Maud! Millie! Behind you!” Simon shouted, as he raced forward, pointing his two lurchers in the direction of a bolting rabbit. The long wait we had endured before a rabbit emerged made for a charged atmosphere, which blinded us to the absconder. The speed of the two species was almost matched, with only the rabbit’s agility giving it a slight edge. Then, inches before the safety of the warren, Maud skilfully pinned the coney to the sandy earth while Millie respectfully stood back and watched the senior dog.

The day after the wildfowling season closed, professional ferreter and Shooting Times columnist, Simon Whitehead, was on the foreshore of the Blyth estuary to help tackle north Suffolk’s burgeoning rabbit population. For this particular job Simon had engaged the entire army of his Pakefield ferrets as the warren in question has existed since the 1930s and is now a complex network of pipes reaching depths of up to 40ft. With 12 hungry ferrets, two sharp-eyed lurchers and a handler completely in tune with his animals, the odds seemed stacked against the rabbits. Against the background clamour of migratory wildfowl feeding on the exposed mudflats, Simon placed six albino jills into the burrow openings. Maud and Millie took up their positions. Like coiled springs they waited, lightly trotting between the burrows so as not to cause subterranean vibrations. The bitches’ ears twitched as they tried to predict where the next coney would appear.

Fellow ferreting enthusiasts Steve and Marie Taylor joined Simon to help with the diffi cult warren. Trained chef Marie is in charge of all catering on ferreting expeditions. “Before I became involved the boys used to get a few sips of lukewarm coffee out of a dirty Thermos — if they were lucky,” she said, as she took a sip of cappuccino. For the team on this day, Marie provided a delicious alfresco lunch of rabbit burgers and game sausages. “In my experience, a lot of people are still wary of game meat. I teach cookery at the local college and they refuse to take me up on my offer of bringing in fresh rabbit, which is a real shame.”

Tools of the trade

A vital element of the ferreter’s kit is his collection of nets. All of Simon’s ferreting nets are handmade by Sheffi eldbased Ian Clayton, also known as Torchy, a reference to his obsession with lamping. Simon uses a mixture of purse- and long-nets to create a makeshift corral. “Even the best net in the world needs to be laid correctly to work,” Simon explained. “The craftsmanship that goes into handmade nets has to be admired; look at the uniformity of the meshes, the strength of the knots and how the draw cord has been fitted.”

The traditional ferreting season runs from October until March. Working the ferrets this late in the season presents several obstacles. Does tend to be pregnant and often refuse to move from the safety of their warren, even when confronted by a ferret. The sandy soil of this particular warren meant that it was easy to dig out stubborn ferrets that laid-up, but the pipes were wider than normal, meaning a cornered rabbit could squeeze past its assailant.

“The problem of how to retrieve a ferret is as old as ferreting itself,” said Simon, as he carefully placed a jill back in its box. “When the ferret finders first came out, the device was ground-breaking. But people cannot seem to grasp how to use them properly. One of the questions I get asked most is how to read the signal and tones on the handset,” he explained.
As a result, Simon has made a film showing how to train your ear to the device, which can be viewed on the Shooting Times website (www.shootingtimes.co.uk). Once the ferret has been located, it will often need to be “fished” for. If a ferret has locked on to a rabbit and refuses to resurface, Simon sometimes has to dig 8ft down and entice the reluctant ferret out with a despatched rabbit. So how often does Simon lose a ferret? “I don’t,” he replied.

Simon and his team netted-up three separate sections of the warren, using all the ferrets to cover as much of the warren as possible. In the second section five rabbits bolted out of their burrows, heading either straight into purse-nets or into the long-nets. The lurchers then pinned them to the ground until Simon or Steve despatched them.

The enormous amount of work that went into setting up all the nets, working the dogs and establishing a team of ferrets made this day’s final bag of 10 rabbits very satisfactory. Whether a ferreter chooses to use lurchers, terriers or even hawks, the anticipation of waiting for a bolting rabbit is incredibly exciting. It is easy to see why the popularity of ferreting is growing.

For more information on Pakefield Ferrets, visit www.pakefieldferrets.co.uk.

I had a rather stupid moment of panic recently. Like all shotgun owners, every five years I have to renew my certificate. If, like me, you don’t have the exact expiry date in mind (who does?), it makes sense to have a quick look at your certificate just to check — in my case as I was zipping my gun in its sleeve at the end of a fabulous final day of the shooting season.

I knew in the back of my mind that 2009 was a meaningful year in the lifespan of my certificate, but as with my car’s MOT I couldn’t tell you for toffee until looking at it whether it expires in January, June, or December. There’s a world of difference between those dates. A January expiration would have made me, in February, a negligent and illegal holder of shotguns if I’d failed to renew, while anything else leaves me plenty of time to do something about it.

