Shotguns, Foxes, Pigeons and Squirrels.

[danebrewer10 6]

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Well I decided it had been too long since my last shooting foray so I chucked the gear in the car and headed over to a smallholding I have helped on and shot over for a number of years, I wasn’t too hopeful as I never seem to shoot much there unless the pigeons are there in force. Today was, again a slow day, with nothing moving, not even a squirrel, the odd pigeon clattering out of the far side of the trees, impossible for a shot. I entered a stretch of woodland at the bottom of the valley, about 40m wide and 400m long, (it extends farther but that is the extent of my permission) and wandered through it, usually you can extract a squirrel or at least have a pop at a pigeon or crow escaping from the branches. Nope….. nothing. At this I stopped at a small bramble patch that I had previously disturbed a fox from in the past, (having though it was I rabbit I consequently didn’t have the right cartridges in so didn’t shoot) I changed to 50gm of BBs in the top ¼ barrel and 36gm of AAA in the bottom ½ barrel and stationed myself downwind of the bramble patch. Again I wasn’t expecting much. I stood and squeaked on my palm for all of 10 or so seconds and then stopped. Within 15 seconds I glimpsed, through the brambles a smallish fox moving slowly from left to right about 12 or so metres away. He stopped briefly behind a thin screen of bramble, his head and chest area obscured, with only the hind legs and magnificent brush protruding, estimating where the chest was, I readied the gun, slipped the safety off and into my shoulder, I let the hammer fall sending the plastic cup and it’s charge of 50grams of BB shot up the barrel. Suffice to say, the fox was bowled over in a short. To me the recoil felt the same as a 34gm Eley maximum load and a mild boomph! Through the ear muffs, though to the rest of the world it must’ve seemed like the heaves had split open! Quickly reloading, I realised that it wasn’t necessary as the BBs had done their job. One of this year’s cub vixens. After that was when the breathing got erratic, much like a stalk on a rabbit, the buck fever. I deposited the body in a bramble patch in a ditch to rot in peace, I don’t hurl animals over hedges and that sort of thing, I find it distasteful, even if it is what some people class as vermin. To me every creature is a deserving quarry species. After that it all went quiet again, with nothing doing except for a couple of wild shots at pigeons that were really motoring and darting this way and that. I was thinking about going when I saw a few pigeons flying over a hedge on a bank, as they seem in my experience to fly in groups, I trotted down the hedge to take up station behind it muck like a grouse butt, and over the top of the hedge came a pigeon flying along with the wind. He must’ve been at least 40m up there at least, (I may be wrong, but ranges are hard to judge web there’s nothing to judge them by) switching the barrel selector over to ½ choke, I mounted the gun and slipped the trigger, followed through and was surprised to see the pigeon tumble from the sky! What a shot! I thought to myself. Too bad there was no one else to see it…..

The last event was, when I arrived back at home, I decided, as the gun was dirty to have a wee wander round the fields under the house to see if there was anything there, as we have been having geese fly past the house so hoping they might make an appearance. They didn’t. They flew over about a field away some 300m so, just a tad out of range. I did see a squirrel though. At about 5 yards, the front half just disappeared, the shot fleshed out the skin, leaving squirrel pureé on the tree behind it. Again placing him in the green lane where Charlie fox would find him and clear him up, I ventured inside to clean my gun and tidy up….

 

(alas no photos of the fox, my phone is so old it is still in B&W – good phone though and I neglected to bring a camera with me.)