Bruce Scott : Dunedin NZ : 1960s

Viva, Che ... which way to the revolution?

The photo may suggest guns, guerrillas and itchy trigger fingers, but the only things that needed to be remotely afraid of us brothers-in-arms were a few rabbits and the occasional possum.

This was how some of us town boys looked in 1972, armed with .22 rifles and on a promise from Mum that she'd make rabbit pie should we get lucky enough to bring down Bugs and some of his boys.

Rabbit hunting was a regular part of our growing up in those days. Weeknights and weekends we were out hopping round the bunny trails, honing our hunting skills. As soon as pens were pocketed and the last papers shuffled at our desk jobs, we were off into the hills surrounding our town and blasting away at some pesky varmints. Rabbits abounded and so did the fun.

Take that, you wascally wabbits!

Self-taught, we became expert at gutting and skinning, able to clean a carcase in less than a minute. We were less expert at tanning the pelts and despite trying many methods of preserving skins -- rubbing them with salt, stretching them on fences and hoping for a sunny day to dry them -- most attempts were more in error than trial. I can't remember ever making money from selling skins.

However, some of us did make a reasonable success of selling rabbit meat to workmates and cash-strapped university students.

Two of us set up a biggish trap-line along the edge of a forest about 45 minutes from home and it produced some reasonable pocket money for a while. It must have been summer, however, because winter soon came and the cold, the daily travel to and from the forest in the dark and the petrol costs for our ageing '38 Ford sedan made our little enterprise seem a bit too much like real work.

That realisation was compounded by some rabbits who were very determined to escape our traps. We'd sometimes find just a foot in a trap but no sign of the rest of the rabbit. Imagining the ugly prospect of what the future held for the rabbit helped finish that little enterprise. Too much chore, too much gore.

When a mate came into possession of a Landrover, we fitted it with a big torch and tried our luck at night shooting. We soon had the old truck prickling with an array of weaponry and a spotlight so powerful it could melt the moon. The bunnies didn't stand a chance.

Those were the days of pretty much unfettered access to farmland. No signs announcing "no shooting" or "trespassers will be prosecuted", the very signs that were to be peppered as target practice when they eventually did appear. Farmers didn't seem to mind us marching uninvited on to their properties, blazing away -- as long as it wasn't their stock or property we were blazing away at. We must have respected the freedom. We very much respected the fact that they usually knew who we were and where to come looking if we transgressed the unwritten rules.

They were good days.