calling in mr fox

gonefoxin

Well-Known Member
ive not had any problem calling in foxes but over the last month or so charlie wont come in to the call? any ideas to bring him in?
 
Round here ive found they love a hare call in mid winter but we are just coming into the little mouse squeek and duckling time of year
 
have you tryed a vixen call on mp3 or through callmaster. thats works well this time of year. due to them mating etc....
 
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I have tried several different callers ,At time fox's refuse to come in to a repetitive noise,Try alternating different callers,but seemingly the best call I and many have tried cost only £2. its called foxsqueak.PEST CONTROL : SALES

you will not be disapointed, Last time out, we had 2 foxes,they come into this call like an intercity 125
 
Hi, iv'e had the same problem ! Thinking !? that they might have better thing's to do at this time of year !? :love: Although they still have to eat, don't they !? :-| If i find the answer i'll let you know !!!! :D Good luck..
 
Calling foxes on a regular basis is not that simple. You have obviously cleared up the "easy" ones and now things will get more difficult. Try different calls, sometimes don't call at all just wait. Foxes cover large areas and one will pass by eventually if you are patient.
Foxes respond in different ways depending on a wide range of factors, get to know their ways and start thinking like them, it takes a long time to become proficient, too many people think you buy a call, use it and they come running, that doesn't happen that often. As I said, calling sucessfully depends on a multitude of factors. Learn some of them and you are halfway there.
 
I have not had much in the way of joy with my calling since about Christmas. I think I mopped up most of the easy ones last year and it's just the cunning ones left. Either that or they have other things on their minds for the past couple of months - they are Essex foxes after all. Switched tactics to bait points mid January and have got back on top of it again. Will probably keep this up until harvest and then go back to the caller for the second half of the year. Added benefit is that if the bait isn't going you can be pretty sure there's nothing about so not too many cold, wet, late nights patroling without results.
 
Could the expert fox shooters please share their knowledge on the foxes habits, calls, rituals, etc. etc. I would like to learn more. Oh, could you tell me more about when the vixen is pregnant, gives birth, and when the young become independent, as even though I do want to control my fox population, I would not want to shoot highly pregnant vixens, or shoot the mother away from dependent young.
 
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If you have the luxury of being able to lay a bait station, cut a 2ft long piece of 4inch drainpipe, bury it vertical down to ground level (so you have a plastic lined hole in the ground)put some old fish heads/offcutts in it(smellier the better), get a couple of tins of sardines, tip the oil out in drips in a 50m radius around the pipe and scatter the sardines about, trust me, if you have foxes on the ground, you'll have a field day! because they can't get to the fish in the pipe and carry it off, you have plenty of time for the shot? simples:D
 
Could the expert fox shooters please share their knowledge on the foxes habits, calls, rituals, etc. etc. I would like to learn more. Oh, could you tell me more about when the vixen is pregnant, gives birth, and when the young become independent, as even though I do want to control my fox population, I would not want to shoot highly pregnant vixens, or shoot the mother away from dependent young.

Shooting any pregnant animal is always a tough situation but unfortunatly a task which needs to be done when there is a need, and it is more humane to shoot a pregnant vixen than leave cubs to starve, plus take them now and they are less of a problem later.
I would have expected cubs in my area to be dropped by now, yet I have shot 5 foxes in the last 4 days, 3 of them vixens and none had welped yet. But talking to other keepers around the country they have had cubs already and the earliest litter I heard of this year was dug in late January.
Hence you just cant put a exact date on cubbing and im convinced that the harder winters we have had, certainly in my part of North Yorkshire have delayed mating and cubbing.
Cubs become independant of the vixen very quickly and once they are moving away from the earth they are a very short leap from becoming natural killers.
The retired keeper on my neighbouring estate used to have an unhelpful habit of baiting heavily all year dumping hundreds of rabbits and cull chickens with the idea that the foxes wouldnt kill pheasants and would just take from his baiting points.
I spent many evenings having to mop up his work and it gave me a great insight into cub behaviour and I watched many a cub dash in and grab a carcass off a heap before legging it to hide the spoils....then reappear and catch a pheasant stupid enough to be watching one of its litter mates raiding the pile. And these cubs I would imagine were only 7-8 weeks old.
Incidently the practice of baiting made for an unusually high fox population and at one point he had 5 litters within 1/2 mile of riverbank and a hell of alot of work for me tidying them up.
As for foxes not coming in to the call, ive found that certain times of the year it just doesnt work, especially when they are mating for obvious reasons and April for some reason seems to be very hard when it comes to adult charlies.
Also having more than one call with you can usually help, if the first doesnt work, try another, then something totally different, most of my calling is done by hand or the wam but I always have a couple more to hand to create a different tone.
Ive had much more success calling in the last few weeks and on more than one occassion have managed to bring in the dog and vixen together and deal with them both.
 
Its the opposite here. They are all a bit daft here at the minute.

I called one in from 500yrds the other night, it never stopped until it was 60yrds from the pickup, it never went another step.

Another Vixen came in from a similar distance to 80yrds, closely followed by her mate, we shot her and the dog kept coming in, unfortunately he lives to tell the tale.
 
As the cubs start growing they will need more feeding so the parents will have to spend a lot more time hunting giving you more chance of spotting them
 
Point taken cockerdog,if you constantly feed the station, unfortunatly it works so well that its bound to attract foxes from "off your boundry"thats why i said "if you have the luxury" but unlike your mate,it takes so little rotten fish that the station would'nt sustain a family of foxes, in fact it does work well if you just use the fish oil and eat the sardines!
To be honest its been more useful in dealing with problem foxes or to get the blighters into a safe shot zone?
Cheers

Tikkat3
 
Very fine conditioned vixen taken Saturday night, along with a couple of dogs, she was either barren or unnattractive to the local males, as she had no milk showing
 
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