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Last week we brought you Roy getting to grips with night vision in his bathroom - well Mr
Crow also has a big problem with rats at the moment... AND a problem with the quality of
Roy's footage.
Roy's was a waste of time.
A faulty door on a new straw barn has left Andy's bales exposed to rat attack and it
needs sorting.
There have been other bales parked here. This is where they started chewing it. They chew
through the net wrap to get to the corn, because there is no feed. The only feed is in these.
This one here - you can see this look, they have chewed all this into it. This is ***
straw, we have got rat poison in here, but why do they want to go for the rat poison
when they can chew into these bales and find the odd bit of grain in there.
So what's to be done - well Andy's brought in an old friend to tackle the problem and
to have some seriously good sport. Dave, like so many of you out there likes to use a bit
of initiative, or in other words ebay, to open up new air rifling opportunities and
he's agreed to talk us through it.
Ok well I have bought this old camcorder off ebay, but you must make sure you use the night
shot mode ok. There is a lot of camcorders out there but you must make sure it has got
this night mode shot on it. I basically got...there is a thread by the front of the lense and
I bought this adaptor which is like a filter wheel or something like that and araldited
it on to this old lense cap. So that then screws, if I line it up, yes it does screw
onto there like that, screws on there. I just put that around there, pop that on that ok.
This is a hawk scope. Now slightly crude this piece of plastic and this very important piece
of cardboard goes in there to sort the height out. I will make the proper thing one day.
Courtesy of the Post Office, elastic bands, put around that battery and that camcorder
as crude as it is, is actually is now nicely on there and that is not going to fall off.
Ok now it does have its own infra red illuminator on this side here which you would use if you
were filming people if you were
standing two or three metres away from them. That is pretty much as good as they get. Now
obviously if we do this in there it just gets lost and you can see it is tucked behind so
much stuff here it would never get out there. So then you obviously introduce this which
is an infra red laser it works off this small battery pack here which are four AA's, it
has this on off switch which I put behind this rubber band here and you just squeeze.
I would do it this side actually if I was left handed, just squeeze that like that on
and off and as I say I haven't done a lot of this yet, but it seems to be as you know
it seems to be getting the results we need.
Better than Roy's.
I don't want to be getting involved with anything like that to be honest. So yes, that is pretty
much the set up. A lot of this you can see is home made but in a way that is the glory
of how cheap this sort of stuff is now to buy.
Yes, it is not three or four grand.
Old scope mounts knocking about...
So how much do you reckon this lot has cost you?
Well obviously we know the rifle is not cheap...
No just the night sight bit.
Got this for £70, the rubber bands I got off the post man at Christmas.
Good man, good man.
Packing plastic from my house. Filter wheel I think literally £2 off ebay. Old scope
lense, old scope cap, some araldite so we are still not up to a lot of money. This I
think, I would have to look, they are about £100 I think. It is an infra red laser. There
are lots on Youtube. A lot of airgun people doing this and you can see them. They have
got similar set ups, but people just change it slightly to what they want really.
So we're looking at about 200 pounds for Dave's set-up but after last week's programme we
had a few emails, about night vision bargains including one from Stephen Stubbs from the
PigeonWatch forum who made his set-up for 52 pounds... If you are watching this on YouTube,
click on the link on the screen to look at his videos of how he did that. If any one
else has some cost saving tips, night vision or otherwise we'd love to hear about them.
Back to rats and Andy's not just here to look pretty and shout encouragement in the dark.
He's the Goose to Dave's Maverick, guiding towards the intended target. Talk to me, Goose.
I spot them with this. It is like a binocular just look through. I look right round the
shed, find the rat and then David, he has got his spotter on the top, but when he puts
that on it it is bright and I can see where it is in the shed and I just talk him in right,
right, right, left, left, left and he goes onto it. And as soon as he is on it because
that is so tight, as soon as he is on it he can see it on the screen. Gets the cross hair
on it, smack, dead.
Now, although what follows is a fine example of precision pest control - at times it might
sound as if pilot and navigator are strapped in to different aircraft.. let's start with
a bit of rat on rat action and then Dave and Andy can take it away...
There we go...I told you there were two there.
What the hell...that has got a dead rat.
He has and all, he has.
Look, look.
You have got to kill that. You are recording it as well.
Ssh.
Where has he gone...there he is ...
Look at that.
Where has he gone...
I turned the switch off.
Yes, well shot.
Look at that, so clear...
Right, right, right, uppy, uppy...uppy, uppy a bit...righty, righty...
Oh missed it...
That went straight through that ...
Where is it...it is round the back
Down, down, down, get on down, left in there, right, right, right
I can't get in there... I have got no pellets left.
There he is. There's two more down there. They will come back out, there you go.
What on top of the ...
No, down, down, down near the camera
I can't remember where it is...
...up, up, up there can you see it?
Yes, one, two.
Say when you are ready...
Ready...right fast, fast, stop, up, right there...
Right, right, right, stop there about...there he is.
It's a beaver...
That last rat wasn't a beaver! But then again Andy doesn't take a size 5 Jack Pyke boot
either!
My feet are a size seven and half. These rats are...I would say he is about a good 18" long
head to toe. We will take him home and eat him.
It's been a successful evening's ratting and although we thought night vision would spoil
the social side of shooting - this method certainly keeps everyone involved and entertained.
And remember if you have got a simple but effective way of saving your fellow shooters
a few pounds with night vision or anything else, drop me a line and we'll spread the
word - charlie@fieldsportschannel.tv
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