Blown Away

Phil Hardman seeks the shelter of the farmyard for a nocturnal rat hunt.

Spring is in the air up here in County Durham, and after a couple of weeks of freezing temperatures, we’ve had some sunshine and warm days that have really had me looking forward to the warmer weather. I’d planned an evening rabbit stalking, to make the most of the mild nights, but as it happened the settled weather didn’t last, and this latest storm front moving in from the Atlantic has brought with it gales and the threat of yet more snow.

Hunting is all about placing your shot accurately, and in this respect we have no greater enemy than the wind. Ranges are fixed, yards are always yards, and even this presents problems to estimate accurately, depending on the lighting and terrain, but the wind is a different creature all together. Wind at the shooter is seldom the same at the target, and it never blows constant. Gusts can appear from nowhere, and you can’t see it; you can’t always feel it either. It can make your shot go high, low, left or right, or a combination of them all depending on how its blowing between you and the target, so shooting in the wind is a bit of a challenge, and mastering it is an art form.

There comes a point when it becomes too strong to shoot in with any sort of accuracy, and it’s up to us as responsible shooters not only to know when to take a shot, but also to know when not to. I’d decided that the wind was simply too strong to make hunting rabbits out in the open fields and paddocks possible, so instead I changed plans at the last minute and did the only type of hunting I can do when the weather is like this, sheltered rat shooting in the farmyard.

BEEN A WHILE