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.