Arriving at one of my shooting permissions for the first time this season, it was more of a social visit to the lady farm owner, than anything else. Ruth was happy for me to continue controlling the rabbit population, although she commented that lately rabbits were a rare sight on her land, especially her garden and vegetable patch, which had once been overrun.

Taking the Magtech semi auto out of the van, I went on a patrol of the farm buildings looking for signs of fresh burrow digging and recent droppings, stopping to peer over the fence of a small paddock, where a rabbit was preoccupied munching on a clear area of fresh grass.

Resting on the fence, I sighted on the back of its head between the ears. At 60 yards this allowed for the bullet drop on my 50 yard rifle zero. A squeeze of the trigger and the rabbit tumbled forward.

A healthy buck to start the ball rolling, I bagged this up and continued my search. Ruth had been right about the area round the farm, there were few signs of rabbits, even a reliable warren had apparently been abandoned and I continued out toward the pastures.

The willows have proved productive in the past and I made my way down toward them keeping my eyes peeled, unfortunately being spotted by a group of rabbits among the tangle of branches, their white tails bobbing away to safety, before I could take a shot.

Turning right, I worked my way slowly along the fence line, seeing a big rabbit pop out of a burrow in the next field. It was about 200 yards away and keeping the line of fence posts between us, I reduced the distance to a hundred yards, before it sat up to look round and sniff the air. My shooting jacket and trousers have been conditioned by years of crawling through fields and muck, while without a hint of aftershave round my chin, the smell of dangerous human must be limited. At this range with my .17 HMR it would have been game over for the rabbit, but the .22 subsonic bullet drop at distance is about eight inches at 100 yards. The wind was behind me and I crouched down until the rabbit had got back to eating, covering another slow twenty yards before it sat up again. Resting the Magtech on my bag. allowing six inches holdover, I fired and watched the rabbit duck away out of sight. I couldn’t tell if I had hit it and got up again moving along the fence for a closer look.

 The land ahead was full of fresh earth from burrows and as I scanned the area, a rabbit popped up out of a burrow, saw me and dived back down again. Next time I would be ready. Moving along the fence, I waited behind a bush. Minutes later, 50 yards to my right another appeared. I raised the rifle and fired, the rabbit somersaulting as the bullet hit bone with a crack. With no more shows after ten minutes, I crossed the fence to retrieve the rabbit. There was no sign of the first, which I had obviously missed, but my second lay still.

A perfect head shot, another buck that will not be breeding this year. There were deep burrows everywhere along this tree line, a hazard for cattle grazing the field.

I continued my tour, noting several areas needing attention, seeing rabbits out in the evening sun, too far away for the Winchester .22 subs, even my Remington High Velocity bullets would have struggled. Next time I will bring the HMR. I was happy, two nice rabbits in the bag and plenty more where they came from.