Predator vs Prey

Eddie Jones explains the finer points of being a hunter, using stealth and camouflage to his advantage

- Eddie Jones

I get asked many times, ‘How do you shoot so many rabbits on your trips out?’ Well, there’s not enough time in my life to go through everything I have learned over my years of shooting, but I’ll give you one simple bit of information that will definitely help you in your future hunts.

Since the time of the dinosaurs, predators have used stealth, cunning, camouflage and speed to get a meal, and these four methods of predation are all used when we go hunting, without us even knowing it, sometimes. How many times have you seen a rabbit and had to get on your hands and knees to be able to stalk it? This is exactly how cats stalk their prey; we see it every time we watch those wildlife programmes. It is a natural instinct to get as close to that rabbit before the speed kicks in, even if we look stupid to anyone that doesn’t understand what we are trying to achieve.

You might be wondering where the speed comes into it because we are going as slowly as possible on our hands and knees, but at the end of the stalk we are still usually around 30 yards away, so how do we use speed like a cat? The rifle is our final bolt of speed and we send the pellet toward the prey to be able to end the stalk successfully.

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