Thread: 2014 easter bunny shoot

After Action Report Easter Bunny Hunt, 722 Bunnies killed dead.

Last year our team got in the ballot and I was moving house so couldn't go. I was pissed to say the least! Our team was low on members but managed a tidy 900 odd, but narrowly missed out on auto entry for this year. We entered the ballot again this year and missed out. Pissed again! Determined to go I joined up with some other friends who's team had auto entry thanks to a 4th placing last year, Finally going Bunny hunting!

It was a last minute sort of arrangement so with a quickly organised bag of gear and bang sticks, I got on the road down to Alex to draw our block and meet the Guys. By lunchtime Friday we were all set up on our block in the Ida Valley near Ophir and Omakau. After a safety briefing and rundown on the boundary's we were into it. Our block was 3000 acres made up of 1200 flats and 1800 hill. We decided to spend the afternoon walking the Gulleys in the hill where we wouldn't be able to get the trucks at night. Terrain was typical to the Central Otago area with patches of low scrub and rocky tussocky grassy stuff.

On arriving at what was supposed to be the middle of the hill block we split into 2 teams each going our separate ways, about 8-10 in each. We shot the gulleys with shotguns only by walking down or up them line abreast, I was very impressed with how everyone was very aware of their positions and lines of fire, thus ensuring there was no chance of anyone getting peppered by stray pellets.

We shot around 50 rabbits, I pulled off a couple of full deflection running shots which I was very happy with, and the Fiocchi 36gm 3s I was using were faultless, I found them better than the Falcon we usually use as they were a lot cleaner burning, meaning less hot powder in the eyes!!

Abruptly we bumped in to what appeared to be a boundary fence, about 800acres sooner than expected!! Turns out we had fucked up and hadn't started in the middle of the block so the other guys had 4/5ths of the place and we had fuck all. After a couple of hours spent fucking around repositioning both halves of the team into the proper area we were back to the shooting!! Wasn't looking good, a phone call told us the others had around 80 and we hadn't shot one for 2 hours so our total was still around 50. The block wasn't holding great numbers either and the weather was overcast and galeforce, Fuck fuck fuck!!!

We still had a couple of hours daylight left so continued bombing up the gulleys, which were very steep in places so provided plenty of entertaining Flying rabbits. We obviously had to pick all the dead up so this was a neverending laugh as to who had to shimmy into some shitty spot to grab the rabbit to put In a backpack, or whos backpack the 3m headshot inside out rabbit went into!! This turned into a bit of a fuckup for me as my neckwarmer was in the bottom of my bag and I was unaware it was getting covered in piss etc! was good to have on for 12hrs later!


By the time we all got back to the base for a feed and debrief before the nightshoot it was around 6pm and we had around 200 rabbits between us. Wasn't looking that good to be honest as I can go out and shoot 50 myself on a good avo with the 22. On the plus We had seen good mobs of goats and good numbers of Fallow, including a good stag. These were off the list though sadly after stern instructions from the Farmer earlier. Goats were getting sent to the works and the fallow were just to be left alone! Good to see cockies leaving a few wild Fallow to get around up here they love the country and do really well.

I chucked my silent short ruger in the truck for the nightshoot as I had a feeling we would see a few in the guts out of shotty and truck range, turned out to be a good idea as we probably got 50 with it, once I got the judging distance under light sorted!! Quite cool being able to see the subs fly out in the light through the scope though!! Walk them onto the target Got a big hare at I guess around 140 on the run, 3m lead and around 1.5m Kentucky elevation, 1 shot, solid thump, cartwheel, from all the boys.


With the weather being shit we were working hard and there seemed to be fuck all around, the flats were hopeless and it seemed to be all hares on the hill. we left the hares where they lay as they don't count, though we found out later there was a prize for the most hares! Fuck! We probably got 150!

As we finished shooting at around 430am when we were pretty sure we had cleaned the place up. We had all had a great time but weren't that hopefull of breaking any records. We figured we had around 700 all told and the official count confirmed 722, bit of a surprise 2nd place with a guaranteed spot next year. Bloody beauty!

All told a bloody good time!!