Red's Ramblings v.2

I never did write the entry that I promised would be “next week” in my last post. So here, better late than never, it is.

Emilys birthday was good. She wanted to go to Waterworld with some friends. Its essentially a water slide fest which I think I enjoyed more than they did. We had the weather with us so it was especially good when they opened the outdoor pool. It felt very “holiday”.

The day after we went to Silverstone to watch the Ferrari Challenge Europa series. I’d done a website for one of the drivers that had lead to me having my logo on the car. We were treated to full Ferrari hospitality, wined and dined and given full pit access which was especially good as they had rolled out the F1 cars for a spin.

I said I’d tell you about the gun too.

We have been over run with rabbits at the stables and there was talk of the need for a cull. This lead in a round about way to me buying an airgun. A BSA Lightning XL to be precise. I wasn’t too keen on killing the bunnies but I did my homework and eventually came round to the idea after reading that there was a real injury risk to our horse with the holes that they were digging and that their poops could harbour worms.

I’d done some plinking and target shooting to zero the scope and convince myself that I could reliably hit an area the size of a 10 pence piece at 30 yards but had yet to point the think at anything live when a call came that some friends of the yard owner had come across to thin the numbers and I was welcome to tag along. I chucked the rifle in the boot and flew up there but I found that my gun was a pea shooter by comparison and they were shooting at 100 yards with rimfires. I stood there trying to look the part but it was obvious that they 30 yard quarry was taken out in the first few minutes and as one of the rifles was firing 22 magnums with exploding tips there was a pile of headless rabbits mounting. Luckily I was leant the rifle to have a couple of shots and with those shots despatched a couple of rabbits. It was an easy introduction as they kind of took the responsibility for my kills.

The same couldn’t be said for the little hunt James and myself went on a couple of weeks later. The numbers had been thinned and the larger rabbits, and the elusive big buck, was being very wary. There were plenty of baby rabbits but you can’t consider them game if, as you can, you can walk up to within a yard of them before they hop away. So we went to the top field to lie in wait where we had seen some of the larger rabbits coming out. There’s a lot more to getting within 30 yards than you’d think but get there I did and I had my first chance to use my gun. I took aim and took the shot. It bounced around a couple f time and then twitched for 30 seconds or so and I was a bit concerned that I’d missed but I was happy to find that I’d got the perfect head shot. James got one more after that then no more for the day as they had become a bit too aware of us and we had no cover. I still have mixed feelings but If I don’t do it someone else will so its the same outcome either way.