Thread: What little pesties did you bowl over today?

Nice work on the Maggie's Flyblown.

Here is a mix of clips from last night lifestyle block rabbit job.

https://youtu.be/Dau5d9itBX0

Thanks @Mintie. I enjoy controlling ‘pies and it’s necessary work.

The wife and I have just come in after a drink on the deck in the perfect summer twilight, not a breath of wind. This evening was the first evening for months not having to listen exclusively to magpies declaring their intention to go to bed soon. The farkin’ things totally dominate the valley from dawn til dusk unless we smash ‘em hard. Tonight we could hear the river running, the LBJs going about their business, the odd moo, a pukeko or two. But not a single magpie to be heard.

This tranquility will probably last until tomorrow morning, when the mob in the next valley over works out that something very terrible has happened next door, which for them is a great opportunity. So we’ll carry on…

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Man I love it when a plan comes together….

When we got back from our hunting hols we discovered we’d been invaded by a mob of ten mostly juvenile magpies. These 10 birds had moved in and they weren’t going anywhere. But they were acting differently to the norm; instead of coming to the Bluetooth caller and first landing in the tree to scope out what’s what, they were coming in ultra hot, swooping straight for the UE Boom low and fast and often knocking the speaker off the gatepost. If they landed at all it was on the fence right next to the speaker and there’s no safe backstop there (high risk of ricochet). This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this behaviour, but usually it’s a lone bird attacking the speaker only after spending a fair while looking for the “bird” that’s making the noise.

Anyway, lots of aggressive behaviour and very little in the way of calmly sitting on a branch 40m away and allowing me to kill them easily. It was very frustrating. A change of tactics was in order.

I selected a corner of the one fence line with a good backstop, made a log cairn about 4m in front of the strainer post, and put the speaker on the top log. (If you put the speaker on the ground in the grass the acoustics are very poor to the point of useless.) I then cut some branches from windfall limbs that are everywhere after Cyclone Dovi, and carefully laid them against the cairn so the speaker was camouflaged but not covered.

Because the Bluetooth range on the phone is only about 10-12m, I took the one looped 15 minute recording of magpie morning chorus from the Ruapehu - totally different to the calls here and guaranteed to instantly wind up the local birds - and with an .mp3 editor, added 5 minutes of silence in front of the first call. This enabled me to leave the phone playing the .mp3 in the cairn, and enough time to walk back to the well concealed shooting position in the hedge, 60m away, and settle in.

It took about two minutes of Ruapehu magpie to cause the mob to aerially riot. They came hooning in, swooping over the corner of the paddock but unable to pinpoint what it was making the noise. One just needed to land on a fence post… as long as I didn’t have an inexplicable fail, and miss, the rest would ignore the sound of the shot because of their fascination with the new “lie in the grass and flap a bit” game their mate was playing.

And so it began… The first bird landed on a post two down from the strainer, and had about three seconds to consider his options before unexpectedly departing for magpie Valhalla. The rest then followed the plan perfectly, one after the other. A couple were shot on the ground next to their fallen comrades, and the rest off the top of the fence posts. To make this tactical plan even more satisfying, the last two birds were a 2-for-1 off the strainer post, which always puts a smile on my face. So eight bullets and nine birds and there’s still a couple left. It was all over in about five minutes.

Unfortunately I forgot to fully load the mag and bring ammo to my clever tactical plan (doh), so when I got up to go to the shed, that’s when the last remaining bird decided he’d better bugger off sharpish, something was badly wrong. I was very glad I did at least have eight rounds loaded and not only two or three… shan’t do that again.

Great fun before breakfast, good start to another perfect summer day.

I love your dedication and planning to put a strategy together to nail these maggies. I love the love/hate relationship you have with them. Great work and very satisfying when it all comes off like that.

Originally Posted by Mintie

Nice work on the Maggie's Flyblown.

Here is a mix of clips from last night lifestyle block rabbit job.

https://youtu.be/Dau5d9itBX0

Nice work Evan, im interested on your thoughts comparing the HT-60 to the Pard 008 that you had.

Originally Posted by GWH

Nice work Evan, im interested on your thoughts comparing the HT-60 to the Pard 008 that you had.

The colour saturation when used in day mode was slightly better on the Pard but I haven't really played with the contrast and brightness settings etc on the Sytong so it may improve with tuning. The low light collection on the Sytong is incredible on it to the point where I can still use it without going B/W and turning the illuminator on when I cant even see things with my naked eye. Battery life seems to be a bit better and the added bonus of having the LRF built in is fantastic! I also hear there is a software update coming that will add a ballistics calculator to the Sytong units with the LRF built in which will be a huge bonus.

I find the Sytong's 3x base magnification to be far better for the work I am doing than the 6x of the Pard, as you can see in the video the 3x magnification is just fine for longer shots and the FOV is hugely improved on the closer shots which really helps you find your target, at first I found NV digital scopes to be quite disorientating and the narrow FOV at 6x really compounds that issue. The sensor resolution on these is far better than thermal scopes so using a bit of digital zoom works just fine without compromising the image quality. This and the built in LRF were my main driving factors to make the change.

No beef with Pard quality or their products at all, in fact I have just spent over $5k on their new thermal spotter.

Happy to meet up some time for you to check it out side by side.

Originally Posted by Mintie

The colour saturation when used in day mode was slightly better on the Pard but I haven't really played with the contrast and brightness settings etc on the Sytong so it may improve with tuning. The low light collection on the Sytong is incredible on it to the point where I can still use it without going B/W and turning the illuminator on when I cant even see things with my naked eye. Battery life seems to be a bit better and the added bonus of having the LRF built in is fantastic! I also hear there is a software update coming that will add a ballistics calculator to the Sytong units with the LRF built in which will be a huge bonus.

