Just got in the door after being at my sons football game to a text from @Micky Duck asking if I was keen to go looking for a hare on a local dairy farm he has access to. 4 p.m. Micky rocked up at home and we headed out him with his newly acquired (today).222 and me packing my 223.
Headed through a few paddocks with nothing seen so across to the far side near the river where the landscape was a little more undulating and had a nice river terrace to look down onto.
Over the first brow and halfway down the paddock we spied the distinctive brown of a hare tucked into a clump of grass. Micky throws down his daypack, lies down and lines up, for his first shot out of the rifle, on the hare. BANG,FLOP it goes at about 100m.
Down to the end of the paddock we are overlooking another lower terrace and I'm scanning with the binos as Micky removed the back legs and backsteaks from his hare. I soon spot another, line up the 223 and quickly dispatched our second animal.
Walk further down the farm we managed to spook 3 or 4 more hares without the opportunity for a shot. Heading back we dropped to lower terrace to pick up my hare where we saw a couple more which due to our freehand shooting were very lucky. One I missed at about 20 metres .
Across to my hare I removed back legs and backsteaks then off again towards the vehicle, spotting another brown thing we couldn't really ID so we moved closer and I was pretty sure I could see it's eye but still had a 1% doubt that it may have been a piece of wood. A bit closer and the wood took off running. Another one was spotted just to the right and after an embarrassing couple of shots each I managed to make a hit with my 3rd.
A quick butcher by Micky and with darkness and a cold southerly approaching we walked back to the truck and headed home.
A throughly enjoyable outing with a bit of meat to experiment with.
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