[h=2]early morning buck and vixen combo![/h]
so tuesday morning started 15 mins before dawn as some strong coffee and ciggies fueled me and a friend as we were off salmon ghillieing for the day, on the way to the river we spotted a covey of grouse explode from the hill face around 300 yards away, thos caught my attention as obviously something had spooked them, so the binos where up and there the dirty bastar! was.. charlie sneaking through the heather. so we made a mental note and carryed on to the river met our clients and did the job in hand.
the next chance we had to look for it was on the following thursday evening and after a couple hours of glassing we didnt see her but we did see two very nice roe bucks, two different styles of head one long and very wide the other a tighter heavyer head both once in a life-time bucks! so over a few glasses of famous grouse a plan was hatched... the next day we would be up before dawn and on the base of the hill to start glassing.
friday morning came, so we were up and fueled up by coffee and ciggies and we were off making good time on foot to the hill. first light was soon upon us and we were glassing the face when chrissy turned to me and said theres one of them!!! i quickly spotted the buck feeding down a green runner, he was about 700 yards away at that point, the wind was right and it was going to easy to make ground on the buck unseen through a tall stand of mature pine trees. so we made our approach and within 20 mins after a short crawl we were onto the buck, he was the wide and long buck. i took the 7x57 out of the slip and chambered a round, after putting the safety on and telling chrissy up the leg 2 inches back into the rib cage, handed him the rifle, he lined u the shot and waited for me to say whenever your ready, bang, the unmoderated rifle roared and the buck stumbled then fell over. on the approach we could see he was a decent buck, and when we got to him he was even better then he looked through the binos he had good pearling, good lenth of beam and points. just a bloody good buck! he was quickly gralloched and bled, we left him in a handy spot as it was only half hour after first light we decided to carry on.
we made our way upto a rocky outcrop to glass from and see what was about on the other side of the hill, we got there and enjoyed the morning for 5 mins, then we got to glassing and the rain started! as i turned around to get my jacket from my bag, i saw an unusual shape on the top of the rocky out crop around 350-400 yards away, throwing the binos up showed the shape was a fox looking off to our left, so we dropped down and i readyed the rifle. it was out of my comfortable range for foxes so i let out a few squeaks, the fox turned to look but showed no interest. chrissy whispered ''cant you shoot from here?'' shuttup was the almost instant reply! i left chrissy where he was as the fox had heard his 'advice' and was now paying attention... so i left chrissy where he was to keep the foxes attention on him, i dropped down into a small gully that would take me to within 90 yards of the fox, after a quick dash i was in range and one quick mouth squeak got the foxes attention before it even knew where the noise had come from she was rolling of her perch as the 130gr smashed through the top of her chest taking out all the vitals and destroying her upper spine and lower neck. i waved chrissy up and we headed over to the fox. congrats were shared, and the foxes tail duly removed before disposing of the carcass in a convenient crack in the rocks. he headed for home and picked up the buck.
once home we relived the morning over a few coffees and ciggies, and after a quick clean up the buck was in the larder the fox tail pinned on the shed and the smell of bacon and eggs was already wafting out into the yard, gotta love the misses sometimes.
sorry for the long write up but i wanted to capture the full experience of the morning!
the next chance we had to look for it was on the following thursday evening and after a couple hours of glassing we didnt see her but we did see two very nice roe bucks, two different styles of head one long and very wide the other a tighter heavyer head both once in a life-time bucks! so over a few glasses of famous grouse a plan was hatched... the next day we would be up before dawn and on the base of the hill to start glassing.
friday morning came, so we were up and fueled up by coffee and ciggies and we were off making good time on foot to the hill. first light was soon upon us and we were glassing the face when chrissy turned to me and said theres one of them!!! i quickly spotted the buck feeding down a green runner, he was about 700 yards away at that point, the wind was right and it was going to easy to make ground on the buck unseen through a tall stand of mature pine trees. so we made our approach and within 20 mins after a short crawl we were onto the buck, he was the wide and long buck. i took the 7x57 out of the slip and chambered a round, after putting the safety on and telling chrissy up the leg 2 inches back into the rib cage, handed him the rifle, he lined u the shot and waited for me to say whenever your ready, bang, the unmoderated rifle roared and the buck stumbled then fell over. on the approach we could see he was a decent buck, and when we got to him he was even better then he looked through the binos he had good pearling, good lenth of beam and points. just a bloody good buck! he was quickly gralloched and bled, we left him in a handy spot as it was only half hour after first light we decided to carry on.
we made our way upto a rocky outcrop to glass from and see what was about on the other side of the hill, we got there and enjoyed the morning for 5 mins, then we got to glassing and the rain started! as i turned around to get my jacket from my bag, i saw an unusual shape on the top of the rocky out crop around 350-400 yards away, throwing the binos up showed the shape was a fox looking off to our left, so we dropped down and i readyed the rifle. it was out of my comfortable range for foxes so i let out a few squeaks, the fox turned to look but showed no interest. chrissy whispered ''cant you shoot from here?'' shuttup was the almost instant reply! i left chrissy where he was as the fox had heard his 'advice' and was now paying attention... so i left chrissy where he was to keep the foxes attention on him, i dropped down into a small gully that would take me to within 90 yards of the fox, after a quick dash i was in range and one quick mouth squeak got the foxes attention before it even knew where the noise had come from she was rolling of her perch as the 130gr smashed through the top of her chest taking out all the vitals and destroying her upper spine and lower neck. i waved chrissy up and we headed over to the fox. congrats were shared, and the foxes tail duly removed before disposing of the carcass in a convenient crack in the rocks. he headed for home and picked up the buck.
once home we relived the morning over a few coffees and ciggies, and after a quick clean up the buck was in the larder the fox tail pinned on the shed and the smell of bacon and eggs was already wafting out into the yard, gotta love the misses sometimes.
sorry for the long write up but i wanted to capture the full experience of the morning!