Bog Myrtle & Peat

Ever since I first started ferreting, I have been limited by the fact that I don’t really know very much about setting nets. Bit by bit, I came to terms with the basic mechanism involved in a purse net which can open and close, and I have recently started to get some really good results. On wednesday, I bolted six rabbits and killed six rabbits; an unusually high success rate for a self confessed ignoramus. However, as usual, I am now on the verge of heading out of my depth again by dabbling in the mysterious science of longnetting,

I’ve wanted a longnet for as long as I can remember. Ever since I first learned about the theoretically simple practice of pushing grazing rabbits into a neat mesh wall under complete darkness, it has had a real attraction. It was only when I gave up trying  to make my own purse nets from the kit kindly donated by the man who sold me the ferret locator that I realised that I already had all the crucial ingredients needed to make a long net; more than forty eight yards of mesh, a hundred yards of polyester twine and access to considerable quantities of hazel trees.

From what I can gather, the most important thing about a longnet is that it should have far more mesh than length. You are not trying to play a game of tennis; the net should be extremely baggy and allow any unfortunate rabbits to get well tangled inside before they realise that they have made a grievous mistake. As a consequence, my forty eight yards of mesh were bunched up and threaded through at top and bottom with the twine to create a complex system of threads just twenty four yards long. I may have got it entirely wrong, but I was told that you need roughly two yards of mesh for every yard of longnet.

The next step was to work out how high the net would need to be, and looking at the three feet thickness of the mesh, I decided to go for eighteen inch long stakes. This is so that there is a large “bag” of mesh which lies all along the bottom of the longnet, leaving any passing rabbit with an ample opportunity to snag himself. The stakes were duly cut this morning, and every knot and twiglet was removed carefully with a penknife before things went any further.

The mesh I have ended up with is probably extremely cheap and nasty. It appears to magnetically attract leaves, thorns and prickles, and I have no doubt that dealing with it “on site” around a rabbit warren will take some getting used to. I live in constant fear that it will become tangled, but it will receive its first test flight tomorrow. It remains to be seen if my theory can withstand a dress rehearsal.