A friend is moving to Melbourne and her farewell party last weekend happened to be at the same historic house myself and my mate Andrew have been culling rabbits. I expected no visible traces of bunnies after the myxomitosis symptoms they all had last time we shot there. But there were diggings EVERYWHERE. So Andrew, who was also at the party, and I lined up to go out last Monday night and thin the numbers again.
The weather was not promising with misty rain throughout the late afternoon but by the time 8:30 arrived it was cool but dry. Andrew had unfortunately had his CZ 22lr ruined by a local gunsmith when he sent it for a bedding job. The guy had dug so much wood out of it he'd weakened the stock and it was shooting disgraceful groups. So instead of him shooting too we took the sniper team approach. He spotted exclusively and with the use of shooting sticks I was the only shooter.
The numbers were down but having a dedicated spotter and being able to concentrate on shooting really helped. In the end we took 17 animals and recovered 14 of them, having seen the other three get hit but thrash away into cover where we couldn't find them once they died. That adds up to 24 on my first trip last year with Jane, 25 last time with Andrew and 17 on Monday. That's 66 bunnies in roughly a 3 month period. Not bad, I reckon.
Yours truly with my Anschutz 1400 and the 14 we recovered.