As it is, my certificate’s still got a good few months to go, but the message is that it pays to think ahead especially when dealing with renewals. Ostensibly, 12 weeks prior to the expiry of your certificate the issuing police force should contact you with a notice of renewal, complete with a Firearms Form 103. But don’t bank on it. They’re under no obligation to do so and it is most definitely your responsibility to avoid being in possession of a shotgun without a valid certificate. If a Firearms Form 103 doesn't come winging its way in the post to you, you can download one here

So take the time to have a quick look at your certificate’s expiry date. It may just save a bit of embarrassment and difficult conversations with the law. And if you are renewing, don’t be caught out by a slow response from your issuing police force. Demand a Section 7 permit authorising possession of your shotguns if the certificate is not renewed on time. That way you won’t fall foul of the law.

To emphasise that a viable future for all fieldsports is largely dependent on the youth of today may appear to be yet another platitude, easily dispensed and quickly forgotten. Yet the fact remains that, unless we can engage the understanding, sympathy and practical co-operation of the young, the future for fieldsports is bleak.

Today, society in Britain is largely urban-based and, despite the best and most earnest efforts of county Wildlife Trusts and the many other organisations seeking to promote aspects of the countryside, the gulf between town and country appears wider than ever. Sadly, due almost entirely to a lack of affordable housing and financial difficulties in rural areas, an imbalance has been struck, resulting in a two-way migration. The wealthy, who can afford to indulge in second homes and country cottage fantasies, have replaced the young, who can no longer afford to enjoy the far better quality of life in the countryside, but have been forced to move to urban areas to earn a living.

On the one hand, rural areas are being deprived of an indigenous population that has been brought up in the traditions of the countryside, to be replaced by erstwhile urban migrants who, in many cases, neither understand nor appreciate how the countryside works and the part played by fieldsports.

I live on the fringe of a small South Somerset village, whose population consists largely of the elderly and retired. There is a handful of families with school-age children, but they are few and far between. Next door to my house lies a second home, acquired by a Londoner who visits perhaps once or twice every quarter, dislikes fieldsports and has no truck with the local community. For three-quarters of the year the house lies empty.

A river and its tributaries, holding small trout, minnows and sticklebacks, winds through the valley, the fields and hedges are alive with rabbits and wild and natural life is still relatively abundant. Yet never, today, does one see a small boy carrying a jar of minnows, tadpoles or newts or betraying any interest in the bird or animal life which surrounds us. I can recall those distant days when, despite living in what we would now consider suburbs, I had the freedom of an extensive common and heathland, dotted with pools from which I extracted newts caught on worms, hunted grey squirrels with a bow and tried to snare rabbits with notable lack of success.

Television was still in its black-and-white infancy and the technology so readily available today to the young simply did not exist. Children in those days, if they lived in, or had access to, the countryside were able to engage in a wide variety of rural pursuits or forays, especially if they were fortunate enough to have parents or mentors to guide and encourage them. Of course, we were politically incorrect in today’s terms, for now the law, quite rightly, proscribes such activities as bird nesting and egg collecting, while even butterfly and moth collecting is no longer PC, but as children we were fortunate enough to be able to entertain ourselves with a variety of country and wildlife activities.

Of course, there are still today fortunate youngsters who can engage with the countryside and its fieldsports through the encouragement and assistance of parents who themselves shoot, hunt or fish, but they are in a tiny minority when compared with the hundreds of thousands of children condemned to be raised in cities and sprawling towns.

And yes, before they raise their hackles and hit the email button, let me commend the stalwart and energetic efforts of the Countryside Alliance and BASC to support country youth and educate city children to the realities and benefits of the countryside and a rural way of life.

In August, the Countryside Alliance launched its Shooting Stars project, a campaign to support and promote to the media a wide range of young people aged between 16 and 30 who are working in some aspect of the shooting industry, a sector now worth £1.6billion to the UK economy and which supports 70,000 jobs. At the same time, BASC has been actively promoting its Young Shots campaign, aimed at encouraging youngsters to take part in well-managed and controlled shooting activities. In addition, the BASC team has given more than 3,000 city children from London and Essex the opportunity to see and explore aspects of the countryside which they would normally never be able to realise.

We can sit back and offer thanks that the Countryside Alliance and BASC have taken up youth education on our behalf, but perhaps those of us fortunate enough to have access to the countryside through shoots, stalking, fishing and certainly hunting could do even more to show and explain to urban-based and country children alike the facts of rural life and the important role played by fieldsports.

Let’s hear from shoots, private and commercial, which might be willing to offer an educational day, or some form of assistance, to help show youngsters why shooting has so much to offer, not only as a sport but as a means of learning about the countryside and its wildlife. The future of our sport depends on the young of today, a fact we cannot afford to neglect.