The drive of youth

In my youth I would walk miles to fish hunt and shoot, but the other day I stayed right  by a wonderful lake but didn't fish.  In my defence I had a load of books to read and it was cold and wet outside.  The worry is I am sure that even a few years ago I would have been out, at least in the dry spells and trying to fish.  Has age given me wisdom or just a love of ease? What a worrying thought.

Perhaps its just the long days that stick in my mind from the past.  The night my lurcher caught six hares in a night and I walked with them four miles back to the car, after walking for five hours lamping.  I was not much good in work the next day.

Hunting on the black mountains with hounds to get back to the van after a hard day up and down to find that hounds were missing and turning around to walk up the mountain again.  You know you have had a hard day when your legs cramp up when you try to drive home.

Wheel Chair Lamping

Driving up one of the lanes by the town of Bridgeport I saw a flashing light and slowed the car.  What a sight! Three lads with a fit keen looking lurcher, the surprise was one of the lads was in a wheel chair.  Country Sports have not been that easy for people in wheel chairs. One of the best sports has been fishing which has provided wheel chair boats to fish out of.  In fact these boats look even better than the normal rowing boats.

Lamping with a wheel chair does present several advantages, you have a really good game  carrier and some where to keep the spare battery, the disadvantages are that wheel chairs are really bad in fields.

Disastrous ferreting trip

Went out for the first ferreting trip of the season yesterday (15th September 2012)  My daughter was trying out her new ferret; a small jill with light polecat markings. To cut a long story short we found that the rabbit were still in cover and the buries were unused or so covered in brash that they could not be netted.  It was one of those places where there was any amount of  sign, but it just did not feel quite right.  Later I found out that horrible disease myxi was ravaging the area.

However  we turned our hand to foraging and gathered up slows, for slow gin and blackberry's and apples for hedgerow jelly. Below are the results.

Five and a half pounds of Hedgerow Jelly.  Great on toast.

The recipe I followed can be found at:

http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/blackberry-jelly-recipe

I had to simmer the jelly for a lot longer than the recipe said though.

Making a ferret carrying box

Building a ferret carrying box.

I tend to make solid things, 30 years ago I made a ferret box, its big, heavy and uncomfortable to carry, so when my daughter needed her own ferret box, I was determined to make her 'a really good one'. Surfing the net I found super pictures of ferret boxes, some better than others but very few instructions or plans for making your own. Plenty on ebay for a price. I eventually found a rough plan and adapted this to build my daughters carry box.

The Box finished up 15'' Long, 9'' in depth and 7.5'' in height. It had two compartments, and doors opening on the top. It also had a bow back which is supposed to make it more comfortable to carry.

The bow back I was assured from website reading can be achieved by using 3mm Ply. Do not buy ply it will not bend and will break! So much for websites. The following pictures show the development of the carry box. It did end up light and it is nice to carry.

The main construction uses 9mm exterior ply board which is glued and nailed at joints. The bow back was formed using thin tongue and groove (I used pine cladding) which gave the necessary give to form the bow.

First picture is of the top and bottom cut out using a jig saw, bow is 3'' deep at the middle point.

The picture below shows the various components laid out, it does also show the 3mm ply shortly to become fire wood when I tried to force it to bend.

I cut two small doors in the top of the board and attached hinges and fasteners.  I used the jig saw slowly lowering the blade onto the ply which then will cut through without having to make the usual pilot hole.

Last photo is of the completed box being tested by one of my ferrets.

 I am quite pleased with it.

Finding Mole Runs

The first thing to do when finding mole runs is to stand back and have a good look at what's in front of you.  Ideally you want to find a main run, this will usually be between mole hills going in a straight line. In the picture above you can see them at the top of the picture.

With your heel or a walking stick feel for give in between these mole hills. If there is a run you should be able to feel a slight hollow there.  Dig out a trap size hole and clean out any obstructing soil from the mole run.

 
Having made sure there is no obstructions, carefully insert the trap so that the prongs are either side of the run.

Carefully put clods around the trap and cover with soil so no light gets into the run.  Though Moles do not see well, they do know the difference between light and dark.

One of three things will happen; the mole will ignore your trap, the mole will stuff your trap with soil, or you will catch your mole.  Hopefully the latter.

Happy Trapping.

Evan's first rabbit.

I suppose everyone remembers their first rabbit caught. It is when you join that exclusive group of hunters bound by skill and blood and loss.

Evans shot was a really good one, of coarse as his father I am biased.   He had been practising for a couple of days with my BRNO .22 and had become quite proficient with it.

We went shooting up in the hills of Mid Wales on a large farm with plenty of cover for rabbits.  Walking up to the hill gate we spotted a rabbit sitting by a fence at the bottom of the field.  Evan using the gate post as a rest for the rifle took careful aim at his quarry some 80 yards away.  The rifle is silenced and we were using Eley subsonics so a click as the firing pin struck the cartridge was followed by a load thwack as the hollow point round found its target and killed the rabbit instantly.

A very proud father took the photo of sons first rabbit.

