T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE LOCKDOWN …

Dave Barham remembers his last rabbit hunt before Covid-19 saw us all having to remain indoors

- Dave Barham

At the time of writing this piece, I’m well into week four of lockdown, with a further three weeks minimum expected to be announced. I don’t know about you, but I’m really struggling now – I just want to get back out hunting and fishing. However, I know deep down that staying home is the right thing to do and is undoubtedly saving lives, not least my own and my family’s. Like all of you reading this, I’m prepared to stay home for as long as it takes. I’d much rather be alive and out hunting in the next month or two, than not be here to hunt at all.

WE KNEW IT WAS COMING

Like most, I saw the lockdown coming. I wasn’t sure when it would be, but I knew it was going to come sooner rather than later. With this in mind, I got together with my good mate Roger and we planned a day’s fishing off the south coast, followed by an afternoon rabbiting at our local stables perm knowing full well that they might be our last opportunities for quite some time.

For us, everything just came together with a huge streak of luck. Two days previously, Roger had received a phone call from the owner of the paddocks to inform him that they required our services yet again because the place was being overrun with rabbits. You might remember that last year I wrote a series of rabbit hunting features on this exact same venue, and although the pair of us managed to take in excess of 50 from one small field during the summer and autumn of 2019, the rabbits had done what rabbits do and completely repopulated the area over the winter and early spring.

A QUICK RECCE

We had our plan in mind, and the evening before we set off at 2am to head south for our fishing trip, we met up at the stables to spend an hour walking round and just sitting there and observing.