Hunting with Ferrets | TAOutdoors

Description

One of the more traditional ways to hunt rabbits in Britain is to use ferrets. Hunting with Ferrets has been done for many years. In this episode of Totally Awesome Outdoors, Graeme & Mike head to a small farm in Hampshire to film Rob Pearson, who owns two ferrets named Winston and Napoleon. The way ferreting works, is you net as many holes in a rabbit warren as you can, and then put the ferrets down one of the holes. The ferret then works its way through the warren and finds a rabbit. The rabbit then bolts out into the open, and into one of the nets. We hope you enjoy this episode and be sure to check out some of the links below:

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Tags: hunting,ferrets,rabbits,wild,game,shooting,shoot,hunt,wilderness,kill,trap,snare,outdoors,awesome,totally awesome,tips,gun,shotgun,knife,fillet,gut,skin,fur

Video Transcription

woke up the totally awesome outdoor show now sometimes the book just doesn't do justice to real knowledge in the field that can only be gained when you're out in the outdoors one of those things that I've been learning about is hunting but not just with a gun how about hunting with ferrets now for those of you don't live in the UK this is a sort of traditional method used to be used years and years and years ago and it still goes on today people in jewelry hunting with ferrets you basically have a ferret that you put down the rabbit hole it chases around if it can chase around in a rabbit hole I don't know anyway it will bonk the rabbit out of a hole and you have to pin all the holes down with a net that's quite an unusual way of catching rabbits you can go out you can shoot them if you have a very good eye and you're very careful and you're stealthy but this method is something that I've not read a lot about and I certainly not really seen a lot of filming about so here are the totally awesome outdoor show we thought we go up with the cameras couple of cameras and see what we could record in the North Hampshire countryside about catching rabbits wild rabbits with ferrets total wild scenario beautiful countryside ease in the winter when you do do this sort of thing let's get out let's see what we can do they're generally the rabbits going to be found obviously it rabbit holes like this and there in front of that you see the little dots of black dots was a rabbit droppings and that tells us that the rabbits have been down there borrowing away they've been out during the night feeding and they're now back in those burrows down in well pretty well deep and safe and comfortable or so they think

there's a lot of holes here as you can see this is a big rabbit warren and it tends to be a rough hall covered spiky brambly areas where they feel safe from the Predators they can come out onto the fields and feed but here's a predator that they haven't seen before this is a ferret beautiful looking creatures they have absolutely superb soft fur with now these are kept in this box like this transported in the box like this and what we're going to hear about is exactly how these fancy used how they looked after how they used in the UK British hunting scene so this is what we use to stop the ferrets erm also we can locate the ferrets if they get laid up on the ground and what's known as a as a ferret finder or locator so that's the collar that goes around the fairies neck and we'll show you me struggling to put out on a ferret in the mystic minute I just put the batteries in them that's the actual locator box itself there's a lot little sort of watch type batteries but they just cap like that and screw on and as soon as that batteries in that little units on and it's setting off a ping every second or two and it's that ping that is then picked up by the locator turn the box on in here those pinging and there's a there's a dial on the back and you can actually locate how far underground the ferrets are using that oil so when you get the ping and you can read off the depth of that doll and it gives you an indication of approximately how far down there this is the tricky part getting the cholera on the ferret these are the ferrets hylene and Winston the Winston's the bit more experienced one so we know he's a good good worker this is Winston now there are @e brothers but there's bit distance and time between them so this will collar up Winston first because he's got a really huge thick neck so I have to make sure I get the longer collar on and is there coloration difference is we favorite eye that there are yet yet so these these are what we call polecat so they're sort of close to the original sort of polecat colors but you can get all sorts different colors a lot of people like using the ill be albe nose or whites because they're quite visible so when they pop up at the bar at Barrow it's easy to spot them always you've got to make sure that the colors are on tight because if it becomes your gums oh that's it hallo the Sounders bit funny I said good it caught on 400 is ready to go as you can see here although the holes have been covered by high visibility nets now the reason they use is it because obviously if you use camouflage netting if you're putting 30 or 40 Nets out in the undergrowth you're never going to find them so high vis netting is a way to go we've all the nets in place you can see up pops mr. ferret he's been down he's been around the borough now he might turn around like this one has to go back down it he's only called or you might indeed have to lift him out and put him down another hole he's going to search away tracking through those bars trying to find out where the rabbits are hiding we'll go down and actually come on Stan they look around and then they'll get back down on it here we have our first rabbit he's bolted out into the net he's tangled up in the net on the right you can see the ferret who's come out of that burrow he's chased the rabbit into the other entrance and the remnants caught in the net there's tangled up in the net it's gotta be sorted out then it's going to be dispatched me what mr. ferret back off to look for another rabbit he loves them

