Well i had a phone call from one of my farmers on saturday afternoon to say he'd seen a fox coming out of one of my other 'permissions' heading towards his chickens a couple of evenings this week. So I went down and set up shop with the .22-250 about 150yds from the wood, tucked into the top corner of the field and waited. With nothing showing after 2 hours and the light nearly failed, I got up and walked 3 metres across to the hedge to have a scan round with the bino's. I turned round to find a buck charging towards my position only 40 metres away, where had he come from? F*ck, he's now 10 metres away and i can't really move. He ran past me, stands there about to hop the fence when he spots me and sprints back to the wood. Thankfully I got a good look at him since he was so close, so could see that he had a pretty special head and was looking fairly old as well. So that was me decided, I've been after a Roe buck for a shoulder mount off my land and this was to be my man!
After some discussion with Karl, I decided to try again last night with Karl there on foxing duties on the off chance one showed. Anyway, Karl took my former position in the corner of the field and I took up an ambush position sat down, on my sticks with the 7mm, half way back towards the wood and next to a few small trees. After a couple of hours wait in the freezing Northerly winds, right on queue at 8:45pm, i noticed a shape in the corner of my eye that wasnt there 3 seconds ago. Straight up with the rifle and it was my buck, he'd just stepped out of the tree line but had already seen me, so there was no time to wait for 'the perfect shot' - he was quartering towards me, crosshairs on his front shoulder and I squeezed the round off. The shot took his heart and lungs but exited just behind the diaphram so there was a wee amount of green to deal with upon gralloching, nevermind.
After all the anticipation and the ensuing banter from my fiance about probably spending the next months worth of evenings out till I caught up with him I was pretty pleased to say the least! Gotta say a big thanks to Karl for coming with me, its always nice to have someone there to share the moment. He'll be heading to the taxidermists tomorrow morning, I'm not sure if he'll make a medal as he's not very symetrical but he has got a fair amount of weight in his head........answers on a post card.
Tom
After some discussion with Karl, I decided to try again last night with Karl there on foxing duties on the off chance one showed. Anyway, Karl took my former position in the corner of the field and I took up an ambush position sat down, on my sticks with the 7mm, half way back towards the wood and next to a few small trees. After a couple of hours wait in the freezing Northerly winds, right on queue at 8:45pm, i noticed a shape in the corner of my eye that wasnt there 3 seconds ago. Straight up with the rifle and it was my buck, he'd just stepped out of the tree line but had already seen me, so there was no time to wait for 'the perfect shot' - he was quartering towards me, crosshairs on his front shoulder and I squeezed the round off. The shot took his heart and lungs but exited just behind the diaphram so there was a wee amount of green to deal with upon gralloching, nevermind.
After all the anticipation and the ensuing banter from my fiance about probably spending the next months worth of evenings out till I caught up with him I was pretty pleased to say the least! Gotta say a big thanks to Karl for coming with me, its always nice to have someone there to share the moment. He'll be heading to the taxidermists tomorrow morning, I'm not sure if he'll make a medal as he's not very symetrical but he has got a fair amount of weight in his head........answers on a post card.
Tom
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