Went foxing, Shot some tree rat's instead.

[Ferret Master]

Hi,

 

I decided to try and sort out our fox problem today by waiting up for the cretin with the 12 bore. In the end one had no such luck as Charlie refused to put an appearance in. :(

 

Anyway, I was also on my general vermin control duties and when I spotted a couple of magpies in the goose pen out of my Granmother's window I grabbed the 12 bore and went round the back to see if I could ambush them. As soon as I walked round the corner I froze. There was a squirrel sitting on the bird feeder with 13 hen pheasants underneath him. I cursed myself for not taking the air rifle as I couldn't blow the feeder to bits by shooting him there so decided to walk him up and shoot him bolting. As you will probably know the best laid plans occasionally don't work. This wasn't a good plan and certainly didn't work as the damn thing ran through the birds stopping me shooting him as I would have hit the pheasants. However the squirrel made one mistake; instead of bolting towards the woods he climbed a hawthorn tree and stayed about 8 foot up it. I could have sorted him out there and then but I felt that 32g of 6's might have made a mess of the tree, tree rat and telephone pole by the tree so a different approach was required. I removed my mobile phone from my pocket and made an important call.

 

'Hello Gran, it's just me. Look out of the window and you will see me under the hawthorn with a shotgun and a squirrel above me. Please could you bring my air rifle out.' She obliged and I saw her coming out of the house gripping the gun just above its silencer on the air resevoir.

 

I broke the shotgun and carefully laid it at my feet still loaded incase the squirrel did a runner. I then loaded my air rifle and pointed at the squirrel who was being annoying and scurrying round the other side of the trunk playing the 'you can't see me game'. Anyway he finally made the fatal mistake of sticking his head out and a quick shot to the neck brought him down.

 

Later on that day I glanced out the window and saw the offending magpies back again. Grabbing the 12 bore I crept out of the back door and when I went round the corner saw a squirrel running at me but with the backstop of an oil canister behind it. I waited for it to move well away from it and it finally stopped for a second behind a clump of daffodils which no longer had any flowers. I let 32g of 6's through 1/2 choke from 10m away do the rest. This was a beast of a squirrel and I checked it was not pregnant.

 

These squirrels were very satisfying as there was only supposed to be one around in the garden as I had culled their numbers heavily last year.

 

Here they are:

 

FM

[AndyCM]

Have to teach Granny how to carry a gun

 

Sounds lucky you didn't blast a few breakables, one patch I shoot has plenty of shotgun pellets in the bird table (yep squirrels) the owner just lets rip at them

 

Well done on getting them

 

Cheers

AndyCM

[Ferret Master]

She generally just points her walking sticks at them and shouts bang.

[kipper]

Well done FM,

 

Good to see you dons take pot shots at anything anywhere, To wait for the right time and place is good and I respect you for that

 

AAS410k fantastic hunting rifle IMO, same as mine, only thing I dont like about it is it has no safety. (unliked the new ones) can send gun away to Air Arms to get one fitted about £50 tho,

 

Keep up the good hunting

 

kip

[dazza]

well done FM

[steve3562]

nice one FM good write up aswell

 

 

steve