when you lose track of that ferret you're going to search for it using the signal that comes through on the period finder as explained earlier it can tell you what depth or ret it gives you a good idea on the worst case scenario is he gets stuck and you have to get the Spade and dig it out yes so we've managed to bolt one out of this set which is which is positive so we got one rabbit for dinner but what we do do on top we just strip the bladder just check that there's nothing in there might be that this one is empty because that's not that's not coming so I think that one's empty thankfully sometimes I have a full bladder and you just need to get that get that out them and take them me it's best to gut them suckers as quick as possible depending what you do some people gut them in the field so dig a hole gut them bari bari the entrails or I generally I'll take them home and gut them because I like to give the the awful to the to the ferret so a lot of changes much much of the rabbit as well you know just be as sustainable as possible really okay that's what it's about free-range organic sustainable meat so you've got time might have a look at another set Jules now here's some tracking methods to give some tips look at this fence it's been pushed through by other rabbits and all predators go in there you can see these little game trails which will wear marks then leave a muddy track and go underneath fence lines through hedges you can see that there is actually a wear line regularly used by creatures going underneath the fencing and there it looks to me like a fox print I may be wrong some expert out there might be able to tell me but it's got four toes and this is the 4-toed rabbit I don't know

but there again you can see the little game trail and that comes out from hedgerows on to the actual pasture they feed on here also are some deer tracks if you just look you can see that two finger marks and double finger marks there of the deer now it could be something small like here in the UK we have muntjac deer which is a very small deer it's quite prolific and they do travel on the edges of woodland as well now here's some fresh Rama topic droppings here that shows you they'd literally been out feeding that morning it's a good idea if you can search for rabbit droppings like this it gives you an idea of where there should be rabbits and look you're never going to notice there are so many holes and some of the holes are dead ends some have side tracks now that looks like a dead end hold as you can see there's obviously put the fur down he's going to turn around and come back out again there's another hole there I can't what I just can't get the camera all the way down it but as you can see yeah this one looks good it's a proper sort of cavern that goes twisting down and that's what that ferret goes down these are the holes that you've got to cover up because the rabbit is going to bolt out sometimes they tell me if that ferret is chasing the rabbits up the hole you can actually hear the ground drumming or vibrating as a rubbish bolting out

you

there you can see we're getting right in amongst the gorse bushes and put the first down holes well you wouldn't think they'll be worth putting any ferret down these holes but trust me you have no idea how deep those holes are how many Boers how many channels how many avenues you don't know what the rabbits have been doing underneath there so always pop them in and provide you got the ferret finder you should get your firm it back hopefully the first layer comes out is going to be a rabbit closely follow followed by mr. ferret now just check out this ferret he goes down this hole for some reason he doesn't like that hole down there he's now got a go and try and work his way down but look how he's sniffing around he's actually looking for seeing which is the freshest smelling rabbit scent in there does he like that one oh he reverses he likes the one on the left better no he's gonna come out have a poke around but look at him sending getting the scent getting a smell he's he's looking he's getting ready to hunt and he decides to go down that one so there was about four holes he didn't go down and then he came back out off but once he got that scent he was well on the way and here we go that paid off with another rabbit in the net bolted in the net mmm I feel dinner coming already and again they squeeze the stomach to try and empty the bladder of the rabbit so that it doesn't take the meat here's a couple of false ticks here you can just see where the rabbits are started digging in there and not actually made a full burrow of its where they've been just digging away there could be other creatures doing this of course but most lining with all these holes here if you find something like an embankment then you've got a really good chance of finding where the rabbits are with another rabbit bolted into the net here's the ideal way to dispatch them one blow to the back of the neck BAM that's the neck broken that is one dead rabbit ready to be skinned ready to be eaten you couldn't ask for any fresher the day was done many many nets were called up packed up and put away into the krill basket if they put away tidally they'll come out tidy won't they the ferrets are uncommon they've put back in there toasty little box having done all their work a great session they've got some rabbits there do they want to go back will you tell me I think they still want to go rabbit so after a really enjoyable day of a Hampshire countryside in the winter some nice big rabbits they're not shot clean kills chased out by the ferrets a traditional British Way of getting rabbits at dinner so obviously a really important thing with your going hunting or shooting is to get a landowners permission just want to share this as some really best practice stuff that Rob when he came down and asked me to shoot on the farmers he he came down with a printed out version of the hunting act so he's effectively got written permission from the landowner to hunt on the land so it's just some really really good practice stuff that if you want to get out there do some hunting do some shooting you should you should really do so as a responsible ferret er you know as well as looking after your ferrets and making sure you're dispatching your prey humanely this is the other critical thing because if anyone questions you or challenges you when you're on the property I've got the letter from George stating I've got permission to be here and what exactly I'm doing we've got two good days ferreting out on George's farm we've bagged three rabbits we did let a couple get away that slip the next but we'll have some more for next con workweek so the ferrets will go home now good good snooze and we'll take there we'll take the rabbits back and we'll skin them gut them and we'll cook them and my favorite way of cooking the rabbits is slow pit you need it's quite lean it's very lean protein rich meat and ideally you want to cook it with something that's a little bit fatty my favorite thing is using trigger it's a bit dies for it so in the pan let the oils come out section the rabbits and and put them into Brown in the chorizo oil and then into the slow cooker and add the veggies that you want and then a nice slow cook and a lovely lovely rabbits juice so that's what we'll be doing with them sustainable free-range you know where they've come from that they've been killed humanely dispatched humanely and yeah better than what you can walk in and pick up on the supermarket shelf in my opinion that's what it's about you