Field Time

[racerkart]

How long do you typically spend hunting per session and generally how much do you bag?

My old golf course permission would yield 2-5 bunnies over about 2 hours. Current permission 0 over 4 hours.

Getting a bit concerned the bunnies have left the UK due to Brexit.

[Bladerunner too]

depends on crops (or more the state of) just harvested is always good,(pigeon) thats a waiting game.. for the crop that is....bunnys ,again late sunny evenings can bag up , no guarantees i`m afraid. so all in all like you sometimes good other times hard,but aint it great just to be out

[Jonjon79]

That's hunting for you - Some you win, some you lose

On my favourite permission, I'll spend between 2 - 6 hours and, I'll get anything from bugger all to 7 rabbits.

Be flexible, try different things, different approaches. Stalking, ambushing, different approaches, different positions, different camo, different times.

Be patient - you'll get 'em.

Good luck and atb

[bighit]

the land I shoot on is very open so creeping into take the shot is iffy.

I tend hide in a large area of rocks and wait for them to pop out. It can be 1/2hr to an 1hr between shots

I can be out from 8 am to 6 pm and get 1 or 2 or 14 or 15 depending on the weather.

if you zoom in you might see my lay up spot https://db.tt/c6JHa7lxpe
its all small gorse and rocks in that area. where I shoot towards is where I'm standing taking the pic .its all open area






gorse bush right at the back ,just to the right of it is my rifle

[jigs]

I don't tend to be out for much more than 2 hours at a time. I get tired, physically if stalking or mentally if in a hide and I don't want shooting to become a chore. Up at 5am today for 2 hrs on the crows with the owl decoy and got zilch! Mild winter means there's loads but there were more interested in the ploughed field on wrong side of permission. In summer I might get up to 10 rabbits on a quick stalk buts typically 2-4. Will depend on your land.

[Alakar]

2 to 3 hours at a time usually.
But I'll grab an hour anytime if possible.
Rabbits are a bit thin on the ground at the moment , but all the corvids and woodies are about at present.
1 magpie , 1 crow , and 2 squirrels today in 2 1/2 hours between 2 of us .
But bag or no bag , how good is it to pick up your rifle and get out on your permission where nobody except the farmer / landowner can tell you what to do.
We even had some guy with a drone over us today ! Very tempting !

[rabbitwrecker]

Can be anything from an hour or two to a whole day - including plinking/practice time. I only hunt for the pot these days, so a rabbit or a couple of woodies and I'm happy...

[racerkart]

Glad its not just me then. I can see the damage in the way of fresh burrowing from existing holes but they ain't surfacing. Very little in the way of black pellets as well. Done a few warm evenings and a full afternoon this year. Not seen anything. Next move is a dawn raid I think. I used the dreggs of the afternoon to pick vantage points to snipe them from. There was another hot spot but another shooter beat me to it...and bagged a little un to add insult to injury. But absolutely...sitting at the top one of the highest hills around silverstone looking at the scenery for miles around on such a nice day was a welcome break from the pressures of a new job and been a Dad for a few weeks solid.

[bighit]

Glad its not just me then. I can see the damage in the way of fresh burrowing from existing holes but they ain't surfacing. Very little in the way of black pellets as well. Done a few warm evenings and a full afternoon this year. Not seen anything. Next move is a dawn raid I think. I used the dreggs of the afternoon to pick vantage points to snipe them from. There was another hot spot but another shooter beat me to it...and bagged a little un to add insult to injury. But absolutely...sitting at the top one of the highest hills around silverstone looking at the scenery for miles around on such a nice day was a welcome break from the pressures of a new job and been a Dad for a few weeks solid.

rabbits eat their poop .might be why there's not much about .


You shouldn't be too concerned if your rabbit eats his poop. In fact, it's a normal and healthy rabbit behavior.
It may seem gross, but rabbits normally eat some of their feces once a day, either early in the morning or late at night.

These special feces are called cecotropes, or “night feces.” They are produced through fermentation of food in the part of the rabbit’s digestive tract called the cecum. Cecotropes are soft feces that are nutrient-rich and are passed out of the body like normal stool but then are re-ingested later by the rabbit so that important nutrients can be reabsorbed. These feces have more protein, less fiber and higher levels of certain vitamins, such as B vitamins, than the typical hard bunny fecal pellets you might see in the litterbox or around your rabbit’s cage.
While owners are often disturbed when they see their pets eating their own feces, realize that cecotrope ingestion is a normal and important part of rabbit behavior that will help keep your pet healthy. Owners should not try to prevent their rabbits from eating these feces and, since cecotropes are only passed once a day, there is little chance that an excessive amount could be consumed

[tinbum]

I need to find a new permission this end of the county, but last summer I had a lovely spot under a copse of pigeon sitty trees with a rabbit warren to the left. I would often doze a whole warm evening away without firing a shot.

[Missed_dinner]

I got a smallish permission that I haven't had much more than an hour or two at a time to play around in. The trouble I have is getting bored sitting still for to long but if a wonder, a lot of it is open field so the pigeons just scarper as soon as they see me. haven't had a chance to try the rabbit side of it yet. I will get 1 or 2 pigeon and a squirrel if I am lucky. The main thing is I get to spend some time outside with no pressures of everyday life and the owner has a pest free plot (even if its just my presence that keep them away). When its a bit warmer I got a few rats to rid and another property that has a rabbit problem.

[Muskett]

Depends how we go about it or what we are trying to acheive.
East Sussex is one big rabbit warren.

I can harvest 20 rabbits a year from my bedroom window. 10 magpies from my office window.
For daylight walkup its one stalk after another depending on the time of day.
Lamping or NV from vehicles with rimfires on farms around here then for three to four hours work we usually stop at 80 to 100 rabbits. Each farm gets the treatment three times a year, the third time only gives 60. All go straight to the game dealer.

Pigeon shooting over decoys isn't that good, a day might give 16. Always plenty of corvids. Now when I lived in Cambridgeshire if you did your research of flight lines and crops then 100 plus was possible. I've had red letter days in Scotland too.

Knowing your ground, having a big area to shoot over, and timing correctly all goes to larger bags. Even then its easy enough to blank or just get a few. Some places are busier than others for passing sport. Just being out with a gun is reward enough and a couple for the pot is a bonus.
Practice makes perfect, so always good to have a field target set up for some plinking. A session or two at the clay ground is a good afternoon out too. Zeroed my .223 last week which was interesting. Always something, some excuse, to get out and play. Just work gets in the way.