Many years ago i had a litter of bedlington pups for sale off some good working dogs, i advertised the pups and one particular guy(an oldish fella) came to see them who did not live to far away from me, he picked a blue dog and yes you have probably guessed it he called him Blue, as the pups were only 4 weeks old he came to see his at least twice a week and we spent some time chatting, now i am no expert but have been catching rabbits and running dogs for many years, he used to have a collie cross lurcher which had died some years earlier. Now Jeff tells me his nick name is the old poacher but through our chats it just did not ring right but i never questioned his story's or exploits, i just listened and took his tales with a pinch of salt. At 8 weeks old the old poacher came and took his pup Blue and i never heard off him again for about 3 months when he called me and asked if i would like to go and do some ferreting with him as he had got permission to keep the rabbits down on the grounds of the laboratories where he worked as a maintenance man , now this place could only be worked from 12. 30 on Saturdays to Sunday night so i arranged to pick him up the following Saturday and we would go and have a mooch and decide how to attack them. I could not believe my eyes on arriving, there where rabbits every where i thought i had died and gone to bunny heaven ,I wanted to make a start that day but the old poacher had other ideas and we weren't starting until the following week, chatting on the way back i started to think it was going to be hard going as the old poacher in a very nice way started laying down the ground rules i.e there would only be one dog yep you have guessed it, Blue who has so far never seen a rabbit and would not even sit on command, we would not take too many as he did not want to ruin it for the following season, now we are talking about rabbits in plague proportions here not a couple of dozen or so, well i am thinking not for me and later that week made my excuse and never went, a week or so later the old poacher visited me and asked why i was not going so i told him if i am going out i go with the intension of getting as many as i can, i had eight dogs and as many ferrets along with hawks to feed so we agreed there was no bag limit and i could also bring along my 8 month old blue Laguna whippet Jag. On picking the old poacher up the following Saturday i was intrigued to know what the bucket of approximately 1.5x1.5x18 inch stakes where for and what was in the sack, well it turns out he had bought him self 10 Mk 4 fenns and 20 snares,(hence the chair legs and a large mallet in the sack) these are things we had discussed when first visiting the place, my plan was to ferret Saturday afternoon and place snares and fenns to be lifted Sunday morning. We started to ferret and it was none stop for hours i was knacked, the poor old poacher could not even set a net properly, on the first burrow we had had half a dozen when he actually picked one in the net and proceeded to dispatch it he then threw it on the pile and it hit the ground running only to be picked up and retrieved by Jag, this was not the last time it happened either. After a great afternoon it was time to start setting the snares, i set off to one side where there was a hedge row and started setting my snares only to sit and laugh to my self as i watched him hammer in these, as i called them chair legs as pegs, as he had only 20 he set them and come to see what i was doing, after watching me for a while he asked, why do you set your snares so high, i replied i have always set them at four fingers, how high are yours, on the floor he replied i cannot see you getting many in them, i explained rabbits hop they do not slither like snakes. Now for the fenns he had never used them before so wanted me to show him how so i explained try and always set them on a high piece in the burrow entrance, if there is not one make one and to be very careful when setting them and off he went, within minutes of him going i heard a muffled cry and laughing to myself i thought he had caught him self, well he had both thumbs in the same fenn at the same time i was hysterical. We caught over 100 rabbits there in that weekend.