Chicken killing fox!

[ianm 2,594]

The first week of our enforced lockdown i got a call from a good friends son. A fox was visiting him every night and taking chickens from around the yard. He has several stables and horses, a cattery and his own personal dog kennels on this yard. He also owns the field directly behind the yard and the one to the right of that one. I have shot foxes for him here before and it is a good little spot, easy access and the fields rise up in front of you. I entered his farthest field through a metal gate and turned immediately left. I had stopped in a gate hole with a hedge running away from me separating the two fields. I thought this might be a good spot as i should be able to cover both fields from the same location. A few days earlier i had dropped him off some frozen pigeons that i had to use as bait. He told me he had been baiting a spot about one hundred and twenty yards up the hedge on the left hand field about ten yards in. I hadn't been there ten minutes when i spotted a fox walking down the hedge side on my left. I switched the scope and illuminator on and waited for a shot to present itself. I couldn't shoot it where it was because there was too many brambles sticking out from the hedge and i didn't want to risk a shot deflecting. After a minute or so the fox went through the hedge to the right side but didn't come into view. Twenty minutes passed before i decided to step out from the hedge and check with the thermal where it was. Having done so and not seeing it anywhere i went back to the Jimny and waited another hour and a half. I thought that somehow it had seen me and disappeared back the way it had come. He had told me a couple of nights previously that he had seen it coming across the field towards the yard and that the fox in turn had seen him. It had turned round and trotted off, only to return a short while later and take another chicken that was roosting in a stable, his dogs had barked to let him know but he was to late getting there.

It suddenly struck me that this fox may be watching me to see when i leave. I decided to move position to the yard itself and park adjacent to his vehicles with my back against his horse box so that i wasn't skylined. After packing up the rifle etc i deliberately made a noise moving off. I switched the head lights on and made a bit of a row with the metal gate before driving off down the road past the yard. Two hundred yards or so past the entrance of his yard is a place where you can turn on the lane without having to go all the way to the end, so i spun the Jimny round and headed back to the yard with no headlights on. As i entered the yard i drove all the way to the right and parked up in a covert position overlooking the fields i had just vacated ten minutes earlier. I slid out of the vehicle and set up the rifle on the roof as quietly as i could. The wind was blowing into my face so i wouldn't be rumbled on that score. I began scanning with the thermal and looking further and further out. There are three fields then the ground rises sharply into a large hill that has a lot of spartina grass tussocks on it ( rushes they are called locally ) . I started to scan the hillside and there it was sat amongst the rushes looking around, it must of been there all the while. Another five minutes saw it trotting in quite quickly, it must of been about eight or nine hundred yards away when i saw it first. It didn't take long for it to get to the next field to the one i was watching over, i could see it clearly with the thermal. It was at this point that i switched the scope and illuminator on again. Another ten seconds and it was through the hedge and into the field adjacent to where i was waiting for it. I found it easily in the scope and set the trigger on the T3 after pushing the safety off. It started going up the field towards where the bait had been placed. Suddenly it stopped to smell at something on the ground and i put the reticule at the back of the shoulder and squeezed the trigger. There was a "whump" and i saw it go down with no further movement at all. I went to retrieve what turned out to be a decent sized dog fox at one hundred and twenty yards. My mates son had been outside for some reason and had heard the shot so he came over to take it for disposal. I had originally thought it may have been a vixen feeding cubs and that's why it had been going into buildings for food but i suppose a dog trying to feed a vixen and cubs would be desperate also.  

[Stavross 18,572]

Another quality write up, we would expect no less from your good self

[ianm 2,594]

Well thank you good sir!

Edited April 12, 2020 by ianm

[shovel leaner 7,650]

Good write up  and a good little trick leaving and sneaking back . A mate of mine did that and caught his Mrs in bed with his best friend. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by shovel leaner

[Dervburner 2,549]

Good write up Ian, and a good result fella

[Baldcoot 2,352]

Clever stratagy ,you out foxed the foxed ,and a great write up too