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First brace of the year!


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Due to it being forecast a dry night last night i decided i would have have a trip out foxing. I rang a mate of mine and asked if he fancied it and he did. Whenever i go with this mate we always go in his vehicle. It is a two thousand and ten plate Defender that has been modified for fox shooting. When he bought it i suggested altering the roof on the swb Defender so that it could be used to shoot out of. Well he didn't quite fancy cutting into the roof of a not so old vehicle understandably, but liked the idea. The next news was he had bought a series two roof off Ebay for fifty pounds and was going to have a bash at modding it. At this point i stepped in and suggested we leave the roof with my next door neighbour to modify as he is a coach builder by trade and has a fully kitted out workshop to do it in. A couple of weeks later and it was ready and what a superb job he did. There is a removable hatch in the centre which is big enough for two people to stand up in and a ledge all the way round three hundred milimetres wide in checker plate, with a lip all the way round so nothing can roll off . The roof was then powder coated at a place down the road from me and fitted. It is an ideal three hundred and sixty degree spotting and shooting platform. He had called in at our syndicate shoot before coming for me as i take the grandkids to football training on a Wednesday night. For several weeks we have seen signs of a fox but it has never been on the ground when we have gone to look for it. He had put his foxpro out on arrival and played "vixen in heat". Within two minutes a fox turned up and he shot it. It turned out to be a dog fox no doubt looking for the vixen the terrier lads had last week. So that is two less we need not bother about. By the time he got to my house i had decided to go to my favourite spot to start with which is on the keepered estate. I had a small vixen here a couple of weeks ago and thought there may be another about now. I unlocked the gate to the field and closed it after us. We drove five hundred yards or so down a track adjacent to the river bank and parked up. As i was getting set up in the Defender my mate said have a look at that on the hillside and see what you think. So i looked through my thermal and found what he was looking at. Whatever it was, was long and looked to have a lot of legs. I switched my scope on and laser illuminator and searched the ground for the object. I soon found it and it proved to be a pair of foxes in the act of mating. They where back to back having tied. Unfortunately they where i estimated a good four hundred and fifty yards away and with no way to close the gap down without giving away our prescence i decided to wait till they parted and then try a call. They must have been tied for fifteen minutes before they parted. I selected "vixen on heat" and played it expecting one or the other to come and see whats going on. It was a surprise .when neither reacted to the call and they began to move off to our right Over the course of the next fifteen minutes i tried various calls but to no avail. Eventually they left the field at the top of the hill  a good six hundred yards away via a hedge and onto a lane. I packed up and told my mate we should go and see if we can find them in the fields on the opposite side of the lane. After leaving the field and locking the gate we set off uphill with me standing up in the back with my upper body

 

Edited by ianm
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protruding through the aperture in the roof. A bit like Rommel i would imagine. On the third stop to scan with the thermal i spotted a faint glow coming from a depression in the ground. I had no idea what it was but readied the rifle in case. I gave a lip squeak and two fox heads appeared out of the ground, aiming straight at the left hand one i got a shot off quickly and not only saw it drop but the noise was confirmation of a hit. After quickly recycling the bolt i found the second one had only gone about ten yards and was looking straight at me. I set the trigger and got another shot off with the same result as the first one. It took us quite a long time to find them due to the grass being on the long side but eventually we recovered both of them. Both had been dispatched with head shots at around one hundred and thirty yards and i managed to harvest the contents of the vixens half full bladder to use as a lure elsewhere. 

Instead of calling it a night we went to try another spot on the other side of the estate which is part of the rearing field.My mate was shooting this time and again we opted for "vixen in heat ". The call had been running for ten or so minutes when a fox came flying out of the wood to our right. It was obvious it wasn't going to stop till it was on top of the caller so i muted it. The fox stopped almost immediately and started looking around to see where the source of the call had gone. It seemed like an age before the muffled sound of a shot rang out but was probably only a couple of seconds. I saw the fox go down followed by that popping noise that confirms you have done something a mischief. This turned out to be a dog fox as i expected by way he was running in. After disposing of the bodies we called it a night and headed for home.    

 

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Edited by ianm
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10 hours ago, ianm said:

expecting one or the other to come and see whats going on. It was a surprise .when neither reacted to the call and they began to move off

I'm not surprised at all; you must have an insatiable libido Ian!! 

Cracking write up, thanks. 

Edited by BenBhoy
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6 hours ago, Sausagedog said:

A good night's work.

We modded an old shogun once. Thing was brilliant on the estate.

It was off the road legal wise. The tyres were run at about 12psi and it went anywhere.

My mum has a ninety three lwb pajero and the sunroof is massive and in the right place to stand up in the back and shoot out of.

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