THICK AND FAST!

Dave Barham revisits a productive paddock, where he explains the pros and cons of shooting rabbits in heavy cover

If you remember last month’s piece I wrote entitled ‘Twas The Night After Lockdown’ you will have seen from the photos that the paddock my good friend, Roger Cooling, and I have been shooting on was well mown with very little in the way of obstructions. Well, fast forward a month and it’s a completely different story!

On our recent visit to the paddocks, we were greeted with a completely new set-up. The owner of the horse had very kindly made a separate paddock within the paddocks by using an electric fence. Rather than splitting the paddocks in half width-ways to create two smaller paddocks – one with the horse in and one we could shoot in, the owner had made a long paddock over the length of the field, which now gave Roger and I access to the entire length of the hedgerow from where the rabbits emerge.

That’s brilliant, but there was a slight problem; the area we were now shooting was absolutely full of tall weeds and bushes, smack bang in the middle of the field between our shooting positions and the hedgerow, which had about a meter-wide clear strip running the full length for the rabbits to feed on. Some serious bushcraft was on the cards to find two shooting positions with clear lines of sight!

INSTANT ACTION

Before we even made it to the paddocks, I had my first opportunity at about 22 yards. As Roger and I walked through the gate toward the fields, Roger, who was slightly in front of me, put his arm out to stop me and said, “Dave – there, look! You’ve got to be able to get that one from the tree.”