I find the Sytong's 3x base magnification to be far better for the work I am doing than the 6x of the Pard, as you can see in the video the 3x magnification is just fine for longer shots and the FOV is hugely improved on the closer shots which really helps you find your target, at first I found NV digital scopes to be quite disorientating and the narrow FOV at 6x really compounds that issue. The sensor resolution on these is far better than thermal scopes so using a bit of digital zoom works just fine without compromising the image quality. This and the built in LRF were my main driving factors to make the change.

No beef with Pard quality or their products at all, in fact I have just spent over $5k on their new thermal spotter.

Happy to meet up some time for you to check it out side by side.

That all sounds pretty good Evan, thanks for the detailed reply.

2 with one shot . . thru the back of the neck of the rabbit in front and into the back of the other
my Scots grandfather would have been proud !


Sako .222 6X Khales

Got home early today after being blown off the water, horrible stiff Easterly so we called it quits. I thought considering I’m supposed to be aqua hunting I might as well go paddock hunting, so off on a brisk walk and a look see for hares and bunnies.

Was pretty stunned by the amount of hares, and equally stunned by how quickly my eyesight is deteriorating with age…. Was really struggling to spot them close up in the last hour of light without binos, so I guess there’s going to be a visit to the optometrist soon. Bugger.

Anyway, I saw something I’ve never seen before. I shot a couple of hares around the riparian regen as usual, a bunny and then a magpie. When I walked onto the one hillock that looks down over the river, I saw a hare stand up in alarm, and then take off into the thick stuff on the riverbanks. Okay mate, next time I thought… but hang on… I was really REALLY surprised to see the hare swim across the river and up the bank into the paddock on the other side!



It just goes to show that even after several decades of chasing hares in Europe, Aussie and here, I have never ever seen one swim, even when hare coursing.

Poor bastard probably thought that was enough to warrant a get-out-of-jail card. He pulled up on the other side and sat in the last few rays of sunlight to dry out… I thought well bugger me that’s interesting. So I sat on the hillock and checked it out, yes hares swim, who knew? I glassed around a bit, texted a mate, checked the forecast…. Hare was still there. I checked in with the wife, you got dinner covered luv? Still there.

Eventually it was just silly, so I shot him, walked round to the bridge and back to pick him up for dogs’ dinner.



Might be the first and last time I see a swimming hare. Cool.

see if you can find a yellow lensed set of safety glasses..I wear them all day now to keep fertilizer dust out and that last half hour of light is unreal...i can see really well with them on,take them off and its plurry near dark. they also really good at picking different colours green n yellow stick out like dogs balls (I pick striping from poor sowing when others cant see a thing) I was scepticle how good they would be to begin with but now wouldnt be without them.

Checked the traps today, up the Maramataha River & around the Piropiro Track area, South block, Pureora. 86 boxes, 18 single set DOC200's, the rest double set. 39 Rats, 1 Mouse, 1 Stoat, 1 Ferret. I usually check them every 3 weeks but a bit of bad weather & a crook Knee had pushed it out to 7 weeks. Plenty of trail bikers about, Very little deer & no pig sign.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

see if you can find a yellow lensed set of safety glasses..I wear them all day now to keep fertilizer dust out and that last half hour of light is unreal...i can see really well with them on,take them off and its plurry near dark. they also really good at picking different colours green n yellow stick out like dogs balls (I pick striping from poor sowing when others cant see a thing) I was scepticle how good they would be to begin with but now wouldnt be without them.

Will do, thanks for the suggestion.

Just back from great little shoot tonight - feet up and enjoying a late night coffee. Went out to a farm on way to Akaroa near Christchurch with three other boys this evening. Covered lots of the very flat terrain shooting from truck with Maxtoch spotties - by heavens they still do the job. Popped 60+ bunnies in about 3.5 hours with the 223s and 12g. Was very pleased to use my Howa 1500 223 with Mueller on it - it performed well and nailed them out to about 140yds easily. Very accurate little unit. Boys all did well - some good shooting - and @gadgetman had some fun with the 12 guage with hares running everywhere at times. Truck doing complete 360s at times in paddock chasing hares in circles to get a shot. Away a bit after midnight - thoroughly enjoyable outing.

I was got up in the small hours to go fishing at the end of last week, and sitting on the loo in the back bathroom I heard the ominous sound of rats under the house, possibly in the floor space underneath the bath. A few years ago we had to pull up the raised floor in one half of the bathroom floor to eliminate a large nest of rats that had mostly died after we stupidly put rat blocks out to poison them. The smell of death and the bucket loads of rat shit was just too much. We thought the smell will go away… it didn’t. So no more rat blocks for us, trapping only.

I was 100% sure we had rat proofed the floor space underneath the house so was real worried they’d got in again… not good. Wife was seriously unimpressed.

I keep a dozen traps going around the house and shed, and had noticed that the catch frequency was dropping off, despite knowing we had rats around. Peanut butter was getting eaten by mice that weren’t setting off the rat traps, and crickets seem to love it as well. Went through a bunch of the usual options, then hit the jackpot last night. Pacific Crown tinned mackerel in tomato sauce.

A few drips of sauce around the traps and the odd small bit of fish, a good smear of fish pressed into the trip plate, bingo. Eight rats in one night. Our Staffys are constantly hunting rats in the gardens and under the house after dark, and it seems the rats have learned to lay low until everything goes quiet, because I checked the traps at 11 pm last night - nothing - put the dogs away, went to bed and at 6am the traps were all full. (Both dogs have learnt the hard way to leave traps well alone no matter how attractive the smell…)

Stoked with this outcome and going to carry on with mackerel.

I hear RATS are selling for up to $15, in auckland and wellington, could be a good little earner.

Game changer... Fush!