WE'RE still playing catch-up with the ferreting after losing nearly a month due to the snow, and I felt quite guilty when I looked at a certain piece of land, sown early  with barley but now resembling a well-used football pitch. In other words, barely a green blade in sight for nearly 100 metres out into the field.

This farmer is one of the nicest people you could wish to meet, ever accommodating and genuinely interested in dog work and all things pertaining to our canine mates. 

He owns one of the fastest spaniels I have ever seen. When I first saw this dog it was coursing a rabbit towards the dyke at the edge of the field and I honestly thought it was a lurcher from a distance.

What surprised me about the bald field is that this farmer had forgotten to tell us anything about it! It was only when I asked him if he had any more ferreting for us to do that he thought for a moment then remembered he had a problem on that particular field! And boy, did he have a problem!

The best part about said farmer’s problem is that the rabbits responsible were happily ensconced in warrens either side of about 150 metres of old tarmac road at the edge of the field.

This disused dead-end bit of road is flanked on one side by the very busy A14 dual carriageway, fortunately well fenced off with post and rails and rabbit mesh, while on the other side we have the field.

For us, used to crouching, creeping and crawling in and out of hawthorn hedges and brambles in order to get at the rabbits, theses open verges were pure Heaven! Just to be able to set nets without first having to prune away brambles and nettles from the mouths of the holes was a treat. 

Our main problem was the sheer number of holes, and the fact that the tunnels were so shallow meant that we were continually finding ourselves up to our knees in earth as the ground caved in under our feet as we worked.

The fact that a public footpath runs right alongside the field, 'twixt crop and warren, probably played in our favour as the rabbits were so used to people and dog walkers that they virtually ignored our presence as long as there was about 50 metres distance between us.

It was strange, to say the least, to see rabbits out grooming, playing and generally doing what rabbits do around their burrows, all within almost spitting distance.  Luckily they decided to disappear below ground after the dogs had given them a few close encounters.

'Sparrow' is always a good dog to help a youngster out on its first ferreting trips, being calm and watchful and by now quite experienced, so I took young 'Hunny' along for some merle mentoring as well.

Never having been ferreted before, and despite our obvious presence above ground, these rabbits bolted with a vengeance, something one expects from very shallow burrows but to us a delight, as much of our ferreting is very different.

A couple of hours saw us with 21 rabbits that first trip but we were short of time, as usual, so had to make two further visits to finish the job. I know that by rights we should have hit the whole place hard in one go, as by returning again and again you are forced to waste valuable time and energy re-ferreting the same holes all over again, often just for one rabbit per warren.

After the third trip we backfilled all the holes, which will give us a better idea as to where any survivors are lurking. In fairness to the dogs, though, you can’t blame them for marking just one solitary rabbit in a 20-hole warren, it's just a bit annoying to put all those nets down for one bunny!

It is, in fact, a damn sight easier for a good dog to locate and accurately mark just one rabbit in an otherwise deserted warren than it is to predict the whereabouts of many rabbits in the same warren.

'Hunny' was attentive and calm, marking intently and beating 'Sparrow' to the punch on several occasions. A classic left-and-right occurred when two rabbits bolted simultaneously, dragging the nets pegs from the sodden ground (this was during the third trip after the snow melt), with both lurchers flying to the rabbits nearest them.

I’m sometimes torn between telling a lurcher to stay well back from the holes or to allow it to hover silently just above the hole. I think a lot depends on the ground and the depth of the burrows, with the ferrets having a much harder job to shift rabbits deep below ground. 

Unless young dogs behave really over-enthusiastically, shoving their noses through the nets and huffing and puffing down the holes I prefer to allow them to learn from their mistakes, and I’m really pleased when I see a youngster take a step back from a hole of its own volition once it has spooked a rabbit back to ground.

'Sparrow' quickly learned to watch a rabbit at the net from a distance, only going in for the pounce once the hapless bunny was well clear of the hole. 

I also like to place a dead rabbit out in the field at the end of a ferreting session before sending a young dog to retrieve it. We don’t get much opportunity for free bolting round here, so I find it useful to be able to send a sapling out for a couple of retrieves, even better if I can hide that carcass in long grass to give the dog slightly more of a challenge.

It’s also a way of ending the session on a high note, with a bit of one-to-one with the dog and lots of praise when it finds the carcass.