Airgun World – Summer 2019

38 AIRGUN WORLD http://www.airgunshooting.co.uk

L

ast month, I was full of the joys of spring,

well summer actually, after having

managed to secure an 800-acre farm

permission with my good friend Roger Cooling.

During our first couple of visits there we

didn’t manage to let a shot go, and used our

time for recon and planning. We discovered a

couple of areas where the rabbits were

feeding, mostly from actually seeing them and

from locating loads of piles of droppings, but

we couldn’t find any warrens to speak of, so

our suspicions are that the warrens are located

deep undercover inside the many inaccessible

heavily overgrown areas that border the farm.

TWO WEEKS OFF

Due to work commitments, neither Roger nor I

could get to the farm after our last visit there

for two entire weeks, but when we did both

finally make it back we were shocked at what

we discovered.

During the two-week lay off we’d had some

serious rain, coupled with a spell of lovely

warm weather. These two conditions

combined had made the crops and grass

bordering the gravel pathways grow quite

considerably.

One of the key areas that we had planned to

shoot, a gravel roadway bordered by fields to

the left, and a densely overgrown wooded area

to the right, where we suspect the rabbit

warrens are, was now unshootable! The grass

had grown best part of a foot high down the

middle of the path and along the edges where

we had seen the rabbits on our previous visit.

That was position one and two out of the

window for the time being until we could get the

farmer to mow it for us. We now had to look

again for somewhere accessible and shootable.

TESTING TIMES

I’d coincided this farm visit with a rifle review for

‘The Big Test’ in Air Gunner magazine. I wanted

HUNTING

PERMISSION GRANTED

Dave Barham takes a trip to his new permission, to try out

the Brocock Commander on an elusive rabbit population

Roger got himself dug into the foliage alongside the gravel road.

PART 2