Bee Swarms

The weather this year has been terrible for my bee keeping, and, as I have not been able to examine the hives regularly has resulted in swarming.  The following video is of a prime swarm taken from underneath my neighbours trampoline and hived in a National Box.

Dufus or tunnel mole trap

The Dufus or tunnel mole trap is based on the old horse hair traps used in the Victorian era. These mole traps have the advantage of being able to catch two moles on one setting, one on each end.  The trap is laid in the run and soil lightly sprinkled on top.  The disadvantage of these traps are they are hard to find if not properly marked, all it needs is a flock of sheep to charge across the field and you will have a merry time trying to find your trap.  I suppose you could GPS mark it if stock are a problem or if it is close to a foot path and may get disturbed by passer byes.

Dufus Mole trap

Here is the trap in set

Again the art in setting these traps is in making the trigge mechanism as light as possible, so it will go off at the lightest of touches. This is difficult with this trap as the mechanism is basically wire.  If set wrong the mole will find it impossible to set the trap of and will go under and stuff the trap with soil.  This is hard to detect until yo lift the trap.

The picture above shows the trigger mechanism set hard, no mole would be able to set this off!  The art is having as little of the trigger plate wire touching the holding bar as possible.

Before use these traps, like all traps should be buried to reduce the smell on them.

Clatworthy Lake

Summer was making an attempt on Wednesday morning as Andrew and I wandered our way across the levels and up towards Exmoor.  Our fishing trip was to Clatworthy, a beautiful setting with the dam over flowing and the water high up the banks. On arrival we saw a pair of Crested Grebe but no chicks with them, I suppose most of the water fowl have suffered from the high water levels flooding their nests this year.

As my fishing buddy had a gammy leg we hired a boat, and after loading him and the tackle we set of for the northern arm which is usually shallow and usually held fish, which feed on the abundance of aquatic life there.

Andrew was into his first fish quickly and bought onboard a fish with lovely markings and a full tail fin.  I caught next on an Orange blob which was taken savagely, this was the third strike I had in an hour but the two others I had lost playing them in.  I had allowed the line to go slack and the barbless hook had been thrown.  This third fish fought well, and pulled enough for me to worry about the quality of my knots. When Andrew finally netted the fish we could see it was not a monster as assumed from the fight, but still a very respectable 3lb.  Later that morning Andrew hooked into a wonderful fish that took his line off nearly to the backing and again  it took a good while to play out until I could slip the net under. (after accidentally hitting the fish on the head first! Thank goodness he didn't get off the hook, I would have never heard the last of it.

Sorry about the quality, rain water in my phone.

We also had a top class fishing guide with us, who only needed the odd bit of bread to keep her happy.

As you can see phone had dried out by this stage.

The afternoon was difficult and we only added one other fish to our day.  But between us we caught seven wonderful rainbow trout, each one fought magnificently.  We will be going back to Clatworthy.

Flies which caught: Orange Blob, Black and Green Nymph.

Ferrets and fleas

Every year I have a terrible battle keeping my ferrets free from fleas, My hutches have been soaked with disinfectant, scorched with a blow torch, and sprayed with flea killer but they keep coming back.  They play havoc with the ferrets condition. particularly when they are coming into season.

I have found that a combination of regular bedding change, regular treatment with spot on.  I have found blow torching the hutch also helps to keep the critters down.

Small Ponds

I wonder how many small ponds have fish introduced into them?  Camping this last weekend in in Cornwall at Liggers farm they had a lovely small pond below the farm house. Weather was cold and rainy so the children and I only fished for an hour, we caught two carp on sweet corn float fished of the small island. My daughter found a tiny frog, so this pond is a healthy one.

Bats

It hit me the other day that I can no longer hear Bats.. When young I used to hear them flying around the farm house at night, and wondered at my parents inability to hear them.

I have found out that shops in city centres have high pitched noise emitters outside there shops, Old fuddy duddies like my self can happily loiter but not the younger element. how unfair.

Large Blue Butterfly

The life cycle of the Large Blue reveals a devious side to this pretty little creature.

The female lays her eggs on thyme plants. Here it is discovered by the Myrmica Sabuleti ant, which, persuaded by a heady mixture of pheromones and sugars, adopts the caterpillar and takes it back to the nest.When the egg hatches the caterpillar feeds on the thyme for two weeks before falling to the ground.

The caterpillar then sets up camp in a quiet corner of the ants' nest where it spends the next ten months enjoying 'all you can eat' from a buffet of ant eggs and larvae. Eventually surfacing as a butterfly in all its splendour, it lives for just two to five days.

My children and I were out for a short walk when we happened to walk across a ridge by Street, and saw people staring intently at a gorse bush.  We approached and found that they were looking at a rather scruffy butterfly.  This was the incredibly rare Large Blue, which the others there were ready to tell us about.

As an aside, how easy it is to engage in conversation with strangers when you are out walking in the countryside, even if it is just a cheery good morning.  It must be something about urban life that crushes the spirit and turns people into grumpy individuals who scuttle about the streets avoiding eye contact with anyone, like rats.

