# Hunting > Varminting and Small Game Hunting >  How does one enter the Easter bunny shoot

## Beetroot

Hi guys,

Title is pretty self explanatory, seen a few threads on here and a few articles on line about the competition and I'd love to enter a team, 
it looks a blast! (pun semi intended).

I know it's run by the Alexandra lions club, but not sure if its an anyone can enter thing or if you express an interest and if your lucky you get given a block.

Thanks

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## Rushy

Preferably not as a rabbit Beetroot.  Sorry can't help.

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## Maca49

Or as a Beetroot!

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## 300winmag

Alexandra Lions Club next February, best if you can organise a team or get on a team, the event is always oversold and half the teams miss out.

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## Beetroot

So do if I book now I'll be in for more of a chance for next year?
Is it a first come first serve basis?

I wouldn't know how to get onto a team, but I have enough buddies for us to form our own team easily.

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## puku

normally the top teams (5?) get entry.  Then it depends on how many farms are available.

Also i believe it is a ballot system.
Yes you will need to be part of a team to get in the ballot

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## Kscott

Register as a team with Alexandra Lions Club.
Properties get found.
Number of properties = number of teams invited to shoot chosen via ballot, so there's always more teams than places to shoot.
Top 5 teams from previous year get automatic entry.

You'll need decent farm transport, decent planning, decent numbers to be shooting as a team - farmers don't want any hick turning up with a JW15 and just blazing away. One farm I know of discovered people having a party in their barn at night, so he removed his farm from the list the following year. Decent farm transport includes the ability to go over all terrain for 24 hours of shooting, pick up the bodies and bring them back to the park for counting.

Hell, even Aucklanders are welcome apparently  :Grin:

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## Beetroot

Thanks, that's what I wanted too know.
I could easily rustle up 4-6 friends to make up a team and take down a 4wd, I wouldn't be going to all the effort to not do it properly.

Just a bit of a pain to go to the effort of organizing to go and then not get a farm, but hey that's life.
How long before the event do they let you know if you have been balloted a property?

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## Kscott

Team acceptance is usually only a couple of weeks out by memory, the farm ballot happens on the day at the park, you pick up documentation/map/etc and away you go. If you've got a 4wd a enclosed trailer is recommended to carry the rabbits, but having only 1 vehicle will limit you to just shooting at one location at a time. If you can add more vehicles in the team, or quad bikes, you'll have a lot more fun and have a higher success rate. 

The idea is to have fun  :Thumbsup:  but always remember to put yourself in the farmers shoes. They have a plague of rabbits but don't want damage done to their farm with fences, driving all over the place, etc. Some numpty last year hit a restrainer wire on a fence and took out a decent length fence line. Another chap slipped over and shot himself, the year before a vehicle drove off a small embankment not seen in the dark. 

Your entry also gives you free lunch and dessert at the end too, always good as long as the wind blows the smell away  :Grin:

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## Beetroot

How do they choose the teams?
Is it drawn out of a hat kind of thing or do they attempt to assess your likely hood of a good amount shot, and choose the best ones?

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## Kscott

If you believe the organisers the ones who haven't got the free entry are randomly selected. And then those successful teams are randomly assigned to farms - that's done on the day with Police presence and a bingo ball roller thingy. But regular participants would naturally get a helping hand in being randomly selected. After all, if you've been successfully shooting in it for years as some people have, they would be a bit pissed to be squeezed out by newbies. And some teams have randomly got very good farms to come 2nd for a couple of years followed by a 1st - because not every farm is equal and some are barren of rabbits, some are clearly infested. But that's just my personal opinion.

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## 300winmag

> If you believe the organisers the ones who haven't got the free entry are randomly selected. And then those successful teams are randomly assigned to farms - that's done on the day with Police presence and a bingo ball roller thingy. But regular participants would naturally get a helping hand in being randomly selected. After all, if you've been successfully shooting in it for years as some people have, they would be a bit pissed to be squeezed out by newbies. And some teams have randomly got very good farms to come 2nd for a couple of yearsollowed by a 1st - because not every farm is equal and some are barren of rabbits, some are clearly infested. But that's just my personal opinion.


Spot on there, some teams never miss out.
One year we got a shit of a farm, you could walk around it in 2 hours, another year we got a cracker. Every year it seems to get harder and harder for the organisers to find enough suitable farms.

Beetroot, you need to call the Alex Lions club in late January to put your name down, they will post you the entry forms etc, google them.
If you do get in you need a good shotty and a 22, and a good 4wd you can shoot from the back decked out with spotlights.
If you organise a team and get a good property to shoot you want dedicated drivers and picker upperers, shooters just shoot, but weather plays a big part as well, if its fine just keep shooting thru the night with out stopping, some wossies will have a few hours sleep but all depends what property you draw.

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## Dundee

jeeze a few bunnies in that pic Kscott

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## Kscott

That was from 2012, only @10,000.

18,000 this year, they ended up in a big hole in the ground on the farm. Which had a very rank smell. A bit like getting hit in the face by a shovel.

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## Dundee

Cheers for the pics and talleys :Cool:

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## Savage1

I thought some pet food guys might be jumping in to get them! What a waste.

I'd love to get on one of those teams one day.

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## Kscott

FYI @1500 were given to DOC as ferret bait up north. The blue tent was the processing team of turning a dead rabbit that had been shot by either shotgun or .22 and that has been sitting in the sun for over 24 hours, into a skinned and gutted carcass - yes, use your imagination on that one ! One person picked rabbit out of rotting pile, one chopped off the head, one the feet, one removed skin, one gutted, one stacked. Rinse and repeat. It's a sight (and smell) I'd like to have removed from my memory, preferably by a spoon.  

Not really suitable for pet food, 12g at close range has a tendency to eviscerate a rabbit as well as split it in half.

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