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I picked Kaye up on the way & met up with Sheila just after 9:00am. I took 2 of my poley jills (Bandito & Jilly). Sheila took 4 albino jills, but only worked 2 (Arwen & Flower) plus her 2 lurchers (Lucy & Spock). Kaye came with two of her young lurchers (Todd & Erin) to see what they would do when confronted with a bolting rabbit.
We started off at the bury close to the road. 4 ferrets were introduced into the bury, my 2 and 2 of Sheila's. We did eventually get one bolt from the bury but it shot out of a hole that we hadn't netted up. A case of too many holes and not enough nets - and besides which we couldn't be bothered... after all we did have 4 lurchers with us.
The rabbit legged it across the field towards Erin, who promptly set off after it, Kaye let Todd go, and he went the wrong way - he hadn't seen the rabbit. Rabbits: 1Ferreters & lurchers: 0
We ended up with all 4 lurchers across the other side of the field when Todd put up a rabbit from a scrape. I think it was purely accidental on Todd's part... he tripped over the rabbit, and it still got away. Rabbits: 2Ferreters & lurchers: 0
We moved on to a single-hole in the bottom hedge. Arwen went in to investigate the hole... we heard a couple a thumps and a rabbit screamed. Sheila checked with the locator, Arwen was a foot down and stationery, so she got the spade and started digging... after a few minutes Arwen came out with a bloody nose and licking her lips... I finished off digging and broke through into the tunnel... 1x dead buck rabbit. Rabbits: 2Ferreters & lurchers: 1
We moved on up the hedgerow and netted up the next bury, Bandito went to see if anyone was at home... a few thumps and squeals - a quick check with the locator to discover that Bandito was pretty near the entrance. I managed to grab the rabbit's back legs and haul it out, with Bandito trying to pull it back in by the nose. Rabbits: 2Ferreters & lurchers: 2
The next buries down the hedge were water-logged so we moved up the hill.
The next bury was under an Oak tree - we set a few nets and I put a gate net across the gully. 3 ferrets went in... a big buck went to bolt, saw Lucy and dived back under the tree. The ferrets appeared to be a better option than the lurchers.
After a fairly long wait Bandito and Flower surfaced. Arwen was a couple of feet down so Sheila started digging... then the fun started. Sheila thought that Arwen was on the rabbit but it appeared that the rabbit must have been up on a ledge. The digging disturbed the rabbit - this went on for something like an hour and a half. Just to spice up the proceedings Todd put up a young buck rabbit and chased it into the same bury, but up the hill from the Oak tree. After a quarter of an hour the young buck decided to leg it from under the oak - he didn't get far. Lucy caught him. Rabbits: 2Ferreters & lurchers: 3
Then it was the waiting game again... that darn old buck was leading Arwen a merry dance... but he wouldn't bolt. Arwen finally surfaced after nearly two hours underground, she looked like she was wearing rabbit-fur mittens on her front paws so she'd really been in contact with him.
Time was now almost 3:00pm so we decided to call it a day... he'd got the better of Arwen and us... and after that length of time he had earned the right to be left to his own devices. Rabbits: 3Ferreters & lurchers: 3
We'll get him another day.
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