Learning Humility

Had my son of thirteen years staying with me this weekend and took him fishing on Sutton Bingham.  It was a near perfect day; cloudy sky but settled with enough wind to provide a ripple on the water.  We elected to fish from a boat as my son does not have that much experience with casting and I find that this aspect of fly  fishing really demoralises youngsters who are trying to learn.  If you spend half your time with your line hitting the grass banks behind or getting tangled in trees it is not much fun, neither is was your line collapse in a heap 10 yards of shore where few fish hold.


From a boat the only thing you will hit behind id the water and you do not need the greatest casting in the world.  Most fly fisherman can tell the story of dropping the leader and fly over the edge of the boat while sorting out something else in the craft to find a fish has come right by the boat and taken the fly.


We started to fish along the south side of the lake into a nice bay, my first fish came quickly to an orange blob.  Having forgot the net I had to play him out completely until I could hand him into the boat.  A few minutes later my son was into a fish and seemed to be making a meal of it, but when he finally got the fish to the surface we could see it was a good but bigger than the two pounder I had caught.


As well as being large it was also a strong fighting fish and took my son 15 minutes to bring to the side of the boat.  I had of course forgotten the net so he had to play it out; we had a few heart stopping moments when he got it to the edge of the boat and I reached down only to find the fish had considerable more energy and would take a dive for the bottom again.


As you can see from the photograph he is a very happy fisherman.  His fish weighed four and a half pounds; better than the two I caught put together.

Sutton Bingham

First trip this year to Sutton Bingham, I was surprised how low the water was, but we have not had rain in weeks so I suppose it is hardly surprising.  The sky was over cast when I arrived and the wind was blowing towards the dam wall and onto the south bank.  A number of fishermen were lined out in front of the lodge and most were catching so all the indicators were good.


After chatting with the water bailiff I decided to walk to the point along the south bank,  I fished with my favourite fly; the orange gold head tadpole, I used my Orvis ten foot rod which made battling with the stiff breeze a little easier, I had a few bites and hooked a fish but lost it when I played it near the shore.  It then went very quite so I tried a black nomad but no joy either.


I then changed to an orange blob fly tied to Neil Jones' pattern, this has a foam strip along the top of the hook, the foam extends a little beyond the hook bend. This must make the fly waggle or vibrate in some way as fish usually find it irresistible.

Changing to an intermediate line and wading on the point opposite the yacht club I got into a wind lane and cast out into the middle, I found a slow figure of eight retrieve was effective.  The first fish took after I had let the fly drop for 20 seconds, and just started my retrieve.  After a short battle this lovely 2Ib fish was in the net.  







I was on a two fish ticket and the second fish did not take long to come.  A slow figure of eight retrieve induced a terrific take and after striking, the fish took off striping the line off down to the backing, I very seldom have this when fishing stocked rainbows so I new I had on a good fish on, twice more this fish ran of the depths stripping the line out before the snowbee drag reel started to do its job and tire the fish.  I was grateful to run my small net under the fish and feel the weight of the four and a half pound fish in the mesh.





On closer examination I was very lucky to have landed this fish as the hook was only just in the bottom jaw, my Orvis Western rod is really good at gently playing in fish. In the phot below you can also see Neil Jones' pattern for this blob.  Its the first time I have used this type of fly and it will be going in the favourites box from now on.

Scissor Mole Trap

The Scissor trap is the most commonly used mole trap and has been around for years and years. There are many different designs some better than others.  Things to lookout for when choosing a scissor trap include the spring, which should be of the leaf kind rather than a wire coiled type, prongs on the trap which go straight down rather than curve under and galvanisation which is dull not shiny.  You also have to check that the tongue is secured adequately to the main frame of the trap.  This has been learnt through bitter experience!

You need also to check the prongs on the trap overlap rather than meet together, we want a dead mole not a mangled one. You can see on the pictures below what I mean.

 

Instead of

The most important part of any trap is the trigger mechanism.  Mass produced mole traps are notorious for their stiff mechanisms. This will result in moles stuffing the traps with soil as they go underneath the trap, once they have learnt to do this for one trap they seem to stuff all the traps they come across and are very hard to catch.

If the tongue has metal tabs that can be bent, it is an easy job to bend them in order to achieve a hair trigger on the trap. see the photograph below.

If the tongue has been cast you have to use a file to get the same result; a tiny bit of metal contact holding the jaws apart.

Finally all mole traps should be buried for a couple of weeks to rid them of factory scent.  Mole have incredible noses an detect anything out of order quickly.  It was always said that the man who milked cows was useless as a mole catcher as the scent was transferred to the trap, same for those who smoke.

Red Kites

While back on the farm this week, the aged parents pointed out Red Kites nesting in trees by the lambing shed.  Red Kites have gone from being a very rare sight in Mid-Wales to being very common, especially around Rhayader where the artificial feeding of the Kites for the gawking tourist has meant a leap in population of these raptors.


Red Kites are distinctive because of their forked tail and striking colour - predominantly chestnut red with white patches under the wings and a pale grey head.  They have a wingspan of nearly two metres (about five-and-a-half-feet), but a relatively small body weight of 2 - 3 Ibs.  This means the bird is incredibly agile, and can stay in the air for many hours with hardly a beat of its wings.


