A fifth fox has been harassing my boys’ chickens and rabbits for some time. The first four were dealt with without any real trouble, but this one has made a fool of me. I have lost plenty of sleep over it: not through worry, but through fruitless nights in the chair. He is shy, inconsistent, and astonishingly quick, typically spending less than 30 seconds between entering and leaving. Some nights there is nothing at all, then the following night he will appear five times.
I left out a spread of bait, including dead rats as they dropped, squirrels, rabbits, and a few old pheasant bones. The first trail camera triggers an alarm to wake me, and I then have to come fully to my senses and get the rifle into the fight before he slips away once again.
The neighbouring farmer is a decent bloke, but it is arable land and he does not want foxes shot on his ground because of local antis, so for this battle I am confined to my own boundaries. At these close ranges, on a moving target, the thermal spotter is no use, and my 16 mm Pard with the Hawke’s 4× base magnification leaves me starting at around 6×, with a postage-stamp field of view.
To make matters a little more sporting, the old Pard is only showing the central portion of an already small image, from an older budget scope, sitting on a Brno Model 2 .22LR. Sixty-odd years old and still doing her job.
Eventually, patience paid off. As soon as the fox reached the kill zone, marked with a simple cane, a single subsonic hollow point dropped him where he stood. I thought I’d piece some of the footage together if it is of any interest, with music added to smooth the jarring transitions.
I left out a spread of bait, including dead rats as they dropped, squirrels, rabbits, and a few old pheasant bones. The first trail camera triggers an alarm to wake me, and I then have to come fully to my senses and get the rifle into the fight before he slips away once again.
The neighbouring farmer is a decent bloke, but it is arable land and he does not want foxes shot on his ground because of local antis, so for this battle I am confined to my own boundaries. At these close ranges, on a moving target, the thermal spotter is no use, and my 16 mm Pard with the Hawke’s 4× base magnification leaves me starting at around 6×, with a postage-stamp field of view.
To make matters a little more sporting, the old Pard is only showing the central portion of an already small image, from an older budget scope, sitting on a Brno Model 2 .22LR. Sixty-odd years old and still doing her job.
Eventually, patience paid off. As soon as the fox reached the kill zone, marked with a simple cane, a single subsonic hollow point dropped him where he stood. I thought I’d piece some of the footage together if it is of any interest, with music added to smooth the jarring transitions.
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