with me a Patterdale and Border terrier. It was early summer
and there were quite a
few young rabbits about the grass was also getting quite long. I entered the ferret to a warren after netting up after
several minutes I heard squealing behind me and turned around to see Ben had grabbed something in one of the nets and
was shaking it violently. Believing this to be a young rabbit I tried to grab it from him to release it unharmed but
he pulled away from me and as he emerged from the cover of the long grass I was shocked to see a long tail hanging from the net,
it was a large rat he had hold of and not as I thought a young rabbit. A lucky escape had I been a bit quicker and who knows what
could have happened a nasty bite from a disease carrying rat. As he proceeded to kill the rat another emerged from one of the
other holes in all about five rats bolted from the warren. I think myself lucky that Ben grabbed that rat and prevented me getting a nasty bite.
By Dave
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