Father is pleased as these large birds keep the crows at bay, so this means less damage to lambs is done by these opportunistic black birds.  Crows love to find vulnerable lambs and peck out eyes and navels.  Some Ravens are even worse seeming to delight in pecking out lambs tongues. They don't show that on 'Spring Watch'!


I will be keeping an eye on the kites over the next few months and hopefully they will manage to hatch out a chick, certainly they are undisturbed where they are as its well away from any public highway and the birds are left to get on with their own thing.

Moles

I have been thinking a lot about moles this week.  Not because I have been reading Wind in the Willows, excellent book though it is, rather I have been chatting with a friend who will be leaving the military soon and is retraining as a mole catcher.

As a youngster I considered this the perfect job, but when I came to an employable age I found I had to do other work to make ends meet and my mole catching, was not catching, but poisoning; at that time using strychnine.  I would buy my little pot of poison from Boots and mix it with earth worms then off to some farm to walk miles baiting mole runs with worms. Could you imagine popping into Boots now and asking for strychnine?

Now of course strychnine is banned, and while we may grumble about the pathetic nanny state we live in, which assumes if a person has a gun he will run amok, or if a mole catcher buys poison he will be using it for nefarious purposes, such a finishing off worthless politicians, the up side is the art of mole trapping has come back.

I learnt the art of mole trapping mostly through trial and error.  My father gave me the basics and then I picked the brains of others and read as much as I could on mole trapping, and there was not a great deal in the public library about trapping moles and certainly no internet

I started with two scissor traps bought from the Farm Store, they were heavy, stiff, and the mole had to be built like Arnie to trip them.  I soon learnt that an hours work with a file would would reshape the trigger part of the tongue so that it moved as soon as touched and caused the trap to snap shut immediately.  Another lesson I quickly learnt was; always mark where your mole traps were set. It was most distressing having to spend hours digging in hopeful places trying to locate the mole trap that had disappeared into the ground because a load of sheep had rioted over it or worse cattle.

My father paid me the princely sum of 20 pence each, I think now the cost is £5.00 a mole.  There is nothing like the promise of pocket money to a kid to motivate, and I soon became very good a catching moles and had added to my small collection of traps a Duffus trap which could catch a mole in both ends. This trap too need the judicious application of the file to make it trip easily, and was even harder to find if buried and not marked.

The runs I found by running my the heel of my wellie between two fresh mole hills, by applying pressure you can usually feel the turf give if you are over a run, unless its really deep.  I used a heavy sheaf knife to cut a trap sized hole in the turf and would try and lift the plug out whole.  By using a knife it was usually easy to see the mole run.

These were the basics of catching moles, but the art took much much longer to learn.

Bushy Leaze

Bushy Leaze

Middle of March and the first competition of the season,  it was a low key well mannered affair with a good turn out of eighteen at Bushy Leaze.  The twenty two acre lake looked perfect for fishing, with fish rising all over, taking buzzers sub surface.  The sky was overcast and a gentle breeze provided the push for the water to ripple.

One or two characters turned up, one chap in his camper van with a bucket full of cray fish caught in the Thames, another with an incredible multicoloured Peruvian hat, thankfully fish have taste and he failed to catch his four fish that day.

Most caught fish quickly catching them on buzzers, blobs and cats whisker.  The fish here fight well and average two to three pounds, with one or two lumps in there, one lad caught a five pound rainbow in great condition.

I caught my four fish by fourteen hundred so I had a couple of hours to kill, along with a good few others, giving military men a few hours with nothing to do is always dangerous, but we happily filled it by finding team mates and giving them helpful advice, such as change to a brighter coloured fishing line, standing on one leg, removing the hook to be more sporting. As you can see from the photo Neil found our help useful, I am sure he meant to say thank you guys but some how it came out as '**** off'

 Others found amusement in collecting tree flies, the photo is of Tug collecting from a prime fly tree next to the boat deck.

Two guys were fishing from float tubes, this looks great fun and certainly catches fish in some order, I suppose that, in effect it is trolling for trout which always works. 


If you fancy fishing in this excellent fishery their web site is www.lechladetrout.co.uk

Fishing and the Spiritual

Fishing and the Spiritual

Many fly fishers know that the faith that we are going to catch a fish leads to a faith in the possibility of another, more precious catch, namely peace of the soul. So says Turan Tirana in his excellent essays.

Fish have always been seen as spiritual.  In Christianity the fish was used as a type of recognition code; one person drew half of the fish and the other completed.  Fish we eaten on the fast day of Friday because they did not count as meat.

Fish do live in another world, the Celts believed that lakes were the door way to the underworld, hence King Arther's sword being thrown in the lake for the lady to take below.  This in between world was and is where fish dwell.

An Assyrian tablet from 2000 BC reflects that fishing is a spiritual thing and adds this incentive; The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives the time spent fishing.

The migration patterns of fish must have puzzled the ancients.  Why would salmon suddenly appear, or tuna or a myriad of other fish.  For those of us who fish it does seem that fish move in mysterious ways; one day they are feeding on a certain insect in a certain area of a lake at a certain depth.  Even worse why is it one you can have two fishermen in boat using the same gear and one will catch and the other won’t.  If you have ever experienced this, it is most frustrating.

