Mick describes a typical stalk.
OK, you’ve got your rifle and other assorted equipment ready, your land’s ready so what’s the first thing you do? It may seem obvious but I always check that my rifle/scope combo is perfectly accurate before I set out on a stalk.
When approaching your prey, you should head into any breeze so that your scent is carried away from the rabbits, and this will also help drift away any small sounds you make – after all rabbits have big ears for a reason! Your movements must be slower than slow, especially on the final approach. You should never attempt to shoot a rabbit that’s more than 35 metres away, and always with a head shot that will kill cleanly.
If you look at the map below, I’ve sketched out a recent foray for you, and I’ll take you through a typical day out from the moment I left my Jeep at the farm buildings to when I potted my first rabbit.
As you can see, the breeze was blowing from my left as I entered the woods. However, even though I was working my way towards the edge of the woods, I still stalked slowly through the undergrowth. It’s no good wandering through the woods, sending birds flying and branches breaking, because when you do get to your fields, that’s all you’ll find there – just the fields. You need to take every step as if it is the final one of your approach – silently, slowly and carefully.
As I got near the end of the woods, I used my scope to check out the fields. At the top, there’s a rabbit-run through the hedge and rabbits quite often come into this field for a feast. Spotting a couple, I checked for wind direction and realised that the only way I could approach unseen into the wind was by working my way down through the woods and then along the wrong side of the bank.
The woods posed no problem to me but when I had to come out of the woods, I had to do it on all fours. Wanting to keep as low a profile as possible, I had to keep my body below the level of the bank. Unfortunately, this meant getting lower as I moved away from the bank towards the short bushes.
This is what stalking is all about, there’s been many a time I’ve spent ages stalking a rabbit and maybe missed the shot or something else has spooked the rabbit before I could draw a bead on it. But it’s the taking part that counts. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you finally arrive some 30 metres from a wild animal and it’s been all your effort that’s rewarded you.
This time though, I had the added urge that I was hungry and fancied some fried rabbit for my supper. Being hungry certainly makes you take more care. Moving as slowly as possible, at one stage I took over ten minutes to cross ten metres of open ground, I finally slipped into the relative cover of the bushes.
Even then, it’s not a done deal. Raising your rifle too fast can easily spook your prey so everything has to be done in absolute slo-mo. Sitting there at 30 metres from my position; the rabbit was totally unaware that he was gobbling the last of his grass.
And a well-placed pellet dropped him like a stone. A successful stalk does not always produce a result – but my belly would be glad this particular one had!