All for one, one for all

In a single day, the ferrets, dog and goshawk bag their bunny — a feat to be known forthwith as a rabbiting Macnab, says Simon Whitehead

- Simon Whitehead

The second lockdown played havoc with my rabbiting. Access to large tracts of land that are in the middle of nowhere was curtailed by red tape and bureaucracy. The plus side was that I had a bit of spare time to read some of my back issues of Shooting Times from cover to cover.

Sam Carlisle set out for a Bedford, his take on the Macnab (An impossible tusk?, 25 November). Each time I have read or heard of attempts at any kind of Macnab, they have been meticulously planned. Though many have failed, sometimes an extraordinary series of events happens by chance. I had one of those in December.

My day was planned. It was going to be about highlighting the difference between using the long-net and purse-net while ferreting. As with so much of 2020, this went out of the window when I saw a few scuts running for home on a small grassy hillside. The gauntlet was thrown and I couldn’t resist. After doing a quick recce, I put down the long-nets, supplemented with a scattering of purse-nets. While I laid my nets, Tawny stood statuesque in the middle of this expansive warren. We both knew rabbits were at home — the million-dollar question was, could we get them back out again?

With collars checked, fitted and the ferrets eager to graft, I climbed over the wall and dropped my fistful of ferrets into the warren. I would have loved to say the rabbits hit the nets so fast that I was unable to keep up with them, but sadly it was not the case. These large and wise rabbits know what’s safe and what isn’t. My ferrets were grafting hard to push these bothersome bunnies out from deep, water-filled warrens.