In that way grace in the religious sense plays a role in the religious sense plays a role in fly fishing.  Some anglers are ‘chosen’ others not, and when we are not chosen we pray.  When it works though we are aware that we are blessed.  Dimly we are at harmony with creation and at peace with ourselves.

Starling Flocks

Starling Flocks.

The kids and I went up to a reserve close to Glastonbury to watch flocks of starlings come into roost. Shapwick Heath is a well known spot for these large flocks of starlings so we were not alone; twichers with long lenses on their cameras and spotting scopes on tripods were there.

There is something faintly amusing about these characters. Are the long lenses and long spotter scope a substitute for something lacking in their lives, like life? Or are they frustrated hunters who have given into the modern pressure of pretending nothing ever dies?

As well as twitchers there were nice normal people gathered to watch as well, some in bright colours, which did not bother the starlings, but seemed to offend the drab clothed twichers. There was even one splendid chap in tweeds and a canary coloured cravat.

No matter how we were apparelled all were amazed by the thousands of starling that swooped and wheeled making swirling amoeba like shapes in the sky. How they don't collide with one another is a mystery, I wonder does it have anything to do with their iridescent plumage, does this enable them to see and react instantly to any movement?

I quite often have starlings on my lawn, they always seem in a hurry stuffing them selves with bread and then off they go. When the lawn is short they can be seen paddling their feet to encourage the worms to come up. I wonder how the lame starling who is often out their manages; perhaps he has become a vegetarian, poor thing.

It is said that starling have a truly awful taste, and it used to be the test of a really good gun dog to see if it would retrieve one. This is sometime true of woodcock too, which gundogs do not seem to like retrieving, though my terrier never seemed to mind.

On a reminisce, the last time I saw flocks of the magnitude of Shapwick Heath was in Aberystwyth ; having finished a funeral there the undertaker and I went for tea on the sea front. While we wee enjoying old fashioned tea and scones in one of the hotels we witnessed thousands of starlings coming in to roost under the pier.

Entering Young Ferret

New Ferret Entered.

Went to try a few holes at a friend's place today, lots of rabbit sign but none present in the small buries there. There is lots of cover so I assume they are staying above ground except to escape foxes or just running through to play. After running my experienced jill through a small bury, I introduced my new ferret, born last summer, to a small hole at the bottom of the bury, she went down with now hesitation at all and worked her way through methodically coming out without hesitation.

Here she is coming out with out a glance backwards. There are few things more annoying than a ferret which hovers at the entrance and bobs back inside every time you put your hand down to pick them up. I think the secret of making them willing to march out is plenty of handling and no dogs diving in to scare the fitchuk. 


The field was covered with sign that rabbits are there but as soon as they suspect being hunted they dive into an old scrub oak wood, and like brier rabbit they are more than at home in the midst of the bramble patch.

Ferret locators are one of the best things ever to hit the ferreting world. I well remember the nightmare of trying trying to use a line hob. Most of the time I seemed to end up digging him out because he had got the line caught around something, or had wandered through most of the warren before finding the jill and dead rabbit. I still have my original Deben receiver and it works as well ow as when I first bought it some 30 years ago. 


 When digging down to a ferret, you of course dig to the side and not directly on top as this may cause a cave in or with heavy handed diggers may chop into the ferret. I find that the act of digging will usually get the ferret moving anyway and she can be picked up. Where it is crucial is when the ferret has gotten herself trapped in a hole by killing a rabbit and blocking the hole. A ferret has to be dug up fairly quickly as the heat build up and danger of suffocation increases with time. Season is coming to an end again, and once again I have not spent enough time working my ferrets, but there is always next year.

Jack Russell Terriers

Parson Jack Russell's Terriers.

I am reading at the moment; Hunt and Working Terriers by Jocelyn Lucas, the book was recommended to me by a friend who breeds and judges working terriers. It is, without doubt one of the best books I have read on working terriers. Written in the 1920's the author has working sealyhams and has many accounts of his work with them.

What struck me was the description of Jack Russell Terriers, which alter quite a lot for the Kennel Club Jack Russell of our day. Why is it the Kennel club seem to make a real hash of preserving a breed as it was originally intended? It probably says a lot about the low self esteem of those who take part constantly seeking perfection but only succeeding in producing freaks.

Jack Russell said he sought a type rather than a breed; this type was rough haired, predominately white, with narrow shoulders and a broad head. It coated needed to be mat like to survive the weather, and Jack Russell believed a smooth coat was a sign on Bull Terrier in the type, and he did not want any of that. His terriers were to mark its prey to ground and if possible bolt it, he did not want hard terriers which would grip the fox and fight silently under ground. A broadish head because he wanted his terriers to be able to grip when necessary and be able to get them selves out of trouble.

When I look at the Jack Russells today there is an increasing divide between the show world and the working world, I know which one has a better track record and which one I trust.

