Until recently I’ve had very little to do with rats. My little cottage in England sits around half a mile from the nearest farm and thankfully our paths hadn’t crossed. So, until now, I’ve not had the need to go airgun ratting.
This changed two months ago when they began breeding in my walls and chewing though my oak floorboards to access the kitchen. It was time to launch some kind of counter campaign before the population grew out of control.
The local rat population is centered around some cattle barns down in the hamlet and whenever I bump into the farmer he always asks me if I’d like to come and have a go at them.
Normally, I’m too busy with quarry that I can eat, but I’ve recently been able to source a Night Stalker hunting system and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.
Rat Facts
Research shows that brown rats only harbor the myriad contagious diseases for which they’re infamous when living in close proximity to humans. Woodland dwelling brown rats are relatively benign. Perhaps there’s a lesson for us there?
A 2011 study found that rats are prosocial, meaning that they display selfless and generous behavior to other rats including freeing them from their cages and then sharing finite resources of food with them. All female rats displayed this behavior compared to 70% of the males.
On the island of Norderoog in he North Sea, rats have learned to hunt rather than merely scavenge. They will actively stalk sparrows and even ducks passing this feeding strategy onto their offspring.
There are several areas of France where rat is consumed. Supposedly the alcoholic rats from the wine cellars of Bordeaux are quite delicious when skinned, eviscerated, basted with olive oil and roasted over a fire of broken wine barrels. I did think about it but I don’t have any wine barrels…
The Musahar community in northern India are known to eat rats. Even the Victorians ate rat pie, not to mention the ‘creamed lab rat’ eaten by British biologists during World War Two.
Night Vision
The Night Stalker uses a scope mounted video screen and an infra-red flashlight to enable you to shoot under full cover of darkness and it’s a vast improvement over my previous efforts at airgun ratting using a head flashlight fitted with a green filter.
However, it’s bulky and fiddly to set up. The kit works well and although it’s less robust than the competition it’s also less than half the price and as an entry level set-up it does the job well.
Scanning would be easier with a pair of IR binoculars though as raising the rifle quickly becomes tiring. These will be the next item on my ratting kit list.
I was told that there’d be no need to re-zero after installation but this wasn’t the case as my normal zero of 25 Yards was now shooting an Inch low. I recalibrated for 20 Yards, expecting to take shots out to a maximum of 25 Yards as this was roughly the limit at which the infra-red beam would be effective at illuminating the target.
As I was unfamiliar with the exact layout of the barns, I took an hour to walk down into the village for a good look around and it wasn’t difficult to spot the runs. I identified several nest holes and well worn paths around the cattle feeders and left with a good idea of where to set up when the rodents came out to feed at at nightfall.
Not the Long Game
An hour after dusk I was in position with my back to some straw bales and the rifle rested on my knees like a turret. After a cold fifteen minutes I was rewarded with two animals on the screen. I was glad that I’d ranged the different distances from my position earlier in the day as this wasn’t possible in the dark. I could feel the familiar pulse of adrenaline that all hunters know, regardless of their quarry.
I lined up the crosshairs and took a chest shot on the first rat. The dull ‘thuck’ told me that the shot had gone home but I followed up twice to be sure (an easy task with the HW100 despite the frozen fingers).
Dialing the scope magnification down to 4 power really optimized the scope’s field of view and light gathering properties and made it far easier to track moving animals.
Warmed by my success I spent another hour quietly stalking around the barns and waiting in ambush to bring my final tally to an unexpected three. I buried them with the field shovel and returned to the car satisfied.
I’ll definitely be doing more airgun ratting in the warmer months; I’ve got the bug but I’ve also got my floorboards and my health to think of!
Fascinating as they are, these creatures need a policy of zero tolerance if we’re to avoid the myriad health hazards posed by infestation.
Good luck with your airgun ratting! It’s an essential farmyard task. Charlie.
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