An Account of Essex Long Netting

[The Essex Hunter]

An Account of Essex Long Netting

 

 

Having been ferreting for close to thirty years using purse nets. I had an opportunity to use long nets with a friend who I have known for a while; my previous experiences over those years had been of mixed fortunes, with a dozen rabbits, being as much as two lads of twelve years old could carry home on their young shoulders.

 

Those early years were spent in the blackthorn-ridden hedges of Essex, of which I still bear the scars to date. Despite the mainly low numbers, endless digging in the heavy Essex clay, this stood me in good stead. Over the past ten years, I have had a good stock of polecat ferrets. Which I am slowly breeding them to lighter colours because we find the darker ferrets are harder to keep track of once they come to the surface, as the hedges are not cut back as they were in the past.

 

With my first foray in to the world of long netting and armed with my usual array of tools, which I’ve refined over the years, I can cut and dig my way through any hedge or down to my ferrets very quickly.

My friend gave me a run down on how things worked and the ground we were on was quite flat, so a quick trim up where the gate nets were to be set, and off we went; I had to confess to dropping down a few well-chosen purse nets, which just happed to be in my coat, well old habits die-hard!

 

After a short while, the rabbits started to bolt and I had to resist the urge to move towards them, as my friend said, you have to let them run. Well he was right and with in half an hour there was a pile of nine rabbits, then out came the locator and my long digging graft and to my friends surprise I was down two and a half foot, right on top of the pocket and puling out two rabbits as quick as you could blink.

 

To be honest I did enjoy the day and had mixed feelings about long netting but I could see the attraction so decided to carry on. I remembered that a friend of my father had given us some nets a few years previously, so I looked around under the bench and pulled out a tangled mess of what turned out to be four, five-yard gate nets.

After some time, and resting the urge to set light to them, I managed to mount them on some poles.

At that time, I did not have a computor, so had to rely on the stock of local gun shops for nets, which proved to be very poor, but I did place an order for a twenty-five yard six weight net.

 

Why a six weight I here you say? Well I am a great believer in having things that are strong and can stand up to wear and tear. This has come from my work background and it is a proven method in all my equipment. I had my net and poles, know to set it up, our house backs on to a farm, and the headland is quite clear but an effective way to fix the poles was far from forth coming.

 

My father kept ferrets from an early age, like many country folk who worked on farms; they found rabbits a good source of meat and income. With a thriving fur trade, this also provided employment to thousands of people, which sadly is all gone in this modern plastic packed era.

 

I turned to him for advice on how I might set out this net; he replied I only used purse nets and a crossbred whippet in the ditch.

After an hour of perseverance, I had a working twenty-five yard net. I then copied my friend’s net basket and I was all set.

During my years of ferreting, I have never had a dog to “mark an earth” so a lot of trial and error has eventually left me with good judgement as to whether an earth is worth doing, yes I am proved wrong much to my annoyance, but I have found more than often to be right.

 

Like many country sports, it takes time to hone your skills, but with my many years of purse netting, I have found the transition to long netting quite easy. What started as a new twist on an old pursuit for me has turned from a two-man team, into a regular three-day week winter sport for a team of up to six people. As time has passed, we have acquired much more land so our equipment has grown. One of our team designed a pair of ditch nets to his specification with a lead lined cord for the bottom of the ditch.

 

I really like the way it works but a couple of the others are not so keen as it requires that part of the ditch to be quite clean, but when on a long run the second net then becomes the start of the next run thus saving time.

Having watched many ferreting, DVD’s some on the various methods of how to set out long nets; we find that the way our nets are set up works very well for us.

How we have them set up is the fixed pole method using six weight nets in lengths of twenty five or fifty yard runs, with quite a number of gate nets which are run out from the hedge line to the main net to stop the rabbits running a long the main net and turning back into the warren.

 

We do not use dogs or guns as around a third of this land is on smallholdings, paddocks, and quite a few very large gardens. It is quite refreshing to turn up at these places to a warm greeting and quite often a hot cup of tea. Very different from the many times of being turned away or confronted by a miserable farmer who seemed more concerned that we would be running dogs or shooting pheasants on his land. I have told a couple of farmers who have crossed on to there neighbours land to see what we were up to, that if I wanted to shoot their pheasants I would come back in the dark when they were asleep and shoot them in the trees, which usually provided a standard reaction.

 

Thankfully, those days are long gone; we have built up a very good relationship with all the landowners, but still struggle with the ones who have shoots, as they all seem to believe that we will disturb the birds. I have offered to ferret the day after a shoot, but they want us to come and clear the rabbits after the shoots have finished.

The problems with this is that there is a lot to do in a short space of time, with the mainly mild winters these days, being laid up on baby rabbits is a problem and a three foot digs in hard ground for something that is all ready dead, could be avoided if we could start earlier.

 

 

On three of the farms, we have developed a great way of catching rabbits with out the ferrets; these farms have large areas of Christmas trees in various stages of growth. Therefore, we surround the trees with the nets, run nets through the middle, and proceed to flush the trees with up to twenty-two rabbits in half an hour and not a ferret in sight.

 

I always go out at the beginning of the season with my purse nets on my own, to make sure all the hobs and jill,s get a good run. With often, a good tally from the small warrens. It is like going back in time as the black thorn is just as sharp and the Essex clay just as tough but well worth it.

http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/ab130/T...x%20Ferrerting/

Edited July 25, 2010 by The Essex Hunter

[stubby]

a nice interesting write up

[lord_seagrave]

Really enjoyed reading that TEH.

 

 

LS

[Guest cookoff013]

i really enjoyed ferreting, with shotguns. on a couple of occasions had the best days sport ever,

then when we turned up, once, everyone and his neighbour turned up, tooled up for any eventually.

more guns than people and rabbits.

it killed the fun, sport, and the safety. after that we didnt go there again, it just got silly..

 

too many cooks and all. what turned out to be a job for 2 people, 8 turned up. 5 "unexpectedly" passing by with all their shooting gear.

 

we almost had a 1:1kill ratio for the first 50. until then. !