As an aside Joclyn Lucas has an account of the equipment needed for Badger digging, given by a French Nobleman in the 1600's, as well as spade, iron bar and tongs, it also includes a barrel of wine a cart with a mattress and and 17 year old willing girl! Not sure the Rev Russell would approve.

Entering Terriers.

I never had a kennel of terriers so my terrier always had to perform a number of rolls; bolting quarry, working the rough, and hopefully retrieving, though the last was, most of the time, a vain hope.

My first proper terrier was a small Jack Russel type bought from a local farm which bred all manner of hunting dogs. I have no recollection of entering Rick it just seemed to happen, he happily worked anything from moles to foxes, from sparrows to pheasants.

He quickly learnt to respect ferrets, after getting bitten when sticking his nose down a rabbit hole while the ferrets were down. On another occasion he grabbed a rabbit which had bolted with a ferret attached.. That took some sorting out as it was difficult to know which animal to grab first.

He never won any shows as he had quite a broad chest and had queen Anne legs, but he worked for years, he had all the qwirks of a terrier having that sneaky intelligence which so characterised that breed. We would occasionally find a cat or chicken dead on the farm yard, but of course we never ever saw him kill them or even show any interest in them, he would be sitting innocently by the back door waiting to be let into the kitchen. But he was the only one there to do the deed.

My second terrier I remember entered himself to rabbits when he was three months old, I was walking along a hedge row and he just popped down a rabbit hole and out shot a rabbit the other end, with this tiny pup in hot pursuit. I bought him from Brecon Hunt kennels, a cross between a Jack Russell and a Border terrier, He had the shape of a Jack Russell and the colouring of a Border.

He again would work anything as well, but was not too hard and never got badly scarred. These little terriers just love to work, and I suppose that's what makes them so loved by sportsmen, they are so adaptable and full of fun. Hunting as a pack after rats they just exude enjoyment at what they do.

I suppose entering them for a specific prey is a lot more difficult and many of the old books going to great lengths in giving complicated training regimes for getting your terrier of rabbits, badgers or what ever. I have never really tried as I love to see them work. As I write my present terrier, a mix of goodness knows what, is sat by the french window staring at a mouse feeding on the bird seed. She is very much a companion dog, but even she loves to hunt, and is about to be entered to mice. 

Lamping.

My first lamp was a 500,000 candle power lamp which was quite adequate with my little 4.10 shot gun, this was aged 14. My Father was one of the more enlightened kind, who thought an air rifle was dangerous for a young lad, as the temptation was to see it as a toy. Instead he bought a 4.10 which was very definitely a lethal weapon and not a toy. With my lamp I was able to shoot rabbits at night. The best weather was a dark windy night, the wind would hide the sound of my footsteps and the dark would, of course, hide me. The lamp also had a nifty red filter which was supposedly for foxes, but this made the torch beam a lot weaker and besides I have found white light effective for most prey.

Eventually I was allowed a lurcher, who brought the lamping world to life, I moved up to a million power lamp, which with a moterbike battery would give me two to three hours lamping, which was just the right amount of time to be running the lurcher.

My lurcher; Dart, soon learnt to run down the lamp light until he saw the rabbit. He was an ideal lamping dog, he would never use his nose and would stop the chase as soon as the lamp was switched off. This made him less useful when hunting in the daylight as he was happy to let the terriers do all the nose work and would stand a watch for fleeing rabbits.

His best ever night was five hares brought to hand, his worst when he caught a fox and tried to jump the fence, but with the extra wait of the fox got caught up in the barb wire. A very expensive trip to the vet followed, and a stop to lamping for six months.

The trouble with lamping foxes is the lurcher soon learns to hit the quarry quite hard, fine for foxes but rabbits ended up crunched and useless for the pot. Perhaps I was not giving Dart enough credit as the crunched rabbits usually ended up in his or the ferrets food bowl.

There is something comforting walking about in the middle of the night, you get to trust your hearing and sense of smell as well as your eyes, and you find that there are very few nights in which you can't see, there is always some ambient light. You also get to see all those animals and birds which are nocturnal; badgers which snuffle along and owls which scare the life out of you when they ghost past your head.

The worst scare I ever had was on a really dark stormy night when walking along a hedgerow when I bumped into a black horse which had been standing half asleep by the hedge. We both jumped and frightened the wits out of each other. The horse bolted down the field and I jumped into the hedge.

I still love lamping but check that there are now no horses around when I wander in the dark.

Fishing Bores

Having had recent exposure to a fishing bore, My fishing buddy and I were pondering what makes a good fishing bore? Those of us who fish, hunt and shoot will instantly recognise what I am writing about those individuals who feel it necessary to give you the benefit of their life in fishing or whatever, because what they have to say will convince you that you are at best, a hopeless amateur and at worse should immediately give up as an incompetent fool. The following list is not exhaustive but certainly gives a flavour of what I mean.

