My wife is a vineyard worker, mainly specialising in pruning and vine cultivation, and she has worked at a particular vineyard not far from town for the past 3 or 4 years.
From early on I offered my services to knock over any furry pests but her boss, like a lot of farmers and property owners these days, is a cautious fellow and even when he had rabbits to be removed he baited them and plowed up the burrow without allowing me to thin out numbers first.
So I was pleasantly surprised when my wife came home and told me the hares which have had a constant presence in the vineyard had worn out their welcome by eating the new vines and her boss would like me to come and deal with the problem.
I went out there one afternoon after work with the kids in the Kombi and did a bit of reconnaissance to see exactly how best to take on the job.
I was a bit dismayed when I saw the set up.
The vineyard, like most, is made up of row after row of vines which are suspended on wires, the wires in turn being supported metal stakes and wooden posts.
Problem was, about a foot off the ground was a nylon irrigation pipe.
How tall is a hare? Yup, about a foot.
But the difficulties didn't end there.
The vineyard is on the top of a hill.....literally......and if you shoot down hill you're actually shooting toward the house, winery and sheds.
Now, the ground falls a fair bit and rises again to where the buildings are and I'd have to be the world's worst shot to hit them but I suspect my wife's boss would not be impressed to see a rifle pointed at them.
That left me with one option - shooting up hill in places where the animals weren't skylining and where they were in front of me enough not to hit an irrigation pipe.
There was however an upside.
The afternoon I went out a mating pair chased each other around in circles across the rows and I was not more than 30 metres away at any time.
Basically, they were fearless.
The limitations and the brazen attitude of hares considered I decided stalking them in the daylight would be most successful even though I usually spotlight hares.
I finally managed to get out there last Thursday afternoon.
I was all camo'd up and probably a tad over dressed for the occasion but it helps sometimes.
Here's a rough panorama shot of the west side of the vineyard I knocked together so you'd get the idea of the set up.
My first hare didn't take long and I ended up standing and shooting from one row into the next using one of the wooden posts as a rest.
It was a female and the 40gr Nosler Ballistic Tip was effective as usual in Sportco Martini Hornet.
I've been pleased with them from the moment I tried them in this rifle and they're always accurate and definitive.
After depositing it back at the truck I headed back out and discovered that it was a bad idea to stalk from the hill down as I scared another mating pair out of the vineyard.
So I sat in the corner of the vineyard with my head down for about 20 mins and then began to stalk back along the rows.
I spooked a large hare just past the windbreak halfway across the rows and then stalked it back through the windbreak and into the rows on the eastern side.
I finally got to a point where I could shoot but my rest was poor and I missed.
Fortunately the hare, mystified by the loud noise and apparent lack of result sat still although his mate, who must've been hidden away in the bushes of the windbreak, broke cover and fled across behind him. In an attempt to gain a better shot I stalked through to row he was in and tried to get a comfortable aim.
He moved back into the row I'd been and sat up striaght, which allowed me a very comfortable rest against a wooden post and I took him down quickly.
By then the light was failing so I headed back to my truck.
Here are the 2 hares with my Martini Hornet on the bonnet of my '68 Series IIa Land Rover pickup.
My wife really hates it when I leave blood on the Landy and I hate wiping it off.
It's about as close as I'll get to carrying a deer home on the truck.
Fortunately it rained and washed all the blood off so I didn't have problems with the minister of war and finance.
My wife's boss was really pleased about the outcome and has encouraged me to come out and knock over the other 2 hares that are still prowling about.
He also told me that the rabbits from the burrows on the council land next to the vineyard come through the holes in the fence made by wombats and dig under the vines to eat the root.
He thought I could make some real headway on them parked on the top of the hill with a spotlight and a .22lr.
He's never told my wife that and shows I've won him over.
It'll never be a place I can call up and say "I want to come shooting" but I'd say that based on Thursday afternoon's work I've become his "go to" pest guy, and that's saying something coming from a cautious guy like him.
