foxing tips

Craig.ross

Active Member
Hey guys

Anybody got any tips about best times to go out foxing ? And for weather, is there times they wont come out ie if its too cold or something ?

I was picking up a pal of mine that works in a RFD to go out foxing, the other guy that worked there said we should get a fox as the weather the night before was pretty bad, blizzard and cold, so he'll be out on the hunt for food. Sure enough we got to the land , 30 seconds after calling , charlie comes running up the park and stops at about 110 yards staring up at our direction enough time to get the ND3 on him and drop him right there with a 60gn V-max.

Ive now ditched the ND3 and got myself an Archer Gen 3 add on. Although my experiences with the ND3x50 were really good, no quarry seemed to be bothered at all by the green laser light, apart from when it was on its tightest beam, rabbits would run then but i knew that happened and just wanted to make sure that it was true.You wouldnt use the tightest beam anyway as it wouldnt fill much of scope view at all. But now im going down the total 100% covert method of gen 3.

Any tips gratefully appreciated guys.


Craig
 
quite still nights are a waste of time in my experience,
nice and windy and wet always produces fox for me !
 
Still, light nights I find to be rubbish, cloud cover with some wind I find best. Calling should bring in the more naive out there but if they've heard it all before and been shot at forget it! Find that if the lamps too tight that also puts em off.
 
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Every nights a good night, take your time and pick the place you reckon they will be, nothing like a bit of recce to place em during different times, move places as little as possible, if they are there they will come to you, sods law if you pull up sticks you'll look up and he will be in front of you. get as much as possible in your favour, stay put. curiosity will bring em back another route maybe, but they come back some nights are harder than others.
 
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thats interesting the snow day fox, as the last one i got was the night after a snow blizzard. Tempted to try 2moro night as we've just had a lot of snow fall here today.

What about dog food, ive heard a lot of people putting out dog food, but is that really enough to get a fox into the area ?

My trail cam has seen foxes all throughout the day from afternoon right through to early hours of the morning.


Craig
 
No obvious pattern for me, still and full moon just as good as no moon and howling gale!
cant tell you about driving rain as I draw the line in deliberately going out to get soaked to the skin....

i do use cat food to keep them in one spot when I have worked out a transit spot
i would say learning your ground and the patterns the foxes on it use
 
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The best advice i can give is
1/ Go out lots the more your out the luckier you will be and the more you will learn
2/ watch the wind direction
3/ Mr & Mrs fox dont read the same stuff we do , they will do everything everybody has mentioned and act in a predictable manner, other times they don't follow the rule book.

Get out there and enjoy yourself
 
good stuff guys, really appreciate all the info and advice. Im gonna get myself out there a lot more and do a good bit of recon. I did this a while back mostly having a look around the edge of the fields and gorse bush and found all along there, droppings that i am positive came from fox. My trail cam is near this area and fox has been there from afternoon to early morning hours.
 
Good job neil. You can't be that far from me. I'll send all them weary ones you way now you've got the NV. If you send me a few easy ones.
 
NV was a great buy - halved the difficulty straight away.

Watch the wind, and also be aware that wary foxes will circle around you to check out what you are and to get downwind of you - so if one disappears just wait 5 mins the do a 360 degree scan.

2 best fox calls: "kissing" my palm, and a bit of polystyrene being stroked on a damp peice of glass.

best bait - dog foods not bad, but human food scraps and mcdonalds work well on foxes that live near people
 
Best way I have found and certainly gets results, use Lidle Orlando dog food 90p for 1.25kg, mix it with a box of Orlando dried cat food and put good sized dollops of the mixture at 25yd intervals in a straight line from your shooting position down the field away from you. This is best done within an hour of sunset to avoid the crows and magpies clearing up the bait. Do it for 3 evenings each evening shorten the length of bait run until the end is within the shooting range of your lamp/nv and return to set up just before dark on the third night, total cost under a fiver and if you dont shoot foxes I will eat my hat.... well not literally lol.
Regards and good luck WB
 
The more you go out the more you will see, I go out on my own quite a lot with a 170 LF (scope mounted) and a set of quad sticks to sit the rifle on.
Each fox is different but they learn very quickly if you miss!!
Apart from driving rain and fog I go out….If you wait for weather that you think suites then you will wait….
I use a couple of man made calls then a soft hand squeak, quite often you can’t do any thing about the wind going the wrong way so I will call down wind and just sit tight.
An old hand taught me to hold the light above the fox just enough to see the eyes until it was in the right range for the one shooting.
Some times a fox will only come so far and just sit then the temptation is to have a shot takes over….(99 out of a 100 us will do this lol) In truth it is better to leave it but if you have walked for 2-3 hours and are just going home then the round will be sent the foxes way.
I like the hard foxes as they take a lot of work to get and I might not get it! However they will all ways be out there and a challenge. As for tips I would say know your land inside out, be flexible, learn to shoot quick, know when to let it carry on and shoot safe because it is only a fox…..

Tim.243
 
I went to the land yesterday to re zero the rifle after making adjustments to the scope so the archer was a bit more comfy for shouldering. On my way to the land i came across a road kill Roe so picked it up and lobbed it in the back of the truck, ive set it out infront of my trail cam. I waited about 100 yards away from the carcass last night for a while, couldnt stay out all night as it wasnt planned and had things to do, no show of any fox by the time i left which was only 6:30.

Ive had foxes show up on the trail cam at all sorts of times, some at 3:00 in the afternoon, some at 6 at night, others 8-9 at night , some 3-5 am, just depends but i reckon they know when im coming cos they are never there or i can hear them barking at eachother but can never see them.

Maybe a pro fox caller might come in handy ;)


Craig
 
If you are going down the road of a fox caller, get one with a remote handset, that way if you put the caller out 100yds away the fox is looking at the caller on its run in and not at you, if the sound is coming from where you are its more likly to see you and disapear?
Even if it decides to try and get round the back of the caller to "scent it" its more likly not to get spooked if you are nowhere near it.
Allthough they are proably the most expensive on the market i've gone for a foxpro fury and got to say i've never regretted it one bit, it's meant i've been able to shoot countless foxes that i would not normally get chance to shoot because it has 100s of calls on it that covers every type of animal and situation you could imagine not only rabbits etc, mainly at this time of year it's the fox calls that i find are working best which of course have to be the hardest to replicate.
 
get a trail cam and put some bait in front of it see when charlie visits. really cuts down your sitting and waiting timme
 
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