1. No matter what you have caught the fishing bore will always have caught bigger or failing this better fish than you. In pointing this out to you the insinuation is luck plays no part and skill alone rules the day when fishing.
2. The fishing bore will always stand where he will interfere the most with your cast, usually three feet behind and slightly to the right if you are right handed.
3. The fishing bore will rarely have a fishing rod with him, but somehow will always have a box of flies on his person. Each of these flies are tied using a secret methods and materials guaranteeing these flies will only be eaten by the biggest and best fish.
4. He is surprised that; a, you are able to land a fish and b, that your knots held.
5. The fishing bore, even though he ties 'absolute killer flies' is more than happy to take the poor representation that you obviously tied while blindfolded and drunk, but mysteriously catches fish.
6. The classic bore will have had his photo taken and published within the last fifty years, and will tell you about it, and probably have the press clipping to hand.

Very unfair I know, but beware lurking inside every passionate fisherman there is a bore waiting to get out. 

Who needs luck?

I recently finished an academic tome entitled 'Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs.' One of the things which struck me while reading, was the process a hunter goes through while engaging in hunting his or her chosen prey. Basically there are three stages.

Stage one is the preparation stage when the men undergo sweat baths, refrain from sex and limit their use of language. This is in order to distance them selves from their humaness and become more in tune with the animals they hope to hunt.

Stage two is the hunt when those taking part will stop limit language, only referring to the animal they are hunting obliquely and the places they are going to hunt by a sort of code. When hunting they try and identify with their prey and seek to mimic in order to fool the prey into giving itself up to them.

Stage three consists of re humanisation, when the hunters will tell stories of there hunt to those around them.

It struck me that those of us who hunt, fish and shoot do very similar things. We may not couch it in terms of animism. But a lot o fishermen I know have a particular set ritual they do which they consider will bring them luck. Hunting is highly ritulised at almost every stage, From wearing hunting clothes to not using 'everyday' language while hunting, if you think about it, the language used is more atavistic, horns, whistles, and halloo.

Story telling is still an important part of the hunt, fishermen are by popular tradition known for there stories. I think because hunting is such a natural thing to do, its easy to drop language, and because whether you are successful or not is so variable we tend to try and replicate anything that has made us a success in the past and our rituals are born.

Size is important.

The weather for Lechlade could have been worse, if hurricanes had been involved, we arrived in the gloom of a wet and windy morning, but with our hopes high. Our reasoning the way up had ran upon lines of, There must be somewhere to cast from with the wind behind you, and rather selfishly at least the weather will keep the less hardy at home ( for 'less hardy' read those not insane with fishing fever)

After payment of a not insubstantial amount of money we headed down to the pool, finding three all ready fishing! Not knowing the lake at all we just pitched for a likely looking place and cast out. By lunch time we had one fish apiece, both of which we some for and a half pounds but had fought disappointingly.

After a chat with local knowledge we swapped banks and tried the full range of depths and flies at our disposal. This is where fishing becomes a mental game you have to play with yourself, I missed takes through lack of attention, instead I was casting and retrieving on auto-pilot a bad habit for if you are not expecting bites you will miss them.

I had moved up to the top end of the lake when Andrew came to gloat; his bass bag now contained three, four and a half pound trout to my one, we pretend we are not competitive but when ever you get two blokes fishing together there is always competition. Andrew moved back down the windward side of the lake to a nice pool and promptly on the second cast caught another fish. So I have to give credit where credits due: he did find the place where all the big fish had congregated.  I wasted no time in getting down there and taking his place as he had reached his limit.

I caught two more four to five pound fish both of which fought well, indeed it was a surprise that the second fish was not a monster. A good fighting fish is what it is all about.

Casting for my fourth and final fish, I threw out a long line with 18 feet of leader with an orange goldhead on point, allowing it to sink for 10 seconds I started a fast retrieve to feel it go solid after a couple of pulls. By this time a fishing bore had joined us to give us the benefit of is considerable knowledge on how to land a fish, after playing the fish close enough for me to see it was big, he instructed me to play it on the real and use the drag. Nothing makes me more stubborn than unwanted advice, so a cheerfully played the fish in on the line. After twenty minutes and a few heart stopping moments when the fish ran, finally Andrew slipped the net under and my 11.5lb fish was in. A great place and yes I did gloat mightily.

 

Lechlade Preparations

Preparing to fish Lechlade.

After trying all last year for a day when my fishing buddy and I could arrange a trip to Lechlade we finally manged this January. A year late, work should not interfere so much, we have obviously got our priorities wrong. Lechlade is known for its big fish, many running to double figures, so it is one of these monsters we are both after. Not that bigger is necessarily better, it is just different, I have had double figure carp on the end of the line which fought like mad and I have caught double figure trout before; the trout was disappointing as it was more akin to try to land a bag of sand than a fighting fish, the real challenge came trying to net it with a small hand net. Anyway thats another story.

In preparation for out of season hogs I have been tying flies; Gold headed diawl bachs, Nomads, and Nymphs in black and green, and blobs on size 8 hooks. These were the suggested flies on Lechlades web page, so I figure that is a good starting point.

