Shooting Times & Country Magazine
RABBIT CACHE
In a ‘normal’ year, as the fallow buck season comes to a close, one of the highlights is to hunt for cast antlers. As I saw two freshly cast sorrels from my cottage window I decided to sweep through the wood to try to add to my collection.
The wood is mainly mixed hardwood with blocks of conifers and it was through one of these blocks that I followed a well-used track. As I walked I found a rabbit skull; when I bent down to pick it up I saw a second, then a third. Stepping the small business £10,000 cash relief. It cannot be denied that taking advantage of this loophole has caused rift and resentment and will inevitably cause a division that might prove difficult to heal in the near future.
Of course we should be courteous and considerate to each other, but it is quite an obstacle when greed emerges to abuse the system. We are continually reminded how important these temporary stays are to us locals but there appears to be no shame for depriving the hard-up local authority of substantial income; in excess of £1million in my back I realised that the bones were scattered across the ‘spoil’ dug out of what I took to be a long disused fox earth. Spread across it were more bones, long bones, jaws and vertebrae, all intact. I quickly collected 10 skulls on the surface or slightly buried, along with a handful of long bones and a couple of bird bones.
The mystery is, why should there be a ‘cache’ of rabbits that have not been eaten? None of the bones were shattered, as I would expect to find if a fox or badger had eaten them. Should the locality. Until this inequality is solved and the opportunities arise for our young people to earn a decent wage to afford such properties, resentment will inevitably remain not only in my part of the country but within all rural communities.
C Jones-evans, Gwynedd rabbits have been left by a human no doubt one of the badgers from the extensive and ancient range of setts only 25 yards uphill from the site would have enjoyed breaking up the carcasses.
The bones were confined to the couple of square yards of soil dug out from the slope. Was it a fox’s larder, caching fresh rabbits to be consumed later? Have any of your readers come across a similar site? I came away without antlers but with an interesting and intriguing experience.
R Goodge, Herefordshire when in steel is reduced to a lead equivalent in pellet number of 17g.
Unfortunately, the volumetric difference between steel and lead means that 24g of steel are unlikely to be fitted into a 2¾in chambered 28-bore, even if the recoil-absorbing shot column is reduced to almost nothing; 19g of steel seems more likely. That would have the same pellet count as about 14g of lead, which is the standard 2½in .410 cartridge.
My own experience of these is that they are effective on squirrels at perhaps a little over 20 yards, and this would seem to be the fate of a 2¾in chambered 28-bore if used with steel shot.
S Judd, East Sussex