I thought this may be a familiar situation that a few of us on here experience - sometimes nothing works as planned.
I set out yesterday evening with a friend to track down a roe buck that has been a regular visitor to the same areas for a few recent evenings. We spent around 3 hours patiently walking and scanning the land working our way around the woodland edge. Finally, near dark we gave up having only seen a single doe, with her young.
Once we'd had a brew, our attention then turned to a wily old fox that had been irritating us for months. Extremely lamp shy, and suspicious of everything.
We drove right out to the other end of the farm, due to a perculiar wind direction. We walked for another couple of hours whilst stopping to give the call a blast every 10 to 15 minutes. Again no success.
Later, around 02:30 (ish) we went to get the vehicle - left where we started our night... not more than 150 yards away was a fox. Shy and nervous (the fox), my friend crouched almost instinctively and placed the fore-end of the rifle on the fence post. I dimmed the lamp to a minimum, the fox stopped, briefly, front on, sniffing the air. My friend squeezed one on its way. We heard the suppressed crack of the shot, the fleshy impact and the backstop thud. Good work.
Could we find it in the long grass... what do you think?!
We set off for home, a completely unsuccessful night.
Not in the car for 2 minutes and a roe buck decided to flaunt absence in the field by stepping out into the road, bringing me to a sluggish 5 mph. Typical.
On a plus note, the fox was recovered this morning with a 150gn entry and exit through the head. A cracking shot.
Things happen when we least expect them to.
I set out yesterday evening with a friend to track down a roe buck that has been a regular visitor to the same areas for a few recent evenings. We spent around 3 hours patiently walking and scanning the land working our way around the woodland edge. Finally, near dark we gave up having only seen a single doe, with her young.
Once we'd had a brew, our attention then turned to a wily old fox that had been irritating us for months. Extremely lamp shy, and suspicious of everything.
We drove right out to the other end of the farm, due to a perculiar wind direction. We walked for another couple of hours whilst stopping to give the call a blast every 10 to 15 minutes. Again no success.
Later, around 02:30 (ish) we went to get the vehicle - left where we started our night... not more than 150 yards away was a fox. Shy and nervous (the fox), my friend crouched almost instinctively and placed the fore-end of the rifle on the fence post. I dimmed the lamp to a minimum, the fox stopped, briefly, front on, sniffing the air. My friend squeezed one on its way. We heard the suppressed crack of the shot, the fleshy impact and the backstop thud. Good work.
Could we find it in the long grass... what do you think?!
We set off for home, a completely unsuccessful night.
Not in the car for 2 minutes and a roe buck decided to flaunt absence in the field by stepping out into the road, bringing me to a sluggish 5 mph. Typical.
On a plus note, the fox was recovered this morning with a 150gn entry and exit through the head. A cracking shot.
Things happen when we least expect them to.