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.