My Diawl Bachs are tied using dear hair for the tail and hackle, peacock hurl for the body ribbed with red holographic tinsel and a tungsten bead for the head. Really easy to tie. For the Nomads I used a black marabou feather for the tail, black antron wool wound half way up a long shanked hook, the wool body is tied off with a large tungstan bead pushed down to the middle, florescent green floss is then used to create a conical head. The nymphs were tired on a long shank hook weighted with lead. Tails were various shades of green and black as were the bodies, bodies again were made of antron wool. I find this wool fabulous it shimmers just enough when in the water and is hard wearing and easy to dub on. Thorax was more wool with dear hair for legs, the eyes were tied from a small amount of polythene foam, fixed on with a figure of eight. The Blobs were in Green and Orange and just consisted of a number eight hook with 'Vampire' material wound on. In competition blobs always account for more fish than any other method, but I still have some reservations about using them. It has to be said those reservations are soon put to one side if I am not catching by other means. The human mind has a wonderful capacity for thinking of good reasons for doing something it wants.

Above is a picture of the bad boys waiting to go with a few grubs to tempt the bottom feeders.

Ted Nugent Wow

Are we just too polite about our field sports in this country? Is our british attribute of not making a fuss playing unto the hands of the animal rights nutcases? Ted Nugent would certainly think so.

Ted is a rarity, he is a wild rock star, he is a hunter, and he is an avowed family man who love the USA. He serves as a director on America's National Rifle Association, and he is an author as well. In his book 'Ted Nugents' Manifesto you can read a list of the type of work he gets involved in, it exhausting just reading it.

In the end though after reading a couple of his books and watching interviews with him what impresses me most is his passion for all things field craft, whether its endlessly practicing with bow and rifle in order to make sure he can kill his game quickly, or the many programs he is involved with to teach children the safe way of operating firearms.

His defense of guns, hunting, and the USA is strong, forthright, and uncompromising, Reading him has the same effect as a good sermon, it causes me to look at myself and ask 'what I am doing to protect my sport. After the hunting ban, when Labour gave in to the Animal Rights lobby, I went into the doldrums, canceled my subscription to the countryside alliance, which I thought had been too willing to offer up all other forms of hunting to preserve fox hunting, since the ban though they seem to have got their act together much better, and are the only body with enough clout to lobby MP's especially when so many who enjoy field sports do not stick their head above the parapet and I most certainly include myself in that one.

Ted inspires one to get out and be as active and the screwballs with bambi complex, his view is if you have not annoyed someone by the time you are 21 you have not been trying hard enough and better get on with it.

Some quotes from Ted:

“The United Nations is anti-freedom and is as useless as teats on a boar hog. It is the largest gang of worthless humanity the world has ever witnessed”

“Punks used to laugh at me, said how can you rock and roll and not get high? Well I just stood my ground. And I watched those assholes fall and die. Cuz I just wanna go hunting. It makes me feel so good. I just gotta go hunting, try and find me in the wood.”

“Those opposed to intelligent design can be easily identified by their hyper-scramble to avoid anything intelligent.”

Well that's a flavour of Ted, I find him thought provoking and edgy and slightly manic and a bit like P J O'Rourke, funny but to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Transporting Ferrets

While I was lugging my ferret box around I once again pondered why I carry such a heavy lump of wood around with me. I made it when in my late teens out of ten millimeter marine ply, I didn't have proper hinges so I used old leather from a dog collar which enabled the lids to move and it was fastened with more leather scrap pieces from an old game carrier. It has double compartments large enough for four ferrets. It usual load however was two jills in one side an a liner hob in the other. For small outing it contained a jill on one side with nets, ferret finder and odds and ends in the other side. It is painted with what ever needed using up so it looked more or less camouflaged, and finally its carrying strap was 'borrowed' from an old luggage bag.

A quarter of a century later I am still lugging it round, the only thing replaced has been one of the lids, which rats ate through one summer. So I suppose I have grown to like it. It is solid enough to sit on and ponder life while waiting for a laid up ferret to surface, or to serve as a solid lunch table.

Over the years I have tried all sorts of means of carrying my little pugs round. I bought a smart canvas bag with air holes and a draw string top. It was light and rugged but I found it was not very practical for anything but the shortest ferreting trip. It now houses my long net.

I found my ferrets soon realized that if they were quick they could turn themselves round and stick their heads out before I could close the drawstring, in addition if I did not tie the top really tightly they would work their way out. I was also never really happy with my ferrets in a bag, they seemed a little vulnerable to clumsy boots treading on them and cold and wet causing discomfort.

I had one jill who would happily go to sleep in the pocket of my Barbour, this was ideal in many ways; ferret in one pocket nets in the other. The problem with this was when I hung my coat up she would jump out and wander off to do her own thing, this was not so good.

Popular culture has it that ferrets can be kept down trousers, why anyone would want to do this is a mystery to me, and probably has more to do with the fevered imagination of those who do not hunt, they must assume we are all insane.

At the other end of the scale are the beautiful bow back ferret boxes that can be purchased from suppliers such as http://www.falconfabrication.co.uk/ which produce a really light plywood box, or if you prefer modern materials, http://www.dogtran.co.uk/ferret_boxes_cat-106 do a polypropylene which is light washable and look really good, proper hinges and catches and everything. I am far to mean to dish out the cash they want for these boxes so I guess I will stick to my old solid box and tell myself carrying the extra weight helps me to lose inches round my waist.