First of the New year!

[ianm 2,594]

I decided to have a look about last night for a fox so rang my mate to see if he was coming. The answer was yes as it always is. Tonight i would have to use my back up rig as my normal kit has developed a problem, it will take a bit of reme dial work by a man who specialises in them. So tonight i am using another Tikka T3 supervarmint in .204 and a Gen 2 Tubed scope with a Dragonfly laser illuminator. 

We went to one of my favourite spots first which is on a keepered estate. After first unlocking a five barred gate we drove down a track at the side of a river for about five hundred yards and turned the Jimny to ninety degrees to the track. At this point you are only ten or so yards from the river which has a wood running right up to it on the other bank. From this position you can see a long way looking upwards as the ground rises in front of you. To the left and five hundred yards or so is a deciduous wood which again rises up. 

My mate had put the caller out to our left at fifty yards and having scanned around for five minutes i chose "vixen in heat" on the foxpro and started calling. Within a few seconds i saw a heat source through the thermal in a clearing in the wood which was tiny. The tiny heat source set off running down hill, i judged it to be a good eight hundred yards but was convinced it was a fox that had heard the call. A few minutes later that proved to be the case as it jumped over the stone wall which surrounds the wood. It made it's way in quickly then stopped and just watched. Whenever this has happened before it has been a youngish/smaller vixen. They are initially curious to see who is on their patch but won't commit to coming right in as they fear a beating from a larger more aggresive vixen. I tried a rat distress call for a few minutes to see if it would come a bit more but to no avail. If i was going to account for this fox it would have to be now. I settled the reticule on it, set  the trigger and touched off a shot. Down it went in the scope followed by that noise that sounds like you have just hit the top of a fence post with a large hammer. 

We continued to call for another fifteen minutes but nothing else showed itself. So after making the rifle safe and locking it in the Jimny we set off to collect the fox. I could see it easily through the thermal so it was a straight forward walk to it. I had set a marker on my phone app at the vehicle and upon arrival at the fox set another marker, it told me the shot had been a two hundred and thirty six yards head shot, which i was pleased with for my back up rig. On inspection it turned out to be a small vixen just coming into heat.

On the way home we called in at "the moss", this is a large expansion of agricultural land that we kill quite a lot of foxes on. We have shot three in the last three weeks on here and the bait is still going. As i drove down the track which cuts straight through the land we scanned every couple of hundred yards. On the fifth scan i saw a heat source against a little spinney and on focusing the thermal i detected a fox. I told my mate to get out and set up on the bonnet quickly whilst i tried to keep it there. It had watched us for a little while before trotting off down the fence line. I started to lip squeak and it stopped to look, it stayed long enough for a shot and it went down with a thump. It turned out to be a decent sized dog fox taken at one hundred and thirty two yards. 

 

[si brown 8,486]

nice start to the year ian

[BenBhoy 4,706]

Good start & great write up, cheers.

[Stavross 16,053]

Very nice, Cracking write up as always, 236 yard eyeball is a hell of a shot

[shovel leaner 7,650]

Nice work , and good write up .

[Alsone 789]

On 04/01/2020 at 18:55, Stavross said:

Very nice, Cracking write up as always, 236 yard eyeball is a hell of a shot

Yep. Helps having .204 though as its very flat.

 

[Longshanx 833]

That's a cracking head shot at that distance, great write up