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There are skins all over the place
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20-05-2010 8:10pm#1Thursday 29/04/10
Tuesday night I received a text from John, who I go shooting with regularly. "Things are really bad at Stephens place, Tom said skins all over the place, what night you able to come up, we try to put a stop to the killing". Stephen and Tom are two of Johns brothers. Because of prior commitments, Thursday was the earliest I could be anywhere.
Tonight I headed for Johns house, we'd make the rest of the journey together in his van. He had both of his batteries charged so meant business, I've just the one 18amp battery this year. On the way he was telling me what had been happening. "Stephen and Tom have been out, but they can't get near enough the foxes with the shotguns".
Now, the lay of the land. This holding is a vast expanse of bog with a few hills in it that are made up of improved land. Apart from the perimeter fence surrounding the place and the handling pens there are no fences. The weather isn't as much of a problem as I had been thinking, it's over cast with intermittent showers, so that's helped hide most of the big moon that's out, and there's a half decent breeze up. It's too warm and yet again I find myself over dressed.
There are two access roads coming in off the main road, within the holding there is one long semi paved road and numerous grassy track ways and paths. Tom has gone in ahead of us and stationed himself upon the top of the largest hill in the place. John and I have come in the other road and as we're heading towards our parking up spot I spy a fox along the top of a ridge. We're out of the van and try the caller and have a walk after it but no joy and we don't spot it again.
As we're finishing up looking for that fox Tom rings John, there are a pair of foxes heading towards him. I should say he's just got a shotgun, plus he's a long way off. By the time I get there, John's gone off the other side of the hill, there's just the one fox. He's well out on a flat and doesn't come in to play.
We all stationed ourselves around the big hill Tom had been on, after a while there's a lamp flashed at me. Two more foxes spotted the other side of the hill, away we all go. Getting around the hill I can only see one fox's eyes, and it's also well out. But, it's moving steadily right to left across me. We move along the hill side to track it, losing it for a while. At the left hand end of our hill we hang around for a while. Tom spots a very bright set of eyes on a fenced hill with an area of bushes on it a few hundred yards from us. "They den in those bushes, the neighbours don't mind us going in there".
There's a bog track heading almost from where we are to the edge of the hillock the fox is on. "But, you won't see them over those bushes". "I think it's worth a look, I'm going to head down a piece along that track". The fox watches me as I creep down the hill and onto the track. I've a spot picked out which I think will be OK for a shot if I can reach it. With a bit of luck I spot an even better raised area just on the side of the track farther on, I chance my arm and make it there.
The Leica tells me I'm 153 yards from the bushes, the fox is just down the hill in front of the enough to present me with a good backstop, any farther up the hill and I doubt I'd have taken the shot, as I don't know what's behind those bushes. Taking aim I place a bullet behind the fox's left shoulder and it drops instantly.
Then all hell broke loose.
As soon as I had the shot off I see a second set of eyes, right beside that fox which neither Tom nor I had seen from the big hill. This fox is doing a lot of moving around in the bushes. I can see it a few times but I can't take the shot because I've no good backstop. I stay where I am, and after a couple of minutes I can see the fox starting to move cautiously down the hill towards the fox I've just shot.
My eyes must be playing tricks on me, this new fox looks very far away. At least that's what my scope rule is telling me "Small = far away!". I grab the Leica again, no, the bushes are 153 yards away all the time, and this fox is in front of those same bushes. I check the magnification on my scope, yes, it's set to the normal 8x, I check the fox, still very small, I range again, still 153 yards!
Whatever the story is here it's high time I do something about this second fox. I'm sure of my range so I wait until it's sniffing the shot fox and place another Vmax, dropping the second fox instantly. Without thinking, I hear myself saying "Ah, here, come on!" out loud. I see a set of eyes dart away from where I know for sure one fox is lying. I'm going through the usual process, "Did I wing or miss that second fox? No, can't have. Is there a third fox? Has to be!. Again I wait for my third fox to come out of the bushes, it comes down from the bushes quicker than the second one and a third Vmax bowls it over too.
Tom comes down off the hill and meets me on the track, "Did you get him?", he says, thinking I was shooting at the same fox all of the time! "I got all three...".
(It still hasn't dawned on me through the action these are two cubs, as you all have no doubt worked out by now).
We took a walk over to inspect the damage. As we're walking up the hill towards the bushes, I see the first fox laid out, then I glance and see the second fox laid out. Wondering where the third fella is I'm about to say to Tom, "Wouldn't surprise me if there's a third fox laid out not far from these two", when I finally see the first fox I shot was the vixen and these are her two cubs lying beside her, a young dog and vixen.
We retreat from the bushes back to our hill. For the rest of the night we keep a sharp eye on those bushes, in case another cub would come out. In any case we see no more eyes beside the vixen so I reckon she had just those two.
We have more action with another four sets of eyes, but no joy to be had with them this night.
Afterwards we're all back over looking the vixen. I head back down to my spot on the track. Tom has seen a fox out on the flat heading towards there from what now would be behind where I am. We don't see it again, but Tom spots yet another fox coming out of the bushes low down out of my sight, I get the lamp flashed at me again.
This fox is coming into me lovely and I'm down and have the rifle ready. The fox comes to the stand alone remains of a turf bank and promptly disappears on me. John and Tom can still see it from the hill and John starts moving down the hill well off to the left. I can't see what's going on, so I stay put in case the fox comes back at me. I see John walking through the bog, then I hear a loud dull kerthump as he fires the 12gauge. A dog fox well accounted for at 35 yards.
Tom's lost the hat his sister brought home from Australia for him. So John and myself head up one side of the hill searching for it while Tom heads around the other side. We're just talking about how hard it is to keep track of the foxes here, with all the cut away turf brinks and small hillocks for them to walk a hundred yards of so behind completely hidden, when John spots yet another fox!
There's a rough path running along the base of the hill, we're on it heading in the direction of this new fox. I know I'll get a decent spot at the side of it for a shot, but, we've got a big problem. The wind is going diagonally from us across out the flat towards where the fox is heading.
We pick our spot, ranging the fox at around 190 yards. It promptly vanishes behind one of those brinks. It pops up again, I don't know how it didn't wind us, and as it's considering hopping a stream I squeeze off the fourth Vmax of the night. Our second adult dog fox.
By the time we'd collected all our foxes for the photo and got back to Tom I was fit only to have a snooze on the ground in the rain! Tom headed off in the Jeep, John and I had a long walk back to his van, spotting another fox on the way. A long but productive night, hopefully we got the right ones.
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Did you read the thread title?
That might give you a clue as to what John was doing out there in the middle of the night and the next night.
I don't think it was for sport more to try and solve the problem on the farm that was plagued with foxes.
I think wildlife boys real name is Tree Hugger
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wildlifeboy wrote: »could you not take a break during cubbing season, that read upset me. poor little fella's. you are what gives hunters a bad name.
Maybe the Nature & Bird Watching Fourm might be more your cup of tea
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