Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Warren peace
Simon Whitehead heads out ferreting with two friends he doesn’t see enough, but sadly the rabbits have been hit by myxomatosis
It has been far too long since I had a walk out with my pal Macca and our dogs. Last time we were out together was brilliant. That said, I remember Tawny catching a rabbit and careering off down a steep hill, tumbling head over paws on to the ground below. Luckily she landed in the reeds, which cushioned her fall, but she gave us the shock of our lives. Six years later, I was not only with the ‘ginger ninja’ but also her daughter Dotty.
Recently the weather has been unseasonably mild. In fact, the dogs have been feeling it at points. The warmer weather has unfortunately helped the explosion of insect life. This may be great for wild birds but not so for our rabbit population, as insects are vectors of the dreaded myxy.
Another mate, Darren, had come along too, and we promised the keeper that we would help with a localised rabbit problem. As we ambled down, it quickly became apparent that instead of the open hillside with sporadic warrens that I recalled, this was an established conifer belt. I remembered with a smile certain deep, gnarly, sandy warrens that I used to work as a youngster in East Anglia. They shaped me and my passion. They were big warrens where the rabbits, if allowed, could rattle about in. Get your tactics and animals wrong and it would easily become a fruitless game of subterranean hide and seek in such conditions.
What we were looking at was hard but not impossible. There are a very few warrens that can’t be ferreted, but experience is everything — you can’t just go entering ferrets if you don’t understand a warren. My ferreting mindset, even on a jolly, ensures that I try my hardest to get the right result. However ugly it may appear or get, there is always a way to break it down into easier-to-manage sections. That said, it doesn’t always go according to plan.
The dreaded myxy
Macca loves nets. His face said it all as he and Darren, accompanied by Darren’s collie-cross Eddie and Macca’s Mable, the ‘border terrorist’, netted up on one side. I raked about in the reed and Tawny picked up a local, sitting tight. Unfortunately, it was blatantly obvious that it couldn’t see anything. It was a classic case of myxy and a dreadful waste.
I really dislike netting in plantations. Every pinecone, branch, needle and leaf has the ability to make my net null and void, instead transforming it into a trampoline. All surrounded, we split up. We did this to see if these workings were joined. Darren and Macca started with some polecat crosses, while I entered Jaws. Between us we put in four battlehardened ferrets of various ages. It quickly became apparent that these
pipes were expansive, possibly too expansive for our armoury, but we cracked on regardless. The rabbits knew their stuff and stayed put until pushed hard. The odd bolt did happen as well as Darren’s sporadic dig.
“The rabbits knew their stuff and stayed put until pushed hard. The bolt did happen”
The dogs all marshalled excellently, ignoring each other as if they knew each other well, which they didn’t.
One rabbit inspired a very interesting conversation about the quality of long nets after it hit Darren’s net. It rolled over, and as the net was unable to ball it up, ran for freedom before any of us could get over the stock fence. By this time Dotty was in hot pursuit, but the rabbit had too much of a start.
As if losing the rabbit wasn’t a bitter enough pill to swallow, upon her return, Dotty had a gaping tear on her chest. No doubt a result of a tired or lazy jump over the barbed-wire fence that surrounds the plantation. As we were a fair trek from the trucks and the wound didn’t require any immediate attention, the rest of her day was spent on a lead.
A wink and a smile
The conversation flowed more easily than the rabbits. Quick-witted and dry, my two pals kept me laughing away. Jaws, one of my current crop of ferrets, was putting a shift in, and this wasn’t going unnoticed by Darren as he constantly asked if I was giving away “that rubbish ferret” that “doesn’t know what it’s doing”. Jaws was truly the man of the day.
Above ground, Eddie and Tawny were doing their jobs, but the canopy was a handicap to their strengths. Instead, Mable, the small border terrorist with a nose that would put any dog to shame, stole the show.
She was always hustling and putting pressure on any bolting rabbit. Being vertically challenged, she could chase the rabbits, unlike our taller lurchers who were usually faster. But on rough terrain, terriers, particularly plucky ones that really love hunting, can