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Wary fox.


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A couple of months ago myself and my shooting mate came across a very wary fox. We baited a place up and set a trail cam to get an idea of it's habits. It didn't appear to have a pattern at all but would turn up at random times at the bait station. This fox was incredibly wary in as much as it had a sixth sense something wasn't right. My mate uses a digital spotter ( a good one) it is a pulsar x970 with an xsearcher that has an as i/r pill fitted, i use a thermal spotter. Well after waiting at the bait station or rather 120yds away it finally made an appearance one night but spotted my mates illuminator  straight away and about faced and trotted off, not to be seen again that night.

We subsequently found out, an old chap who shoots occasionally on a small piece of ground adjacent to ours had shot at and missed this fox twice, a situation that never helps at all. Hence the wariness and red glow of the i/r spooking it. I knew then that we would only kill this fox by letting it bump into us. So several weeks of looking for it and it knowing something was amiss ensued. It's awareness was incredible, even when approaching from upwind and it definately couldn't see us it somehow knew to turn around and trot off. After a period of time and seeing it at various times at different locations i had built up a picture of it's movements and decided to put my theory to the test.

I reckoned it was coming out of a smallish spinney and trotting across a field following a ditch. This is purely agricultural land with big open fields and few hedges. It couldn't be ambushed here as to be in cover meant a good 400yd shot if it happened to pause for a second or two, rather stretching the bounds of credibility i thought. It reached a hedgeline at the far end of the field where it proceeded to follow it for around 100yds to 150yds before going through into the back fields. It would work it's way through these hunting about as it went. Eventually it would come through another hedge into a tramline on the headland of a wheat field before making it's way through the wheat field to check out some chicken hut's on the far side. If no chickens where available because they had gone in to roost and the automatic pop holes had closed it made it's way to the bait station.

I decided to lay in wait for it to come out of the hedge into the tramline on the wheat field headland. The wind was about 5mph and blowing directly into our faces. I parked the Jimny at the end of a hedge which is at 90 degrees to the tramline and approximately 200yds from where i expected it to make an appearance. We had been waiting about forty five minutes during which time we had witnessed numerous hares eating the freshly planted lettuce, that would be our next task. Suddenly it popped through the hedge into the tramline and started towards us. I switched the scope and laser on as soon as i saw it. It was easy to pick up in the scope and i waited for a shot to present itself. Having got top the 150ish yd mark it suddenly stopped and turned around making it's way back the way it had come. I decided it wasn't getting away again and put the reticule just over it's back as it was walking directly away from me. Having squeezed the trigger i heard that familiar sound which is like hitting a fence post with a 2lb hammer and the air above the target was filled with a dark mist. This told me the shot had been a good one and the Drone/solaris/.204 Tikka supervarmint combo had accounted for another troublesome fox. I found him in the tramline at about 180yds having died instantly from a head shot, an 18lb dog fox. I was elated to have beaten him this time but i will miss our little duals, he was certainly a worthy adversary.       

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3 hours ago, Sausagedog said:

Nicely played.

It's the clever ones that keep me going.

They earn a lot of respect from me.

You are dead right there.

I like the ones that test you most.

I always admire the tricky customers  and this fellow was right up there with the best of them.

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12 hours ago, ianm said:

A couple of months ago myself and my shooting mate came across a very wary fox. We baited a place up and set a trail cam to get an idea of it's habits. It didn't appear to have a pattern at all but would turn up at random times at the bait station. This fox was incredibly wary in as much as it had a sixth sense something wasn't right. My mate uses a digital spotter ( a good one) it is a pulsar x970 with an xsearcher that has an as i/r pill fitted, i use a thermal spotter. Well after waiting at the bait station or rather 120yds away it finally made an appearance one night but spotted my mates illuminator  straight away and about faced and trotted off, not to be seen again that night.

We subsequently found out, an old chap who shoots occasionally on a small piece of ground adjacent to ours had shot at and missed this fox twice, a situation that never helps at all. Hence the wariness and red glow of the i/r spooking it. I knew then that we would only kill this fox by letting it bump into us. So several weeks of looking for it and it knowing something was amiss ensued. It's awareness was incredible, even when approaching from upwind and it definately couldn't see us it somehow knew to turn around and trot off. After a period of time and seeing it at various times at different locations i had built up a picture of it's movements and decided to put my theory to the test.

I reckoned it was coming out of a smallish spinney and trotting across a field following a ditch. This is purely agricultural land with big open fields and few hedges. It couldn't be ambushed here as to be in cover meant a good 400yd shot if it happened to pause for a second or two, rather stretching the bounds of credibility i thought. It reached a hedgeline at the far end of the field where it proceeded to follow it for around 100yds to 150yds before going through into the back fields. It would work it's way through these hunting about as it went. Eventually it would come through another hedge into a tramline on the headland of a wheat field before making it's way through the wheat field to check out some chicken hut's on the far side. If no chickens where available because they had gone in to roost and the automatic pop holes had closed it made it's way to the bait station.

I decided to lay in wait for it to come out of the hedge into the tramline on the wheat field headland. The wind was about 5mph and blowing directly into our faces. I parked the Jimny at the end of a hedge which is at 90 degrees to the tramline and approximately 200yds from where i expected it to make an appearance. We had been waiting about forty five minutes during which time we had witnessed numerous hares eating the freshly planted lettuce, that would be our next task. Suddenly it popped through the hedge into the tramline and started towards us. I switched the scope and laser on as soon as i saw it. It was easy to pick up in the scope and i waited for a shot to present itself. Having got top the 150ish yd mark it suddenly stopped and turned around making it's way back the way it had come. I decided it wasn't getting away again and put the reticule just over it's back as it was walking directly away from me. Having squeezed the trigger i heard that familiar sound which is like hitting a fence post with a 2lb hammer and the air above the target was filled with a dark mist. This told me the shot had been a good one and the Drone/solaris/.204 Tikka supervarmint combo had accounted for another troublesome fox. I found him in the tramline at about 180yds having died instantly from a head shot, an 18lb dog fox. I was elated to have beaten him this time but i will miss our little duals, he was certainly a worthy adversary.       

003.JPG

Great write up, really enjoyable. And well done, perseverance pays off. 

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