An early morning shoot in Essex

[happyshooter]

Hi, Guys i was out at 1st light this morning at my local big house shoot, this has paddocks of 3 acres either side of the house and lots of trees and copses . My main prey are rabbits, tree rats, and woodies, magpies,my guns used this morning a Daystate mk-3 R/t .177 fac @20fpe and for the woodies my .410 shotgun, i arrived at 0700 hrs and parked up and spotted 2 woodies having a set to at the top of a horse chestnut tree so i quickly loaded the daystates mag and got into a shooting position from the undergrowth where i was i took a bead on the woodie with its back to me and shot it in the back of the head it fell forward but the other woodie was still trying to attack it . So i shot it straight through the front of the neck , then both birds fell out of the tree hitting the ground with a loud thwack, next i set up a hide about 30 yds from a large wood pile that contains a rabbit warren and got comfortable on my camping chair after about 20-30 mins, 2-- baby rabbits appeared but were too small so i let them play chasing each other around, then from the field behind the woodpile came a large rabbit hopping slowly then stopping and having a look around, this rabbit was about 40 yds from me which just happens to be my zero point for the r/t i eased a jsb exact .177 pellet into the barrel and got a nice side on shot right into the bunnies head it did a nice back flip and laid still, over the next one and a half hours i shot 4 more rabbits. I then decided to walk around with my .410 semi auto shotgun and sort out some roosting woodies in some trees still in leaf in the top paddock, this also contains two large hazel nut bushes so tree rats are often around as i made my way under the overhanging laurel bushes, i heard the cackle of mr magpie and spotted him at the top of a hazel tree its back to me so being the bad sport i am i shot it out of the tree , further on 2 tree rats their bushy tails just showing through the hazel nut leaves were busy knocking off the hazel nuts did not notice me about 20 yds away so i took aim and shot them both dead , i then took one of the tree rats and cut its stomach open and placed it near to where i had seen

several magpies before, i took cover in a near by laurel bush copse and waited after about 40 mins 2 magpies flew over then sat in a near by tree but came down to the tree rat after a while only 1 landed but i shot it dead the other one flew away , i managed 4 more woodies before calling it a day,.A good mornings shoot completed!!!!

regds brian